✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
Isaiah 55,1-3b[3c-5] 3213
2. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 047
Primus and Felicianus, Martyrs at Rome, 286
9. June 2013
1. O Heavenly Father, You are a consuming fire, punishing to the third and fourth generations of those who hate You. Many times we forget that You are a jealous God who brokers no rivals. And yet we live in a fallen world that does nothing but raise up other gods above You. We also in our sinful hearts strive to place ourselves above You. The results of such pride have had devastating results in our world and in our lives. Thankfully You also tell us that You are a gracious God who shows loving kindness to the thousandth generation of those who believe in You (Exodus 20,5-6). You have shown Your mercy to us through Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, and in Him we freely receive eternal life and salvation. Amen.
2. Yahweh declares: „Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to Me; hear, so that you may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, My steadfast, sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you will run to you, because of Yahweh your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for He has glorified you.“
3. Isaiah 55 provides the context for the teaching Jesus gives at a banquet to which He had been invited. The Prophet Isaiah proclaims that Yahweh has prepared a banquet for all people and He has invited everyone to join Him. Yahweh’s banquet is one with plenty of food and the choicest of wines. Everyone who partakes of it will be satisfied.
4. In Isaiah’s day (the 8. century BC), the nation of Judah presumed that Yahweh’s sumptuous banquet was only for themselves, the chosen nation who traced their descent from Abraham and the promises made to the patriarchs. But Isaiah says Yahweh’s banquet is not only for Judah, but it is also for »an unknown nation, a nation that did not know Yahweh«.
5. At the Lucan banquet, someone who reclined at table with Jesus, presumably one of His disciples or perhaps one of the apostles, exclaimed with joy: »Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the reign of God!« (Luke 14, 15). Alas, if only those invited would show up! Jesus lamented that those invited, the religious leaders of the Jews, the people who prided themselves on having the patriarchs, the law, the promises, the Prophets and the very Holy Scriptures, have by and large have ignored Yahweh’s invitation. The scribes and Pharisees, the Sadducees and the priests, gave various excuses as to why they could not attend His lavish banquet. Their excuses are as lame as ones people make today about why they cannot be in church to worship and enjoy the gifts the Holy Spirit gives each week. God the Father does not accept these excuses and becomes angry at the blasé rejection to His gracious invitation and the now ready banquet feast. Do not presume that Yahweh will always let those with excuses in, for the Holy Spirit goes out among the nations and gathers them in while others stay away. For everyone who disdains our Lord Jesus Christ’s gracious invitation the Holy Spirit is out inviting someone else to take his or her place at the banquet.
6. Our God is a God of action. If His religious leaders will not come to His feast, then He will invite others: the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame (Luke 14,21) and people from the highways and the hedges, too (Luke 14,23). „The poor, the maimed, the blind and the lame were the outcasts within Israel, the „people of the land,“ the common people who heard Him gladly. These folk are now welcomed into the banquet even though they are not worthy to be seated with such a noble host and the possibility of their repaying him with a similar banquet is out of the question“ (Bailey 317). Some of the excuses made by the Pharisees and the priests was that Jesus ate with sinners, healed the sick on the Sabbath and even welcomed Samaritan, Greek and Roman Gentiles; these are the very ones who now are given the invitation.
7. God’s invitation is nothing new, and His invitation is for all people. The Prophet Micah proclaimed that all the nations will draw unto Yahweh’s presence and worship Him (Micah 4,2). The Prophet Isaiah delivered the following invitation: »On this mountain Yahweh Sabaoth will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from all faces, and He will take away the reproach of His people from all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken. It will be said on that day: „Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, so that He might save us. This is Yahweh; we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.“« (Isaiah 25,6-9). Isaiah and Micah said the invitation is for »all nations«. Paul told the Galatians the same thing: »For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For you were baptized into Christ and have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise« (Galatians 3,26-29). Paul is not teaching that there no longer exists different nationalities, classes of people or that men and women are not a single, androgynous race. Rather, Paul is teaching that these human differences and unique characteristics do not bar someone from God’s banquet and election unto salvation.
8. God the Father has sent you an invitation to His heavenly banquet. His invitation may seem too good to you to be true, and perhaps you say to yourself: surely the Majestic God does not want an outsider like me in His feast hall. O but He does! He is a gracious and loving Heavenly Father who has invited you to be in His presence.
9. „For Jesus, the messianic banquet has begun and that great banquet is His banquet. The religious leaders listening to Him are welcome, but if they refuse to attend, the banquet will proceed with the „people of the land,“ the outcasts of Israel and will eventually be extended to the Gentiles“ (Bailey 318). Jesus spoke of this mission to the nations, saying: »And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice. So there will be one flock and one shepherd« (John 10,16). You were a portion of the nations called to the feast; you were sheep Jesus found in the wilderness and brought home to be a part of His flock.
10. He has adopted you into His family and has made you an heir of Abraham and an heir of the promises given to His chosen people Israel. There are no conditions on your part in God’s choice. When parents adopt a baby, that baby does nothing to entice his or her adoption. Rather, the parents say: „We want that one!“ Likewise, the Holy Spirit says: I want you, and you and you.“ This is a great source of certainty. God loves you, He has saved you and He has chosen you, yes, you out of the seven billion people in the world. You are His, and He is yours. The assurance for this is Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the tomb.
11. The Pharisees took their election for-granted. They were descendants of Abraham and the covenant promises. They were saved and chosen; their certainty rested on their observance of the law. Jesus said otherwise. He could, would and did make true descendants of Abraham that has nothing to do with genealogy and DNA. Jesus grounds the certainty not on obeying the law, but on the free gift of the gospel, a gift which says: „You, yes, you there, come follow Me, for I have chosen you.“ God’s choice is grounded upon His grace and is received by faith. The Holy Spirit has chosen you; it is His promise to you. „God’s will announces itself not merely in general within His promise, but makes itself available within it; indeed, God defines Himself in the truest sense of the word in this promissio of the absolution. The promissio is in this sense a legally binding promise with an immediate effect; it is not merely a distant promise (Verheißung), nor merely declaratory, but effective“ (Martens ¶6). Yes, the Holy Spirit’s choice is declarative and effective: You are His; you are forgiven; you are saved. Amen.
12. Let us pray. We love You, O Yahweh, for You are our Strength, our Rock, our Fortress and our Deliverer. You have rescued us from our sinfulness and the law’s condemnation, so that we now lean upon You, and trust in You to redeem us with Your loving-kindness expressed in the crucified Christ. Amen.
Christ crucified and risen for you
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27. Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
Martens, Gottfried. „Certainty of Salvation“. LOGIA, Vol. XIV, No. 2 (Eastertide 2005).
Nagel, Norman. Selected Sermons of Norman Nagel: From Valparaiso to St. Louis. Frederick W. Baue, Ed. Copyright © 2004 Concordia Publishing House.
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