✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
Isaiah 43,1-7 3613
6. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 051
Willibald, Bishop of Eichstätt, Germany, † 786
7. Juli 2013
1. O Heavenly Father, we pray through Your groundless mercy that You will graciously behold us in our Holy Baptism and daily keep us in the blessing of our Christian faith so that by means of this saving flood all who have been born in him from Adam and which they themselves have added thereto may be drowned in them and engulfed, and that they may be sundered from the number of the unbelieving, preserved dry and secure in the holy ark of Christendom, serve Your Name at all times fervent in spirit and joyful in hope, so that with all believers we may be made worthy to attain eternal life according to Your promise through Jesus Christ our Lord (Luther’s Works 53,97). Amen.
2. But now thus says Yahweh, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel: „Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I am with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am Yahweh your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in My eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by My Name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.“
3. Jesus gave two promises to His apostles before He ascended to heaven: 1. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me, and 2. I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28,18.20). These are not vain promises, for Jesus was with Israel. The Prophet Isaiah spoke about the destructive nature of waters and rivers, nevertheless Jesus was with His people when they walked through the waters and rescued them from the undertow of the river. Walking through the waters occurs at key times in Israel’s history. In Exodus 14, Yahweh parted the Red Sea so Israel could escape the Egyptian army. Israel passed through safely, but when Pharaoh’s soldiers followed Yahweh unleashed the waters and they drowned the Egyptians. In Joshua 3, Yahweh parted the Jordan River so Israel could enter the Promised Land of Canaan. In both instances, Jesus was among His people and in the midst of the waters so as to keep them safe.
4. Isaiah 43 looks back to these events as evidence of God’s providence, and it also looks ahead to a future and greater fulfillment of God’s divine intervention. Jesus is this greater fulfillment of Isaiah 43. Not only does Jesus protect His people from the destructive forces of nature, but He uses such forces to defend His people from her enemies. Isaiah also saw the day when Yahweh would gather in the dispersed under His providence.
5. Jesus fulfilled this, saying: »For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost« (Luke 19,10). Jesus’ ministry involved healing the sick, fellowshipping with sinners and pronouncing absolution upon the lost whom He found. Jesus accomplished this gathering of the dispersed and lost when He died on the cross for their sins and rose from the grave for their justification. Jesus sent out His apostles to baptize and teach all the nations (Matthew 28,19-20).
6. The apostolic gospel is short and sweet. You were lost, but Jesus found you. You were in exile, but Jesus brought you home. You were tossed about on the story sea of life, but Jesus has calmed the raging storm. You were orphaned, but Jesus adopted you. You had no name, but Jesus gave you His name. You were condemned to hell, but Jesus saved you. This gospel is for both Jews and Gentiles, the righteous and the sinner, the wise and the foolish, the knowledgeable and the uneducated and the rich and the poor. This gospel is for all people and all nations, for Jesus desires to save everyone and thus redeemed everyone. Jesus has redeemed you, called you by name and has declared you to be His (43,1).
7. Jesus has said it, and faith receives His promise. In your Holy Baptism, Yahweh placed His Almighty and Triune Name upon each one of you and has declared you to be His holy child. Christ purchased you to be His very own, and He will do whatever is necessary to ensure that you remain His own.
8. Perhaps you do not remember your Baptism. Maybe you have a certificate and/or photos to commemorate that happy event. The Triune God remembers your Baptism and commemorates it daily in His heart. His holy words were spoken to you and the Baptismal waters washed you clean. He has sent pastors and teachers into your lives who educate you in His Holy Scriptures.
9. Yahweh’s promises are not trifling words, but powerful active words He has connected to His saving deeds (Heilsgeschichte). The Apostle Paul connects your Baptism to Jesus. You were baptized in Christ’s death (Romans 6,3) and baptized in Christ’s resurrection (Romans 6,5). His death and resurrection are deeds with saving power. Christ’s death was the sacrifice for sin and His shed blood redeemed you back to God the Father. His resurrection overturned death, overcame the grave and tore asunder the gates of Hades. Jesus did all this for you, and He gives the benefits of these deeds to you. »So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus« (Romans 6,11).
10. Jesus promises that: »The gates of Hades shall not prevail against the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God« (Matthew 16,18.16). This is the confession you were baptized into, the confession that you profess each Sunday in our Divine Service and the confession upon which Christ, through the Holy Spirit, builds His Church. Christ builds His Church upon His words and promises. Christ and His words are the rock and solid ground upon which you stand. »Everyone then who hears these words of [Jesus] and believes them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, the floods rose and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock« (Matthew 7,24-25). Jesus explains it this way: »My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand (John 10,27-28).
11. Jesus promised in the old testament: »Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine.« jesus fulfilled this promise in the new testament. He has redeemed you, He has called you by name in Holy Baptism and you are His. No one snatches you from His hands. No one. Amen.
12. Let us pray. O Christ, You proclaim our names to the heavenly host and You acclaim us in the halls of heaven; You are with us to the very end of days, and so we will not fear nor falter on the path of faith we walk towards the gates of heaven. 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.
Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works, Vol. 53: Liturgy and Hymns. Helmut T. Lehmann and Ulrich S. Leupold, Ed. Copyright © 1965 Augsburg Fortress.
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