Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Isaiah 66,10-14. Laetare

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Isaiah 66,10-14. Laetare

Isaiah 66,10-14 1920

Laetare 027 Decemgesima 19 days to Good Friday and 21 to Easter

Nicolaus of the Flüe, Patron of Switzerland, hermit in Unterwalden, Switzerland. † 1487.

22. März 2020

1. O Jesus, who suffered isolation in Your Passion, draw near unto us and send Your holy angels to minister to us, so that as we live isolated from others for a time we may be comforted with Your love and mercy. Amen. (VELKD Weekly Prayer for Laetare Sunday 2020, § 1)

2. »Be glad, all Jerusalem, and a symbol for a festival in her all those loving her and those dwelling in her rejoice in joy or as many as mourn for her so that you may nurse and be filled up from the breast of her comfort so that you may indulge at the introduction of her glory for thus says the Lord: Behold, I turn aside to them as a river of peace and as a rushing stream inundating the glory of the nations. Their children shall be carried upon shoulders and shall be comforted upon knees. As if any mother shall comfort, so also I shall comfort you and in Jerusalem you shall be comforted. And you will see and your heart will rejoice and your bones shall rise up as grazing food and the hand of the Lord shall be known to those fearing Him and He will forbid those disbelieving ones.«

3. Last week we heard how Jesus again exhibits His Divine authority over the demons by casting out a demon who had made a man mute. Today we have heard how Jesus fed 5000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. At the end of the meal more food was gathered than what they had started with.

4. In these days of a pandemic where public gathering has essentially ground to a halt, the words of the Prophet Isaiah bring comfort to our ears and souls: »Be glad and assemble for a festival; rejoice as many as mourn.« Judah faced their own social distancing. Many Jews were being deported to Babylon in Isaiah’s day, and more would be in the future. They were separated from the promised land and the temple. Soon the very temple at itself would be destroyed. All this resulted from Judah’s unrepentant idolatry. Our lives likewise have been disrupted; not as severely as those of Judah, but disrupted nonetheless. The world lurches from the burdens imposed upon it in response to an unseen virus. Plagues and illnesses are part and parcel of the curse the Lord has imposed upon man for Adam’s sin. Cursed is the ground, in pain we eat of it, until we die and return to the dust of the earth from which our human race was created (Genesis 3,17-19). Sickness and disease are agents that ultimately will send us back to the dust and dirt of the earth.

5. During these weeks of tribulation we might ponder our frailty and mortality. Earlier words from Isaiah perhaps come to mind: »The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass« (Isaiah 40,7). It is a rare occasion when the Lord works through His left hand to impose a global Lenten fast upon all of His creation, but He has done so in 2020. We now empathize a bit better with Job, who said a midst his tribulations: »The Lord gave, and the Lord removed, as it seemed good to the Lord; Blessed be the Name of the Lord« (Job 1,21).

6. The miraculous feeding of the 5000 that John tells us in his Gospel reminds us that God delights in providing for us. He gives food, clothing, shelter, doctors, hospitals, medicine, friends, family, neighbors and many other good things that are a blessing to be treasured. He exhorts us to show love and charity to our neighbors, pray for them and help where we are able.

7. Jesus supplies more than temporal bread; He gives us the eternal bread as well. The day after He fed the crowds, Jesus taught them and said: »The Bread of God is He who descends from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the Bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. For this is the will of My Father, but everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise you up on the last day« (John 6,33.35.40).

8. The Holy Scriptures speak about 2 types of life: 1. βιος and 2. ζωή. βιος is physical life (hence the English word biology: the study of life), namely, God’s gift of life to all creation. Ζωή refers to both physical and spiritual life which always and only comes from and is sustained by God’s self-existent life. Moses tells us: »And God shaped the man taking dust from the earth and He breathed into his face breath of life (πνοην ζωής) and the man became a living soul (ψυχην ζωσαν) (Genesis 2,7). The life Jesus is talking about is ζωή: the ζωή-giving life, the bread of ζωή, the eternal life that is manifested in Jesus who is God incarnated as a man.

9. Isaiah is looking forward in chapter 66 to the time when this ζωή is manifested among the Jews and Gentiles; it will be a time of festivities and rejoicing. It is the day Lent ultimately leads us to: Easter and Jesus’s resurrection. But a time of Passion suffering and the cross looms ahead of Easter. But throughout Lent and the specter of death upon the cross there is a promise and hope of life: everlasting ζωή.

10. Last week we heard how Jesus exhibits His Divine authority over the demons who cause physical ailments. Today we have heard how Jesus provides for physical and spiritual life (βιος and ζωή) in the feeding of the 5000 starting with only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Next week we will hear how those who believe in Jesus are the true sons of Abraham who receive Abraham’s blessing. Amen.

11. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, the Bread of ζωή; like the grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies then bears much fruit, so too did Your death bear much fruit, and we receive this eternal life You give with joy and thankfulness. Amen.

To God alone be the Glory

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

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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 28. Revised Edition © 2012 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Isaiah 66,10-14. Laetare

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