Micah 7,18-20. 3. Trinity

Micah 7,18-20          4020 

3. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 048

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, France and disciple of Polycarp a disciple of John. Martyr 202

Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, ✠ 461 

28. Juni 2020

1. O Jesus, our Glorious Savior; give us assurance of our salvation for Your blood sanctifies, clothes, adorns and cleanses us, so that we behold our righteousness and may tell others of the righteousness You give to them.  Amen. (Starck 326 ¶ 4) 

2. »What god is like You? Removing iniquity and passing over wickedness of the remnants of His inheritance and does not retain to witness His wrath? For He desires mercy. He will turn and will pity us, He will sink our iniquity and He will throw overboard all our sins into the depths of the sea. He will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abram, just as You swore an oath to our fathers from the days of old.« 

3. Last week we heard that God invites and gathers into His house those whom will partake of His gracious banquet. Today we hear how Jesus’ ministry is to find those heirs who have become lost and bring them back to His Father’s house. 

4. There is a persistent opinion among many people, including Christians, that the Old Testament portrays Yahweh as a God of wrath and the New Testament portrays Him as a God of mercy. This furthermore leads to the misconception that the Old Testament only contains the law and the New Testament only contains the gospel. The Scriptures, however, portray God’s mercy throughout the Old Testament, beginning in the 3. chapter where He shows mercy and compassion to Adam and Eve after they have sinned. He does impose the sentence of the law upon them but then immediately gives them the gospel by promising to send a Savior who will redeem them. 

5. Micah 7 is another great Old Testament chapter that emphasizes God’s mercy and grace. In 3 verses, Micah 9 times uses words and images that highlight His loving-kindness. His emphasis here is important. Micah lived from 750-686 bc. When Micah was 28 years old he witnessed the utter destruction of Israel, the 10 tribes of the north, in 722 bc. So complete was the dispersion of Israel that the genealogy of those 10 tribes has been lost. The only remnant were those who married Assyrians and became known as the Samaritans. Micah then tells Judah, the 2 tribes of the south, that their idolatry is just as offensive to Yahweh and unless they repent they too will be utterly chastised. When Micah died in 686 bc, the year King Hezekiah died, and the next 100 years were disastrous. After good King Hezekiah died, their were 2 evil kings, then good King Josiah, and finally 4 more evil kings that ends with Babylon conquering Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple and the exiling of many Jews to Babylon. But Micah promises that Yahweh will ultimately show Judah mercy. 

6. Through Micah, Yahweh promises that the remnant of Judah will remain and survive. This remnant would be among the nations (Micah 5,7-8). And among the nations Yahweh did His work among the nations to prepare them to for the advent of the Christ. Micah exhorts the people to: Look to Yahweh and wait for the God of their salvation, for He will hear us (Micah 7,7). 

7. Our God who hears us removes our iniquities and passes over our wickedness. His anger does not last forever, because He delights in mercy. He has compassion upon us. God the Father’s compassion is seen in His Son whom He sent to earth to redeem us back to Him. In Baptism we talk about how in the sacramental waters God washes away our sins. Paul talks about us being baptized into Christ’s death, buried with Him and raised from the dead (Romans 6,3-4). Micah likewise uses the image of water, and he applies it that God takes our sin and throws it overboard so that it sinks to the bottom of the sea. David expressed this thought in one of his psalms, writing: »As far as the east is from the west, so far does Yahweh remove our transgressions from us« (Psalm 103,12). 

8. Yahweh works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed; He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever; He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities (Psalm 103,6.8-10). When John the Baptizer once saw Jesus approaching where he was preaching in the wilderness, he cried out: Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1,29)! Jesus has removed our iniquities. Our Baptism cleanses away our sins, we have heard the Absolution and the forgiveness for our sins this day, we have heard the Word of God, the gospel, that tells us and assures us that our sins are forgiven in Christ Jesus; God is merciful to us. Hear it, receive it and believe it; for it is yours, now and always. Next week we will hear Jesus exhort us: Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.  Amen. 

9. Let us pray. O Lord, Thou art merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness; comfort our troubled consciences with this great truth, so that we are always certain of of standing before You as forgiven and righteous people.  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. 

ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © 2019 Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. 

VELKD. Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. www.velkd.de. Copyright © 2020 Vereinigte Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands. 

Starck, Johann. Starck’s Prayer Book. Copyright © 2009 Concordia Publishing House.