Sexagesima

Isaiah 55 - Sexagesima Sunday - February 23, 2014           
What It Pleases God to Accomplish

“Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.” This is Luke 8:1, which is just a couple verses before our Gospel lesson begins. What a wonderful thing to consider: Jesus going all over the place – not to select cities and villages that have somehow earned the honor of his visit, but to every city and every village around. This is because what Jesus had to give was not just for some; it was for everyone — just as the sky opens up and pours rain and snow on the earth with no concern as to where it lands.

Right before the verse I just quoted, at the very end of Luke 7, Jesus had just forgiven a woman’s sin and told her to go in peace. This is what Jesus took with him on the road. This was the truth he came to bear witness to. Some villages received him – like rain in a dry July. Others rejected him – like snow if it were to pile on our driveways today. Some begged him to stay, as in the case of the Samaritans in John 4, after Jesus had spoken with the woman at the well. They thirsted for what he taught. Jesus said his word was living water. Some begged him to leave, as in the case of the Gergesenes later recorded here in Luke 8, after Jesus had mercifully cast a legion of demons from a man into a herd of swine. Their hearts had grown cold and cared more about the pigs than about the man. Jesus met every conceivable response to the gospel. But it was not the response of the people that drove him to preach what he preached. It was their need. It was the fact that his Father had sent him from heaven to bring life and salvation to the world. Jesus was going to accomplish that purpose, and so he went through every city and village succeeding in what God had sent him to do.

Jesus was preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. The two go together. The word that is translated here for “bringing the glad tidings” is really one word that could be translated simply as evangelizing. To evangelize is to teach about the kingdom of God. It is not to come up with clever ways to attract new people. It is not the art of sharing the gospel in such a way as not to offend. Although, just as in the case of Jesus’ works of kindness, so also our friendliness and compassion will do well to encourage others to listen to what we have to say. But to evangelize is not to employ some method of talking to people. It is quite simply to speak the gospel. It is to deliver the good news that by itself has power to save.

Just as the word of the gospel cannot be subjected to some method of persuasion, so also the gospel should not be reduced to mere information, as though preaching and teaching were simply listing off bits of knowledge. Although most people perceive it as such and so reject it out of hand as uninteresting or inadequate to touch their daily lives. But no; preaching and teaching delivers something. The gospel brings life where there is no life.  To reject what Jesus teaches is to reject what Jesus brings. To not want to hear it is to not want Jesus.

What Jesus brings is free. Consider what Isaiah taught about the kingdom of God just a few verses before our Old Testament lesson begins in chapter 55:

“Come! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you—the sure mercies of David. (Isaiah 55:1-3)

Why would anyone turn down this offer? How can anyone in his right mind turn down such grace? Well, simple. People imagine that they should earn what they have; and so they conclude that they can. But should does not mean can. And so they spend their money for what is not bread, and their wages for what cannot satisfy. That is to say, they labor in vain for what cannot be earned from God. What they need is mercy. And mercy can only be earned by Christ.

There is a natural knowledge of the law that even sinners retain. There is not a natural knowledge of the gospel. The gospel must be taught. The law that is written in our hearts by nature teaches without being taught what man must do to be blessed. And so natural man with some knowledge of this arrangement figures that this is how he will be blessed. Because of this natural knowledge, man has at the same time a natural repugnance toward the grace of God. Man would rather have God indebted to him than for himself to be indebted to God.

This is natural — as in our nature. There are not certain hearts that are naturally softer and more willing to be comforted by the gospel. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All are born dead in trespasses. The heart prepared to receive the gospel is not the heart that is less sinful. It is the heart that has been hammered and plowed by the law. That is why God gave his law on Mt. Sinai. The law teaches us our sin. But the law that is written in our hearts is dim, and we are by nature inclined to use it to justify ourselves. But in the 10 Commandments, God clarifies and strengthens his law. This law was added so that sin may abound. That’s what St. Paul writes in Romans 5 (20-21), so that where sin abounded grace might abound much more.

The law that God reveals in his word sharpens our awareness of our sin. But it is not by learning our sin that we come to understand the idea grace. No, we must seek it and find it outside of ourselves where the gospel is preached. God exposes our sin so that we might despair of our natural strength and thirst for the grace that is beyond our comprehension. As Isaiah says (7),

Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.

The gospel is not a puzzle that we can figure out or a mystery to be solved. It must be graciously revealed. And we need it revealed often. Our thoughts are insufficient to make the gospel useful. We must forsake our thoughts. Those who regard the gospel as a bit of intellectual information to think about once in a while, but who feel no need to hear it preached and delivered regularly are those who hear without hearing and see without hearing. They are blind and deaf. They need to be told by someone who loves them that they are sinning when they ignore God’s word, and that it is not a little deal. It is a big deal. Only then when the law cuts deep can the gospel be made sweet. We don’t blame our lack of social appeal when people don’t want to hear the gospel. We blame sin. That is why we kindly expose it, especially in those who call themselves our brothers and sisters.

To invite someone to hear the gospel with you, or to explain the gospel as best you can to a friend who doesn’t know it, is to draw sinners away from their own thoughts to God’s thoughts. You need not be brilliant. You need not understand all Christian doctrine as well as you’d like to. What you need is humility toward God’s word. We benefit from the mystery of God’s mercy not by figuring it out, but by believing it. As Isaiah continues (8-9):

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

And this is why he speaks to us. This is why God who is so far above us condescends to us poor wretched sinners to fill our ears and hearts with what no man could have thought of. It’s because our natural wisdom with all its mere knowledge of the law cannot reach him where he is. He comes down to us. Like rain. And he comes with a gracious purpose. He comes to reveal what is on his mind. The fact that God speaks here through word and sacrament is no less an act of incomprehensible grace than the fact that he sent his only begotten Son to assume human flesh and die. When we consider why God’s word is preached to us in this place, we must at the same time consider why Christ, the eternal Word of God came down from his heavenly throne. Keep that in mind when hearing again these words from our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah 55 (10-11), which I have up to now been introducing by the verses that precede it:

“For as the rain comes down, And the snow from heaven, and do not return there, But water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

God speaks. Why? Because of Jesus. He wants us to hear. Why? Because he wants us to have what Jesus gives. Always. This is always the purpose and usefulness and power of God’s word – it is always for the sake of the gospel. As St. Paul calls the gospel, it is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe (Romans 1:16). Of all the good things in what we read and hear – of all the good advice and sentiments that Scripture can offer us, we must always seek to find Christ and his salvation from sin and death. If Christ is not offered, the word is rendered void. If Christ’s atonement is not the center and goal, then Scripture is reduced to moral principles that natural man could have figured out apart from the Holy Spirit and his word.

Knowing why God deigns to speak to us – that is, for Jesus’ sake – we learn the purpose of Scripture. Seeing what Jesus accomplishes, we learn its power to save. The word of God comes forth from the mouth of God. It accomplishes his purpose in forgiving sins and creating spiritual life. It does what pleases God. Why does it accomplish what pleases him? Because Jesus accomplished what pleases him. He accomplished the purpose for which he was sent.

He is the Word who was in the beginning with God and who was God and through whom all things were made that were made – this Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He lived the holy life that fulfilled the holy law that was made for unholy sinners. He obeyed his Father with a pure heart. He meditated on his word night and day. His thoughts and God’s thoughts were perfectly the same. Jesus honored his Father’s name.

As true man, our Substitute, he loved God above all things. And his love for God compelled him also to willingly love his neighbor. Jesus bore with insults and rejection. But he did not stop loving them even as he was expelled from their towns and villages, or when they didn’t bother to get out of bed and hear what he had to say. He did not cease in his heavenly course for precisely them and us who needed him the most. Jesus’ route back to heaven required that he suffer for the very sin he did not commit, for the very sin that was committed against him, for the very sin that we commit against each other. His route back to heaven required that he bear our sin and be crushed in painful death by the wrath of the Father against it.

This was the purpose for which he was sent. And it pleased God, as Isaiah says a couple chapters earlier (53:10), to bruise him and to put him to grief, to make his soul an offering for sin. It pleased God because it was through his suffering and death that Jesus bore fruit. Fruit that benefits man more than the produce of a field that fills his belly. He rose from the dead with life to give. And he gives it through the gospel that he teaches us. He himself is the Bread of Life for the hungry soul to eat. He himself is the wine that makes the heart glad and the living water that fills us and overflows.

After Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, he did not return to heaven to be far away, but to rule us through the gospel here and to take us to himself when we die. No, he does not return void, that is to say, empty-handed. He returns with sheaves of victory – a good harvest. He brings with him all the sons and daughters of his kingdom who trusted his word.

This is the success of the gospel. It does not return empty to God because Jesus does not return void. The gospel’s success is not found in our charm or methods or intelligence. It is found in the promise that saves and brings us to heaven. It often looks like failure. But so did the crucifixion. Jesus bore fruit in patience. And so do we.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.