Sermon Text: Isaiah 35:4-7a
Date: September 8, 2024
Event: Proper 18, Year B
Isaiah 35:4-7a (EHV)
Tell those who have a fearful heart:
Be strong.
Do not be afraid.
Look! Your God will come with vengeance.
With God’s own retribution, he will come and save you.
5Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf will be unplugged.
6The crippled will leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy.
Waters will flow in the wilderness,
and streams in the wasteland.
7The burning sand will become a pool,
and in the thirsty ground there will be springs of water.
God Will Come and Save You
“How are you doing?” We’ve all had that question asked of us, but depending on the context, the answer can be very, very different, even if asked by different people on the same day. If it’s small talk with the cashier at the grocery store, a simple “Good” or “Fine” might come out. But if you’re sitting with a trusted friend, a dear family member, a counselor, therapist, or pastor, the answer might be just a bit… more. It can be terrifying to be open and honest about how we’re really doing, what we’re really feeling, and only in the safest places might we feel secure enough to be vulnerable and honestly share our hearts.
Why are we hesitant to share our fears? Why are we fearful of letting people know what is really going on in our hearts and minds? Maybe it’s shame—we know that the way we’re thinking or the attitudes we’re holding on to are wrong, and we don’t want to be rebuked, even as we might desperately need support to help make some changes. Maybe it’s fear—how will people judge me, or what will they think of me if I let them know what’s happening inside me? Maybe it’s protection, either protection for self or protection for others—if I share what’s really going on between me and that other person, will I hurt the person’s reputation? Or what will the person I’m talking to think about me?
What does my fear or apprehension or anxiety or depression or whatever say about my trust in God? Can someone really be a believer and wrestle with any of those things? Don’t they all, in their own way, betray a lack of faith in God, or at least a faith that is frighteningly weak? Would any true believer, any true Christian, ever have thoughts or feelings like that?
This morning, we will spend some time with a few verses from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah’s book is one of both judgment and peace, harm and restoration. We might know many of the rich gospel promises in his book: A champion is promised, born, astonishingly, of a virgin. He calls himself our Redeemer and reminds us that he is the one who formed us even in the womb. He promises that he will be pierced and crushed to save us from our sins.
But a significant portion of Isaiah’s words also speak God’s condemnation on the world's nations and even God’s own people. He rebukes their hardheartedness and their rebellion. We heard Jesus quote Isaiah last week, saying that his people paid him lip service but did not serve him with their hearts. Isaiah is an Old Testament book overflowing with both law and gospel, God’s anger with sin and his mercy in sending a Savior to rescue us.
Chapter 35, from which our First Reading is drawn, comes near the end of an extended section of law in Isaiah. In fact, while not entirely law, most of the book up to this point is heavy condemnation. Chapters 13 through 23 call out judgment against many different nations on the earth, and chapters 23-35 are primarily focused on a more general judgment upon the earth for sin. It’s necessary to hear but difficult. Consider just these verses from the chapter before our reading, “The Lord is angry with all the nations, and he is furious with all their armies. He has condemned them to destruction. He has handed them over for slaughter. Their fallen bodies will lie unburied, and the stench of their corpses will linger. The mountains will flow with their blood.” (Isaiah 34:2-3). That’s not exactly the pick-me-up we might hope for from God’s Word.
But then, chapter 35 begins with a different tone. It speaks of gladness on the earth where there had been so much destruction proclaimed. And there is a direct command from God in the verse just before our reading, “Strengthen the weak hands, and make the shaky knees steady” (Isaiah 35:3). If the wrath and judgment of God made you afraid, here is God coming to strengthen and uphold you.
And so then our reading begins with pure comfort, “Tell those who have a fearful heart: Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! Your God will come with vengeance. With God’s own retribution, he will come and save you.” There are still some harsh, condemning words: vengeance, retribution. But these are in your favor, not against you: he will come and save you. This vengeance and retribution are against those who threaten you, against those who are your enemies, or perhaps even more directly, against those who are God’s enemies.
Why would our knees be weak? Why would we have a fearful heart when considering the judgment of God? Because we know who we are. We know that, by nature, we stand as those deserving of this vengeance and retribution. Our sin makes us God’s enemies. So when you hear about God’s wrath and anger over sin, your conscience loudly (and correctly) screams, “This is you! He’s mad at you! He’s coming for you!”
So you, by nature, are the enemy of the almighty God. We asked earlier if fear or apprehension or anxiety or depression would ever have any part in the Christian’s heart. And here we can say resoundingly, yes! When you know what you are by nature, when you know what you deserve, who wouldn’t have their knees buckle? Whose hands wouldn’t shake like leaves? You are held accountable for sin that you can do nothing about by a Judge who has no lack of power or resources to carry out his just punishment.
Then what, in all the world, would there be to strengthen these hands and bring stability to knocking knees? What could possibly make us confident, not fearful, in God’s presence? What could make such a change that we would go from fearful despair and hopeless depression to confidence and joy? What could ever change this fearful heart in us?
God illustrates this change in the latter verses of our reading. Here, the gospel images are a total reversal from bad to good: Blind eyes seeing, deaf ears hearing, the crippled dancing, the mute singing, and where there is just dryness and desolation, there will be life-giving water. What had been broken is fixed; what had been a disaster is now a blessing. This is the change God works when he works for us.
In our Gospel for this morning, we saw Jesus literally doing a bit of this as he opened the ears of the deaf man. “Ephphatha!” (Mark 7:34). Likewise, Jesus gave Peter the ability to help that man who was crippled from birth, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I will give you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” (Acts 3:6). Jesus’ mission was not to simply work healing miracles like this, and the promise in Isaiah was not for someone who would heal these physical ailments and provide physical water. As we heard Jesus speaking of himself as the Bread of Life for weeks in our previous Gospel readings, these promises also point to spiritual rather than physical concerns.
Because that sinful nature leaves us blind, deaf, mute, and crippled spiritually. More than that, sin causes spiritual death so that we are left not just in a bad spot or in a difficult situation but as helpless as a corpse. Our sin means eternal death in hell, unless God intervenes, unless God saves. And what is God’s promise to you? He will come and save you.
Jesus took up this reversal work in full at the cross. There, God suffered for the sins you and I committed against him. The punishment that brought us peace was whipped into his back and pierced through his hands and feet, pinning him to that cross. When God the Father abandoned God the Son, there was the truest punishment we deserved, which Jesus took in our place. There was the inevitable judgment of our sins, but God himself suffered it instead of us in the most baffling of reversals.
Everything changes because Jesus paid for every sin—even sins of doubt, fear, weakness, and lack of trust in him. Spiritual blindness to spiritual sight: look at your Savior crucified yet risen from the dead! Spiritual deafness to spiritual hearing of his gracious words, “I forgive you.” Spiritual lameness to spiritual strength, healed and empowered to move by God’s love and mercy. Spiritual muteness to spiritual shouting praises to the God who saves. Spiritual desolation to spiritual water, raised from spiritual death in our sins to eternal life by God’s gracious gift.
Do the thoughts of fearing God, depression over what is to come, and so forth make sense? Certainly. But, my dear sister, my dear brother, you need not be controlled by them because the one who died and was raised is greater than all—even greater than the thoughts and feelings of your mind and heart. When your heart is overwhelmed with guilt that doesn’t feel like even a loving God could forgive, call out your heart’s lies or at least its misunderstanding. When Satan whispers to your mind that God could never love or forgive someone like you, send him and his lies and deception packing. You, after all, are a baptized child of God; Satan knows nothing about God’s forgiveness.
We were in a desperate, helpless, and hopeless place, but the one who has done everything well (Mark 7:37) certainly accomplished your soul’s salvation well. It is finished, complete. There is nothing for you to pay. So my dear friends in Jesus, let your fearful hearts find rest in your Savior’s love and work for you. That work will not mean the end of sorrow and hardship in this life—sin will always be present with us on this side of heaven—but it does mean peace with God forever. It also means that God stands by you every moment of every day, no matter how trying and difficult the circumstances, to make even earthly things work out for your eternal good.
We don’t need to fear God or the future because our God is a God of love and forgiveness, and the future is as certain as Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! Your God will come with vengeance. With God’s own retribution, he will come and save you. Amen.
