Sermon B: 16th Sun Pent: Is 35:4

In 2006 the 16th Sunday after Pentecost is on Sunday, September 24 with the following three assigned readings: Isaiah 35:4-7a (God will save you); James 1:17-27 (Be doers of the Word) and Mark 7:31-37 (Healing the deaf). Chosen for preaching on this occasion is Isaiah 35:4 which reads, “Say to those who are fearful-hearted, ‘Be strong, do not fear. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He will come and save you.’”

At first reading it appears that those who are fearful-hearted have an enemy that needs God’s vengeance. Perhaps Isaiah is thinking of the Babylonians who are known as those who took Israel into captivity. Or perhaps the enemy is the devil himself from whom we must be saved. How does one decide just what Isaiah has in mind? The decision has already been made for us. It is found in the well-known Reformation phrase, “Scripture interprets Scripture.”

We do not have far to go to discover the decision. It is found in the very next verses. “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.”

However, it appears we have a problem. The enemy appears to be neither the Babylonians nor the devil himself. Instead, the enemy is being blind, deaf, lame and dumb? It gets even worse. For how are such infirmities understood as the enemy? For those in world of ancient Palestine, it was a common understanding that such infirmities pointed to something far greater than disease. They pointed to a curse from God from which no one could save himself.

The real enemy which resulted in the fearful-hearted is none other than God Himself! The fear that lays hold on the heart of every human being is the wrath that comes from God Himself. Who then can save us? If it were only a nation like Babylon or a demon like Satan, perhaps we could hold sway? But against God Himself? No one can offset the curse of the Law that is evident from the fallen world in which we live including disease, hunger and thirst.

Then we hear of One Who has come Who refers to Himself as the Bread of Life and the Living Water. Who is this Who commands the sea to be calm and the blind to see (Mark 7:35)? It is none other than Jesus, the Christ (the Messiah) promised of old as the One by Whose stripes we are healed and by His being forsaken, we of faith need never fear again. Now we truly understand the vengeance with which God comes. It is vengeance directed to His only-begotten as the Substitute for you and for me. “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?” In that way we are comforted by God Himself who according to the end of verse 4, “will come and save you.”