Advent Midweek II

Advent Midweek II

Prophetic Preaching of Preparation: Comfort for God’s People from the Prophet Isaiah

“Comfort, Comfort My People”

December 13, 2017

Text: Isaiah 40:1-11

            On Sunday we heard that God does His Gospeling by sending a preacher.  He sends a voice to cry in the wilderness.  This evening we learn more about the content of the preaching.  God gives the preacher the Word he is to speak in God’s Name.  It is beautiful Gospel that the LORD comes to His people with reward for His own and recompense for His enemies.  It is the Good News that God Himself will tend His flock as our Good Shepherd.  And of course, this is what He does in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

            But the preacher is not to preach only Gospel (in the narrow sense).  He is also to preach God’s holy Law in service to the Gospel and as preparation for it.  And why?  Why the Law?  Because apart from the Law we do not know our sin.  We do not see that we are separated from our righteous and holy God by our transgressions and unbelief.  We do not see that we are dead in our trespasses and sins, hell-bound slaves of the devil apart from Christ.  God must show us how utterly helpless and weak and mortally diseased we are before we will submit to His cure.  For His cure is radical and terrifying.  It is nothing less than death and resurrection.  It is first Jesus’ death on the cross for your sins, and His resurrection as the everlasting Righteous One who is now your righteousness before the Father.  And then it is your death with Christ in Holy Baptism, the drowning of your Old Adam, the crucifixion of your sinful nature, and your resurrection to new life in Him.  It is Good Friday and Easter.  It is repentance and faith.  It is Confession and Absolution.  It is living now as though dead, knowing when you die, in reality and truth, you live.  It is seeing only death and decay around you, but believing the Lord’s Promise that in the end He will raise you and all people, and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ.  That is the pattern of the Christian life of faith.  That is Law and Gospel. 

            And the Law is necessary.  It must come first.  You wouldn’t let a man like Dr. White cut you open with a scalpel unless he had first given you a diagnosis exposing your disease, and shown you that by wounding you he can heal you.  Well, God is out to kill you.  That is what He does by His Law.  And this is why preachers get in all sorts of trouble, because God throws the preacher under the buss as the one who has to speak His message.  For some of us, it’s not so bad usually (though I could tell you stories), but just ask Jeremiah or John the Baptist and the rest of the prophets, including Isaiah himself, or Jesus for that matter.  Sinners see the preacher coming at them with the scalpel of the Law and it becomes a matter of self-preservation to them.  Kill or be killed.  They take their fear of God’s Law and their hatred for God out on the poor schmuck who ignorantly signed up for this job, or in many cases resisted it with all his might, and in every case was called and sent by God Himself to do it, and to suffer for it. 

            The surgeon’s scalpel is a good image for God’s Law.  It can wound and it can kill.  A man can wield it for good or ill.  It’s not the scalpel’s fault when it is abused, it is the man’s.  It will always hurt.  Nobody likes to go under the blade.  Even when we know it is necessary for our health and life.  In the case of God’s Law, the purpose is not simply to wound you, but to kill you.  Always.  The Law always kills.  But it’s not a bad thing.  No, the Law is God’s holy will for you.  How could that be bad?  The Law of God is good and wise.  It’s just that you can’t do it.  You can’t fulfill it.  And so that which is good and wise and promises life to the doer of it, ends up exposing your evil and foolishness and so condemns you to death.  The Law shows you your sin.  The Law always accuses.  The Law always delivers the verdict that you are guilty before God in light of His Commandments.  The Law always sentences you to eternal death in hell. 

            Now, if you hear that message from God, and you know it and believe it, you’re desperately ready for another message, another Word.  And that is what God gives you in the Gospel.  “Comfort, comfort my people,” He commands the preacher (Is. 40:1; ESV).  “Tell them I’m not at war with them anymore.  I’m not out to get them.  Their iniquity is forgiven.  For I send them my Son, Jesus.  He will be one with them, taking on their flesh, and He will heal their diseases, cast out their demons, and preach peace to them.  And He will take their iniquities into Himself and put them to death in His own flesh.  And I will raise Him from the dead, but their iniquities,” your iniquities, “will never rise to haunt them again.  My Son will be their Shepherd.  He will carry them forever.  I am the LORD, and I have spoken it.  Go, preacher, and preach!”  That is the Gospel.  And had you not heard the Law, you would never know just how good that Good News is.  It is life for the dead!  And when you hear it, it creates faith in you.  It is the vehicle of the Holy Spirit by which He brings you to know and believe in Jesus Christ for your eternal life and salvation. 

            Now, what is the Law in our text?  To begin with, there is this idea of recompense (v. 10), which would be primarily directed at Assyria, and especially Babylon, and the nations God has used to discipline His people Israel.  When God delivers, He will smite His enemies, there is no doubt about it.  That is Good News for Israel, but Law for the other nations. 

            But the one that hits us most directly is the reality that “All flesh is grass” (v. 6).  And grass withers.  In other words, you’re gonna die.  And the preacher, the voice, is told to cry that to you.  Your beauty is fading.  The Law is exposing your ugliness.  You’re getting old.  You get sick.  Life in a fallen world takes its toll.  This, in itself, is the Law of God.  And the breath of the LORD blows upon you (v. 7).  His Law is preached, and you know it.  You’re dying.  It kills you.  But that’s good, because here is the Gospel, the Promise: “the Word of our God will stand forever” (v. 8).  And that Word is life to you.  So as long as the Word endures, so will you.  You have eternal life by God’s speaking it so. 

            Then there is the Law of admonition: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (v. 3).  That is to say, repent.  The preaching of repentance is Law.  And here’s the thing: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain” (v. 4).  We could call it “The Great Straightening Out.”  Your parents probably told you, or maybe you’ve said it to your own children, “Straighten up!”  By which you meant, “Repent!  Knock it off, what you’re doing, and behave yourself!”  Well, the point here is, what is low will be lifted up and what is high will be knocked down.  You can either humble yourself, so that God will lift you, or God will knock you off your high horse with His Law.  And whatever is bumpy or crooked will be straightened.  So take a look at yourself in the mirror of God’s Law.  What is bumpy?  What is crooked?  What isn’t right?  Confess it.  And straighten up.  The Lord is coming.  He is coming to rule.  He’s coming to judge.  Prepare by repenting.  Prepare by being good and dead so that He can raise you up. 

            And He will.  He does.  He forgives your sins for Christ’s sake.  He gives you new birth in Holy Baptism and upholds you life by His Word, by His preaching, by sending the preacher.  He sustains that life by feeding you His body and blood.  In this way, He Himself tends you as your Shepherd.  He heals you and He carries you.  That is the Gospel,  And now you, O Church of God, Zion, herald of good news, Jerusalem, herald of good news, you have a message to speak.  He sends you to lift up your voice and proclaim it to the world.  “Behold your God!” He says.  He tells you to tell them.  And He’s talking about Jesus.  You point to Jesus and say, “Behold your God!”  And the Word does what He sends it to do.  That’s why He sends it.  He sends a preacher to preach to you, to kill you with the Law and make you alive with the Gospel, to comfort you.  And then He sends you out to speak it to others and bring them here to hear the preaching.  God be praised, He does not leave our ears stopped up with death.  He speaks.  And you live.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.