First confession, then deliverance

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the First Day of Lent

Isaiah 59:12-21

As he has done for us already since the beginning of this Church Year, the Lord’s servant, the prophet Isaiah, will guide us through this Lenten season as well. We often hear this reading from Isaiah 59 on the First Day of Lent—either this reading or a reading from Jonah chapter 3, where Jonah preached repentance to the people of Nineveh, and they did repent, and God spared them from the destruction He had threatened.

Isaiah preaches repentance, too. That’s the theme, the focus of the traditional Lenten season, and why we continue to observe the season, as we observe all the traditional seasons of the traditional Church Year. People think Lent is about fasting or giving up something or some other external human practice or invention. But it’s really about repentance—taking our sins seriously, so that we also learn to take our Savior seriously, so that we then learn to take our sanctification seriously, so that we may live each day intentionally, in willing and purposeful service to God and to our neighbor—all of which starts with devotion to God’s Word and to the preaching of it.

And so the prophet Isaiah leads us in making confession of ours sins before God on this First Day of Lent, even as he led the captive Israelites to make confession. That was a necessary step before they would be ready for the deliverance that the Lord had promised from their captivity. Before they could be delivered from captivity, they had to own the sins that had led to their captivity in the first place.

For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us;

This is how you make confession before God. With honesty. With humility. Not offering up any excuses. Not trying to justify yourself before God and explain why you had good reasons to rebel against His commandments. Not holding up all the good things you’ve done, as if they somehow outweighed the sins you’ve committed. Not holding yourself up next to someone else and saying, “I know I’m not perfect, but You know, Lord, I’m better than this guy.” No. Our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us.

For our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them: In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

“Transgressing” means intentionally stepping over the line. God says, “Do this!”, and I say, “No, I don’t think I will.” God says, “Don’t do that!”, and I say, “Yeah, I’m gonna do that, no matter what You say.” “Iniquities” are perversions of God’s commandments, turning away from what God has commanded to what I want to do instead. The Israelites often did this with all Ten Commandments and with the civil and ceremonial laws as well. They often ignored God’s commandments and did what they wanted. Their society was supposed to be governed by God’s laws, but instead they became just as corrupt and godless as any secular society. “Lying against the Lord,” Isaiah says. Claiming to be servants of the true God while living contrary to the word and commandments of that God—and refusing to repent!

Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. So truth fails, And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. (a target)

Justice, righteousness, truth—those were supposed to be the defining characteristics of the nation whose God was the LORD, as a nation and as individuals within the nation. But justice, righteousness, and truth never fully described Israelite society, and even less so by the time of the end, when God’s patience had run out and He sent the Babylonian armies against them.

Now, this condemnation certainly applies to our society as well. Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. So truth fails. It’s true. There is much injustice in our society and our world. Who can really trust the justice system in any country anymore? There is much unrighteousness in our society, where we have even come to disagree with God about what things are righteous and what things are unrighteous, promoting unrighteousness with practically every TV show, every movie, every ad, and most public policies. As for truth? People are perfectly content to pick and choose which parts of the Bible they accept as true and which parts they don’t. Hardly anyone believes anymore that God’s whole Word is truth, even in the most basic things like gender and marriage, or the murder of little children, much less the truth of salvation through faith alone in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God. Even most who claim to be Christians don’t live or believe in line with the Bible anymore. And he who departs from evil, in today’s world, makes himself a target.

But Isaiah isn’t preaching to the society out there. No, the ones being led by the prophet Isaiah to confess are, first, the Israelites as the Church of God on earth at that time. And now, it’s all who claim to be part of the Church of God on earth at this time, that is, you and I and all who would call themselves Christians.

This is where it’s helpful to take out your Small Catechism and read through the Ten Commandments, with their little explanations, slowly, thoughtfully. Instead of a Lenten fast, I’m going to suggest to you that, during this Lenten season, in addition to making every effort to attend all our services together, you actually take out your Catechism, at home, and read through one of the six chief parts at least once, each week, for these six weeks of Lent, starting with the Ten Commandments. If you do that honestly and humbly, then you will surely be able to confess with Isaiah, our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them. Maybe you’re guilty of willful transgressions against God’s Law which separate you from God’s grace and salvation, in which case, Repent! Confess your sins, before it’s too late! Or maybe you’ve been living in humble repentance and your sins are not willful and stubborn, but the every-day sins of weakness and unintentional offenses that all Christians commit. As St. John writes in his first Epistle, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It’s that forgiveness and cleansing that we seek. We don’t confess our sins just to get things off our chest, or to have a little cathartic exercise in feeling bad about ourselves for a while. We confess our sins so that God may forgive them, remove them from our account, and so that we may mend our ways and strive not to offend God and our neighbor.

In the rest of chapter 59, Isaiah holds out a sure hope for all the penitent. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him That there was no justice. He saw that there was no man, And wondered that there was no intercessor; Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.

For He put on righteousness as a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, And was clad with zeal as a cloak.

The Lord’s solution to Israel’s transgressions was to come and save them. There was no one else who could do it. They couldn’t save themselves. They couldn’t atone for their own sins, or make intercession for themselves. Because they were all guilty of sin. How can a guilty person make intercession for other guilty people? How can the unrighteous make intercession for the unrighteous? No, God devised His own solution. He would send His Son into human flesh. He would make atonement for our sins and transgressions and iniquities by suffering and dying on the cross, the Righteous for the unrighteous. He would make intercession for us, on the basis of His sacrifice, a holy Man, pleading for unholy men, “Father, forgive them!” It’s this zeal of the Lord Jesus for our salvation that we focus on during the Lenten season, our Lord and Savior, going into battle to save us from sin, death, and the devil.

According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, Fury to His adversaries, Recompense to His enemies; The coastlands He will fully repay.

Anyone who has opposed or oppressed God’s people—and has refused to repent—will receive from the Lord Jesus, not love, not acceptance, not salvation, but judgment. Fiery judgment. The enemies and adversaries of God who refuse to repent of their sins will be repaid according to their deeds, with eternal condemnation. But God offers His enemies reconciliation through the blood of His Son. Repent and believe in Him, God says, and I will no longer count your sins against you, since I’ve already counted them against My beloved Son.

So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, And His glory from the rising of the sun; When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him.

Why will people fear the name of the Lord? Both because of His just punishment against His enemies and because of His mercy and goodness in providing salvation for all who believe. Now penitent believers have no need to fear any enemy, especially the enemies of sin, death, and the devil, because the Spirit of Lord lifts up a standard against every enemy of God’s people: the preaching of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

“The Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,” Says the LORD.

There is God’s promise, to send Christ the Redeemer to Zion, that is, to His Church. But, again, He’s not coming to rescue those who wish to remain in their sins and transgressions, He’s coming to those who turn from them, first in their hearts, through repentance, and then in their lives, by putting to death the deeds of the flesh and by walking according to the new man, in righteousness and holiness.

“As for Me,” says the LORD, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the LORD, “from this time and forevermore.”

God has kept this unlikely promise. He preserved Isaiah’s words of warning and comfort for the Jews held captive in Babylon. And He has preserved them for thousands of years more, so that they might reach even us in these last days. And He’ll continue to preserve His Word all the way up to the end of the world, when He brings about our final deliverance from every enemy and from every evil. God, for His part, will continue to provide His word and everything necessary for your salvation. As for you, continue to use His word and to put it into practice. May this Lenten season provide you with just such an opportunity: to hear and to ponder, to repent of your sins and be comforted by the length to which your God has gone to save you from them, to turn away from transgression, and to live a life devoted to keeping God’s commandments. Amen.

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A light for those sitting in darkness

Posted on February 11, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Notice: The audio for the sermon, the video for the service, and the streaming for the service are not available today due to technical problems. You can access last year’s service for Quinquagesima by clicking this link.

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Sermon for Quinquagesima

1 Corinthians 13:1-13  +  Luke 18:31-43

All of you here today, I think, are able to see. Some better than others, surely. But none here have gone completely blind yet. It’s not as though we were guaranteed by God the ability to see in this world that’s plagued by sin’s consequences, but we should give thanks to Him for that often-taken-for-granted gift, if we still have it. The opposite of sight is, of course, blindness. And we often speak of two kinds of blindness: literal and figurative. Literal blindness is a problem with your two eyes. Figurative blindness is a problem of the mind or of the heart. If you can’t understand something at all, if you can’t see the path forward in your life, or if you can’t see the solution to a problem, even when it’s staring you in the face, it’s like a kind of blindness.

We encounter both kinds of blindness in today’s Gospel, figurative and literal, and, more importantly, we see how God provides the necessary light to those who sit in darkness.

First, there’s a figurative blindness in Jesus’ disciples. For months, Jesus has been telling them plainly that He is going to die. And it’s not going to be a natural death. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that were written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be finished. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. And they will scourge him and put him to death. And on the third day he will rise again.

There it is. A very simple, straightforward explanation, given by Jesus, of exactly what was going to happen to Him in Jerusalem. He’s been saying it just that clearly for at least six months. He is going to be handed over, by the Jews, to the Gentiles. He’ll be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And then He’ll rise from the dead. It’s like Jesus is shining a bright light on the path ahead.

And that wasn’t the only light shining on the path ahead. As He says, all the things that were written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be finished. The Old Testament Scriptures were a light shining on Him and on the path ahead of Him: the path of suffering and death, resurrection and glory. Between the Old Testament prophecies and the clear words of Jesus, the disciples should have been able to see it all clearly.

But they couldn’t. They understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not understand the things that were said. Even if the prophecies were a little obscure, the words of Jesus were crystal clear. But it clashed with the disciples’ own thoughts of what the Christ had come to do. They believed Jesus was the Christ. But they were so convinced that the Christ was coming to reign over Jerusalem that they couldn’t make any sense of this prediction of rejection, suffering, and death. It was the “glory” part that they were fixated on. What’s more, “it was hidden from them,” St. Luke writes. The Holy Spirit wasn’t ready for them to understand everything yet, so He kept them in the dark—not about who Jesus was, but about how exactly He would carry out His mission of bringing salvation to His people. In that way, Jesus’ disciples suffered from a sort of figurative blindness.

Then we encounter a man who was suffering, not from figurative blindness, but from literal blindness. His eyes didn’t work. He couldn’t see. And that left him with another problem. He couldn’t work. He was poor. He was a beggar.

But when that beggar heard the commotion of Jesus and the crowds passing by, he demonstrated that, though his physical eyes didn’t work, he was actually able to see better than most. Hearing the multitude passing by, he asked what it meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And those who were at the front warned him to be quiet, but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me! This blind beggar, a son of Israel, knew who Jesus of Nazareth was. Not just that He was a Rabbi who had been traveling around the land of Israel for the past three years. But that Jesus was “the Son of David,” the promised Christ. And not only that, but that, as the promised Christ, Jesus had come for people like him, to have mercy on those who needed mercy.

The crowds displayed a bit of their own figurative blindness here. They warned the blind man to be quiet, to leave Jesus alone, to respect their triumphal parade toward Jerusalem. They had lost sight of who Jesus was and why He had come. He was the good and kind Master, always generous with His time, always concerned for anyone in need, always ready to help. If they had started to see Him any differently than that, then they were blind—blinded by their own aspirations of glory and victory through their association with this King of the Jews. Oh, they saw Him as their King. But they obviously had no idea—even less understanding than Jesus’ disciples—of what the King of the Jews was actually going to Jerusalem to do. “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” was written on the sign posted on the cross where Jesus died. And when the Jews saw it, most of them saw their “king” as a failure.

But Jesus wasn’t listening to the crowds telling the blind man to be quiet. He was listening to the blind man who was calling out to Him for mercy. And He stopped, and He asked the blind man, What do you want me to do for you? It’s not as obvious a question as you might think. This blind man had sat there at the entrance to Jericho every day for who knows how long, asking people for mercy, and by mercy, he normally meant, money. Charity. Alms for the poor. But not today. He doesn’t want money from Jesus. He wants what only the Son of David can provide: healing from his blindness. “Lord, that I may receive my sight!” And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight! Your faith has saved you.” And as soon as the man was healed of his blindness, he followed Jesus, glorifying God. And all the people saw it and gave praise to God.

There are two kinds of blindness in this Gospel, one figurative and the other literal. But the solution to both was the same. Trust in Jesus. Keep trusting in Jesus, no matter how much you can see or not see. Recognize Him for who He is: the Son of God who came into this world to save sinners, and to do it by willingly allowing Himself to be delivered to the Gentiles, to be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, scourged and put to death, all so that you might see that God is good, that He loves you and has done everything necessary—everything imaginable—for you to be rescued from sin, from death, and from the devil.

So trust in Jesus and seek mercy from Jesus. Keep seeking it; don’t give up seeking it until you receive it. And you will! Follow Jesus. Keep following Jesus, even if the path leads to the cross. And it will! But it will also lead to the resurrection from the dead and eternal life. Eventually, when the time is right, if you’ve kept trusting in Him, seeking mercy from Him, and following Him, He will take care of whatever blindness you’re suffering from. You aren’t meant to see everything just yet. But blindness won’t be your downfall, if you keep hearing and believing the Word of God.

As for following Jesus, you can’t follow Him to Jerusalem literally. But you can figuratively as you hear His Word during the coming Lenten season, and especially during Holy Week when we will follow Jesus through all His suffering and “watch” Him die for our sins.

You can also follow Him by living like Him, following in His footsteps. And the Apostle Paul gave you a wonderful roadmap for that in today’s Epistle. The “love chapter” of the Bible. Love is patient. It is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. It is not conceited. It does not behave indecently. It does not seek its own. It does not become angry. It does not dwell on evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

What Paul describes there is, in a word, Jesus. If you would follow Him, then let it also describe you. Make every effort to walk in love, as Jesus walked in love, even though you don’t understand everything the Scriptures say, even though you don’t understand all that happens in the world, even though you don’t clearly see the path ahead. Because, as Paul also says in the Epistle, all of us have a degree of “blindness,” the inability to see things clearly this side of heaven. Now we see through a mirror, indistinctly; but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; but then I will know fully, even as I am also fully known. And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Faith, hope, and love remain as the virtues God would have us pursue in this life, until all things become clear in the next life. So pursue them as you follow Christ. Follow Him blindly, if necessary, because, although you can’t see, He can see perfectly. So let Him take you by the hand and lead you. Let Him take you by the ear and lead you by His Word, which is, as St. Peter wrote, like a lamp shining in a dark place. Amen.

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Fear not, though you are a worm

Posted on February 7, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Sexagesima

Isaiah 41:14-29  +  Mark 4:26-32

Fear not! I am the One who helps you. Those were the words of the LORD to Israel and to His whole Church that we ended with last week. We begin with similar words this evening.

Fear not, you worm Jacob,
you men of Israel!
I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord;
your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

When God calls His people here, “you worm Jacob,” He doesn’t mean it as an insult. It’s a simple (though metaphorical) statement of fact. The Jews in exile in Babylon, to whom Isaiah’s words were prophetically directed, had been reduced in strength and stature to that of a worm. Tiny. Powerless. Despised. Utterly insignificant on the world stage. Not unlike the true Christian Church today. Tiny. Powerless. Despised. Utterly insignificant on the world stage. But what does God say to His powerless, insignificant Church? Fear not! I am the one who helps you! I am your Redeemer.

How would God help powerless Israel? He would turn them into His weapon of vengeance against His enemies.

Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge,
new, sharp, and having teeth;
you shall thresh the mountains and crush them,
and you shall make the hills like chaff;
you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away,
and the tempest shall scatter them.
And you shall rejoice in the Lord;
in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.

God had often used His Old Testament people of Israel to make war against His enemies and theirs. They fought against and defeated the Canaanites at God’s command. They fought against the Philistines. They wouldn’t have to fight against the Babylonians, since God would send Cyrus to defeat the Babylonians for them. But, at the time of Esther, they would fight against their enemies in the Persian provinces who tried to destroy them. And God made them victorious. They would fight against the Greek invaders, and God made them victorious. He preserved them as a nation, in their homeland of Judea and in their capital of Jerusalem, all the way up until the birth of His Son. None of that seemed possible to the Jews in exile, but God would step in to help them.

He steps in to help His Church today, too, not by turning us into warriors against flesh and blood enemies, but into warriors and soldiers who are to “put on the full armor of God” and stand “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places,” as Paul writes to the Ephesians. We fight with God’s power against sin, so that it can’t have the victory over us. We fight with God’s power against the world, not with swords made of metal, but with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. And God will make us victorious. After all, He is the One who helps us.

Isaiah continues:

When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the Lord will answer them;
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
I will put in the wilderness the cedar,
the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.
I will set in the desert the cypress,
the plane and the pine together,
that they may see and know,
may consider and understand together,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Here the Lord goes back to comfort the “worm Jacob” again. He speaks to the “poor and needy” who “seek water.” The Jews in exile didn’t have any lack of literal water. The Babylonians provided them with food and drink and decent homes to live in. What they lacked was spiritual water, the Word of God and the comfort of His forgiveness, His acceptance, His guidance. Here God promises to provide all that in abundance. He does it through Isaiah’s words, through Jeremiah’s words, through Ezekiel’s words and Daniel’s words. He would do it later through the words of the post-exile prophets. But most of all, He would provide these abundant waters of life for His people when He sent His very own Son into the world, who said, Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.

Isaiah then turns toward the false gods again, to mock them:

Set forth your case, says the Lord;
bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob.
Let them bring them, and tell us
what is to happen.
Tell us the former things, what they are,
that we may consider them,
that we may know their outcome;
or declare to us the things to come.
Tell us what is to come hereafter,
that we may know that you are gods;
do good, or do harm,
that we may be dismayed and terrified.
Behold, you are nothing,
and your work is less than nothing;
an abomination is he who chooses you.

The false gods, worshiped by the Gentiles and all too often by Israel before the exile, were worthless. They weren’t real, so they couldn’t offer any real help. They couldn’t even predict the future, much less cause anything to happen in the future. So God mocks them. “You are nothing, and your work is less than nothing.” But the real targets of His mockery weren’t the false gods. It was the foolish people who worshiped them. “He who chooses you” (“you” being the false gods) “is an abomination.”

The worship of false gods is just as much as problem today as it was in Old Testament times. Whether it’s seeking help from the saints or seeking help from “science,” or from “the experts,” or from their own twisted belief systems, people still end up fearing, loving, and trusting in others instead of fearing, loving, and trusting in God above all things. It’s foolish, because God, the Lord, the One described in the Bible, is the One who has helped us by sending His Son to be our Savior, and God is still the One who would help us and forgive us and comfort us and guide us, but only through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

Finally, Isaiah makes another reference to Cyrus the Great, though not yet by name:

I stirred up one from the north, and he has come,
from the rising of the sun, and he shall call upon my name;
he shall trample on rulers as on mortar,
as the potter treads clay.
Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know,
and beforehand, that we might say, “He is right”?
There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed,
none who heard your words.
I was the first to say to Zion, “Behold, here they are!”
and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good news.
But when I look, there is no one;
among these there is no counselor
who, when I ask, gives an answer.
Behold, they are all a delusion;
their works are nothing;
their metal images are empty wind.

The false gods and idols weren’t the ones who predicted the coming of Cyrus and the deliverance of Israel from Babylon. God alone did that. He told His people Israel about it and wanted them to rejoice, because their God was the true God—the One who had promised to help them, and who then fulfilled His promise. And just as He fulfilled His word to send Israel a deliverer from Babylon, so He would fulfill His word to send them—and us—a Deliverer from sin, death, and the devil.

So, even if you’re just a worm—tiny, powerless, despised, unimportant—it’ll be all right. The Lord is the One who helps you. Even though the kingdom of heaven is like the tiniest, most insignificant-looking mustard seed, God will cause it to grow so that it fills the earth, and no one will be able to stop it. Amen.

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How you hear God’s Word matters

Posted on February 4, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9  +  Luke 8:4-15

According to Jesus, God’s word is like seed. And your ears are the soil in which it’s planted. Since the service began, God’s word has already been falling like seed in our midst. Were you paying attention to it? Did it fall on good soil or other soil? Are you ready to receive God’s word in the sermon? I ask, because Jesus indicates in today’s Gospel that most people aren’t ready to hear God’s word, really hear it and ponder it and consider it and put it into practice after they hear it. So as you hear God’s word this morning, think not only about what you hear, but how you hear.

Most of the people who heard Jesus tell the parable of the sower and the seed probably didn’t know what He was even talking about. For the most part, Jesus’ spoke in parables that ‘Seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. That’s a reference to the commission that God gave long ago to the prophet Isaiah, who was sent to speak the word of God to a people of Judah who were already almost ripe for judgment. Isaiah spoke the truth, but he spoke it in prophecies and riddles, in symbols and in visions, so that only those who really cared to hear what their God said to them would pause to ponder the meaning of what he said. So, too, with Jesus. The people of Israel were almost ripe for judgment again, so until His crucifixion and resurrection, it was still time to speak in parables, so that only those who had ears to hear, who really cared to listen, would actually learn.

Jesus’ twelve apostles were such hearers. They didn’t understand this parable, but they wanted to. So they asked! And Jesus revealed its meaning to them, and now to us and to all who have ears to hear.

The seed is the word of God. Which word of God? It’s the whole counsel of God, everything God has said and inspired to be recorded in Holy Scripture. But that “everything” centers on the Gospel of Christ Jesus, like spokes on a bicycle wheel pointing to the center, or radiating out from the center, either way you look at it. The Gospel is the heart of the seed. And, in a nutshell, the Gospel is that God loved this sinful, filthy, wicked world and didn’t want to condemn it to eternal death and punishment, but, instead, sent His eternal Son into human flesh in order to redeem all men from our sins by His righteous life and innocent death in our place. Christ Jesus then rose from the dead and now continually sends His Spirit into the world to work through the preaching of His word and the administration of His Sacraments in order to gather His Church, to bring people to faith, to sanctify us in love, and to preserve us in the faith until Christ comes again for judgment. That’s the seed that is sown, the word that is preached and that has the potential to take root and grow and produce a crop a hundred times more than what was sown.

The word is sown liberally, generously. It goes out into the world like a farmer who takes a handful of seed and simply scatters it abroad. The word that’s preached just here at Emmanuel has gone out into all the world through the internet. We’re not aiming it at anyone in particular. We’re scattering the seed far and wide. And some are guided to it and helped by it. But you’re here this morning so that I can sow the word in your ears, and so that you can hear it, and, as you hear it, you need to be aware that there are many obstacles preventing it from producing fruit in you, and you’ll need to overcome them, by God’s grace and with His help, so that you receive the word with a noble and good heart, so that it does produce the fruit God is looking for: the fruit of a living faith, a humble spirit, a heart that loves God above all things and that reflects the love of God toward our neighbors.

This is what happens, Jesus says, when the word is sown: Some of it falls like seed on a path, where two tragic things happen to that seed. It’s trampled by men, and the birds of the air devour it. These are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. How have you done so far this morning, during the whole service up to this point, with all the prayers, chants, hymns, Scripture lessons? Have you been distracted by other things, with other thoughts and other priorities? That’s how the seed gets trampled, and the devil happily snatches the word away so that it does you no good. It produces no repentance, or faith, or awe in the presence of God, or appreciation for His goodness, or thankfulness for His benefits, or learning, or growth, or anything. This is one thing that happens when the word is sown. Watch out for it, every time the word is preached!

This also happens, Jesus says, when the word is sown: Some of it falls on rocky soil. It penetrates a little, but only a little. It sprouts up quickly, but the tender shoot soon withers and dies for lack of a root system, for lack of moisture. These, Jesus says, are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. You hear the word of God. You agree with what you’ve heard. You believe it. You rejoice in it, even. For example, “God is love! God loves you!” But then you’re satisfied. No need to learn. No need to study any further, dig any deeper. Why spend time reading through the Bible, reviewing the Small Catechism, much less the rest of the Confessions of the Church? Leave the theology to the theologians! Leave the deeper doctrines to the pastors! What you’re left with is a superficial faith. Then along come the temptations, as they always do, especially the temptation to cave in in the face of persecution. When troubles strike, when faithfulness to Christ makes your life harder in your family, in your job, in society, when the world turns against you for saying the simplest of things or living according to the simplest truths: for example, the only true God is the God of the Bible, all other gods are false gods and idols; sinners are justified by faith alone in Christ Jesus; there are only two genders, and you can’t switch; marriage is between one man and one woman and is supposed to last until death; sex is supposed to be reserved for marriage, and children should be raised by a father and a mother, and certainly never killed in their mothers’ womb. Homosexuality is always sinful and wrong. Simple things. Basic Christian truth. But the world pushes back if you speak this way or live this way. So if the seed of God’s word has only sprouted shallowly in the rocky soil of your heart, the persecution and the troubles that come with confessing Christ will cause the plant to wither and die. This is another thing that happens when the word is sown. Watch out for it, every time the word is preached!

This also happens, Jesus says, when the word is sown: Some of it falls among thorns. It starts to grow, but its growth is stunted as it’s choked by the weeds, a pathetic little plant that doesn’t produce any fruit. These, Jesus says, are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. You hear the word here in church. But then “life” takes control of your thoughts and your decisions and your heart. Cares, like relationships you want to focus on, or societal issues that consume your thoughts; riches, like making money and saving money and spending money and all the things that have to do with a career; pleasures, sinful ones or innocent ones like enjoying retirement, vacations, movies, food, drink, etc. How can God’s Spirit produce His fruit in your heart and life if His word is pushed to the backburner, if earthly things take over your heart, if they’re choking His word? This is another thing that happens when the word is sown. Watch out for it, every time the word is preached!

But there is another thing that happens when the word of God is sown: Some of it falls on good soil where it springs up and yields a crop a hundred times what was sown. These, Jesus says, are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. Now, there is nothing inherently noble or good about any human heart. As Jeremiah says, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? That applies to all of our hearts. But since the Holy Spirit is always working when His word is preached, to soften hearts and to open ears, that means He’s enabling you to hear, to listen with a noble and good heart, to ponder the word that’s preached, right here, right now. The seed is just as good, just as powerful wherever it falls. So if you’re choosing to focus on other things right now, if you’re choosing to let the seed sit at the surface of your heart without any effort to deepen your faith and understanding, if you’re choosing to make the word nothing more than your Sunday morning routine so that it doesn’t affect your thoughts and words and actions throughout the week, that’s not the seed’s fault. The seed is powerful to work in you, to change you, to give you a faith that can move mountains, to make you abound in works of love, to give you comfort, to make you joyful, to give you patience and strength to face whatever comes, to keep Christ crucified always before your eyes.

Some of the seed of God’s word always falls on good ground and produces much fruit. Pray to God that that may be the case with you, and not just today. We won’t hear this parable again for another year, so let its message stay with you, grow inside you, so that every Sunday and throughout the week you’re thinking about how you hear God’s Word, so that it may have its intended growth in you. Amen.

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Fear not! The Lord is the One who helps you!

Posted on January 31, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Septuagesima

Isaiah 41:1-13

We’ve been jumping around a little bit in our study of the last 27 chapters of the book of Isaiah. Certain chapters become especially relevant during certain seasons or festivals of the Church Year. The last time we met for Vespers was for the Baptism of Our Lord, when we heard the words of Isaiah 42, Behold, My Servant whom I uphold! This evening we backtrack just a little bit and take a look at the first half of the previous chapter, Isaiah 41.

Remember the setting. Isaiah is writing a hundred years before Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were taken captive to Babylon. He’s writing primarily to the future captives, and in the first nine chapters of this section, he’s prophesying their eventual deliverance from Babylon. He writes:

Listen to me in silence, O coastlands;
      let the peoples renew their strength;
                  let them approach, then let them speak;
      let us together draw near for judgment.

The Lord calls on the coastlands, the distant Gentile nations, to gather for judgment. They have defied the Lord, they have worshiped their manmade idols, and many of them have oppressed the people of Israel. So God calls them to together to rebuke them. He wants them to consider:

      Who stirred up one from the east
      whom victory meets at every step?
                  He gives up nations before him,
      so that he tramples kings underfoot;
                  he makes them like dust with his sword,
      like driven stubble with his bow.
                  He pursues them and passes on safely,
      by paths his feet have not trod.
                  Who has performed and done this,
      calling the generations from the beginning?
                  I, the LORD, the first,
      and with the last; I am he.

First, who is this “one from the east”? It’s a champion whom the Lord is sending to bring destruction on the Gentile nations and to bring deliverance to Israel. We’ll hear more about him in the coming chapters. Figuratively, it points ahead to the Christ, but it points directly to Cyrus the Great of Persia. Isaiah will even name him a few chapters later. From 605 BC until 586 BC, the Babylonians were carrying out raids against Jerusalem. In 586 King Nebuchadnezzar took the Jews captive and held them in Babylon. But in 539 BC, Cyrus the Great took his military campaign into Babylon, conquered the Babylonians, and eventually sent out an edict, together with Darius the Mede, that the people of Israel could return to their homeland. Here in these verses, God begins to reveal His plan to the captive Jews.

But the point of these verses is not just to introduce the champion Cyrus. It’s to serve as a witness to the Gentiles that the Lord God of Israel is the One who foretold Cyrus’ coming over a hundred years before Cyrus was even born, who raised him up, and who sent him against the Babylonians in order to rescue His chosen people of Israel. God had been working to manipulate the history of the world so that all the right actors were in all the right places to carry out His will. Yes, He brought the Babylonians against Israel for Israel’s infidelity. But He would also bring the conqueror of the Babylonians along at just the right time to deliver them.

      The coastlands have seen and are afraid;
      the ends of the earth tremble;
      they have drawn near and come.
                  Everyone helps his neighbor
      and says to his brother, “Be strong!”
                  The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith,
      and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil,
                  saying of the soldering, “It is good”;
      and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.
The nations whom Cyrus will conquer along the way are afraid as they hear of his approach. They’re wringing their hands. They’re trying to give pep talks to one another. They’re getting their idol images ready to protect them from his invasion, and they strengthen those idols with nails, as if that will help. But no one can stop the Lord from sending His champion to deliver His people. While the nations are cowering in fear, the people of Israel are comforted.

      But you, Israel, my servant,
      Jacob, whom I have chosen,
      the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
                  you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
      and called from its farthest corners,
                  saying to you, “You are my servant,
      I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
                  fear not, for I am with you;
      be not dismayed, for I am your God;
                  I will strengthen you, I will help you,
      I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

See how tenderly the Lord speaks to Israel! “Israel, my servant,” He calls them. We’ll see that phrase repeated several times in these chapters of Isaiah, and it’s important we identify which servant God is referring to. In the next chapter, the Servant of the Lord is narrowed down to one person, namely, the Christ, who is the perfect Israel, the Head of the body. But sometimes in Isaiah’s prophecy, as in these verses, it’s the people of Israel as a whole referred to as the Lord’s servant, the rest of the body of which Christ is the head.

He reminds them that, some 1500 years before their captivity in Babylon, He chose them. He called Abraham His friend. He multiplied and nurtured Israel. He trained them and taught them and delivered them time and time again, only handing them over for punishment when they stubbornly turned to other gods. Now is one of those times of deliverance. God is stretching out His right hand to help and deliver His people.

      Behold, all who are incensed against you
      shall be put to shame and confounded;
                  those who strive against you
      shall be as nothing and shall perish.
                  You shall seek those who contend with you,
      but you shall not find them;
                  those who war against you
      shall be as nothing at all.
                  For I, the LORD your God,
      hold your right hand;
                  it is I who say to you, “Fear not,
      I am the one who helps you.”

God graciously promises Israel that, although He had allowed the nations to come in and fight against them, now He will fight for them. He will sweep all their enemies out of the way like they’re nothing. They are to picture God holding out His right hand to take them by their right hand, “Fear not! I am the One who helps you!”

And that’s the Lord’s message to everyone who has been brought to repentance, to everyone who has fallen into despair. To Israel as they sat in captivity, finally realizing how foolish they were to rebel against their Helper, despairing of escape from their captivity, God held out His hand, through His Word, “Fear not! I am the One who helps you!” And He did! He sent His champion, Cyrus and delivered them. And then He sent the real Champion, the Christ, to battle against their enemies of sin, death, and the devil. And He delivered them. Fear not! I am the One who helps you!, Jesus said.

And now to His New Testament Israel, to His Christians throughout the world and to those who would become Christians, God says the same thing. Fear not! I am the One who helps you! When we come to see that we’ve ruined things for ourselves, that we have foolishly put God, our Helper, on the backburner, when the world stands against us, when we’ve lost all hope of saving ourselves, God reaches out His hand, Fear not! I am the One who helps you! So don’t despair! And don’t trust in idols! Don’t trust in yourself! Don’t trust in any human savior. Put your trust in God alone, and you, too, will be helped. Amen.

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