Who Is My Salvation?
12 On that day you will say:
“I will give thanks to you, Lord,
although you were angry with me.
Your anger has turned away,
and you have comforted me.
2 Indeed, God is my salvation;
I will trust him and not be afraid,
for the Lord, the Lord himself,
is my strength and my song.
He has become my salvation.”
3 You will joyfully draw water
from the springs of salvation,
4 and on that day you will say,
“Give thanks to the Lord; proclaim his name!
Make his works known among the peoples.
Declare that his name is exalted.
5 Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things.
Let this be known throughout the earth.
6 Cry out and sing, citizen of Zion,
for the Holy One of Israel is among you
in his greatness.”
Isaiah 12:1–6
Isaiah is speaking about us, this day.
We ARE giving thanks today…
Because He was angry with us—with us all. Why wouldn’t He be… for all that we have done and left undone!
We who still sin every day.
Repent! Yes, and that is why we are here today. To hear about God’s requirements of perfection and our failure to meet them.
Yes, even church goers. Even the faithful… and to be true… we must put quotes around that, as we are not all that faithful.
Repent. Yes, but even when we do, that is not even well done.
Are there secret little sins hidden away… as if God won’t notice… at least not too often…
Repent and turn back!
And what of the rest? What about all that should be and could be… what we do not even consider?
Yeah… and we don’t know the half of it… thanks be to God for that! So…
Repent!
Please don’t consider and judge things by comparing yourself to other people.
Who? I know church people to be the most notorious of this sort…
Pastors… even? We would we ever be exempt?
We will think… well we are not… we are at least not as bad as…
Those who don’t come to church all that often.
Those who don’t…
Well what? We are tempted and we do compare ourselves … think we are better than… well some people…anyway…
How long have you been coming regularly to church? SO!
A greater sin is this, than someone who works as a prostitute or who is a money grubbing cheat! So says Jesus.
Repent.
Yes… we need to be humble and contrite because we do dare too many times to compare and to hold up the filthy, messy, smelly lump we call “good” as if God would accept that!
Repent! Stop that!
Yes, we are here for that today. Thanks be to God.
Why? Isaiah tells us why:
1 You will say in that day: “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.
That is us today. We are giving thanks this day because Christ is Risen!
And that IS THE ONLY REASON…
Let me repeat that: THIS IS THE ONLY REASON….
CHRIST IS THE ONLY REASON…
That God’s anger is turned away…
That God comfort us instead of dealing with us as He ought because of our sins.
Now that is understood…
Now that we are without a leg to stand on…
Now that we are doomed… unless…
What does Isiah tell us?
2 “Behold, God is my salvation…
And be sure you understand and know that Isaiah is no better than we…
You…
… and everyone else…
…along with this prophet… along with Isaih… yes… him too!
Yes… we are like this … still at times. So what now. What do we do?
Repent.
And so in doing, with Isaiah, we too can now say:
I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”
It is to be found nowhere else.
Salvation. Yes, from that which we have to repent of.
But only there. Only with Him.
Hunt, search, try to make another way…
And you will fail.
But instead, today…
3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
This, as Luther would put it, IS returning to your baptism.
Do you realize that we do that every time we hear the pronunciation of Holy Absolution at the start of every Divine Service?
This is not another Sacrament, but a weekly application of the… of our first one: Baptism.
Now, here in our test, all those years before, Isaiah is looking ahead…
4 And you will say in that day…
But this is that day…
… and so we will say today :
“ 4…Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that His name is exalted….”
This is what we are doing this very day! Here. Because Christ is Risen!
So:
5“Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known in all the earth. 6Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”
Did you realize that? That we who inhabit the new Zion—wherever the church has been gathered…
Wearing His name… that they received in Baptism…
Wherever His Word is preached … rightly dividing Law and Gospel…
Wherever His Supper is Administered to His people… to us…
That in our midst…for real and really… truly… right here… the Holy One of Israel…. The Crucified One for us… the Risen One for us… the Ascended One for us …
Is right here!
This is a reality… I think… we don’t live as if it were true. Not that it is easy. Many… far too many distractions… far too many opposite views are being experienced…
No, it is dark outside. Very dark out there. The World and the devil are all we can see…a lot of the time.
And everything of that kingdom seems to be succeeding….
While Zion seems to be diminishing….
Our own bodies even betray us!
And for all of that, the sinful flesh… mine… yours… longs for Egypt and not Zion.
So then… when we come in here… to His house…
Put away all those other things. Focus. Be still and know that He is God and that He is here…
And here for us.
Listen. Concentrate.
Let His Word that you hear each Lord ’s Day… dwell in your heart richly. Keep it. And keep letting it work its way into your inner-most beings.
Meditate on it day and night.
No, really. Pick something this day. Take it with you and chew on it. Think on it until the next Lord’s Day.
That is Christian mediation. I am not talking about what the Far East teaches. Don’t use that. It’s not from God.
What do we have here… right here… each and every Sunday?
This should not be Law for us.
No, but a response… because and on account of such a great salvation that we have been given.
It is hearing His Word that enables us to respond as Isaiah is picturing what we would have.
What we do have in reality…
A reality that is far more real and permanent than what is out there.
It is what faith does…
That great gift that enables us to imbibe and breathe in this enormous amount of Grace… made just for you and me…
This is the reaction, O inhabitant of Zion…
… for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.
You might be tempted to say… sure prophet… sure Isaiah… you got to be in the temple when God came and the huge weight of His presence bowed you down to the ground.
We have… Words ….
Hold on there! I would not wish that experience on any human. It usually means death. Ezekiel had to be revived when He saw and experienced that PRESENCE!
It is like people who wish they could have an encounter with an angel. What do those angles have to say every time? DO NOT BE AFRAID!
No! I am not envious of Isaiah!
We, as Luther tells us… we have the infant in a manger. We have Jesus riding on the colt of a Donkey….
Meek and Mild.
We have the Lamb who was slain. For us. Not against us.
God was against Isaiah until His sin was atoned for by the burning coal from the Altar of Heaven.
The people begged Moses to approach God—they did not want to! And God even said that was a good thing…
And many times He WAS at the point of destroying them all.
As who would be their… who would be our go-between… our advocate? Moses for a while. Judges after that. Prophets and Kings after that…
Sure.. but they never lasted….
And then our Prophet, Priest and King came… He came to dwell in our midst. First, doing all that we should have done. And then never doing what no human ought to be doing.
And then paying by His death for all of human transgressions.
And then arising. Christ is Risen!
And so too, Ascended.
But also… still among His people. Here. Today. Now. For you. For me.
Think on these things. Always. Daily.
And so, for all of this, we “will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me…”
Even if it was not the case with some of us before today.
Or even if we have all of this in abounding quantity and are bursting with it…
Today is the day of salvation. As every day is from now on until there are no more days.
Just so…
Isaiah says: LOOK. REALIZE. CONTEMPLATE. FOCUS ON THIS ALONE. BE IN AWE…
That is what Behold means.
2 “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”
All because Christ is Risen! Amen.
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