Sermon for February 15

Quinquagesima

 

 

 

“Be strong; fear not!” Isaiah 35:4

 

3Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
4Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” (Isaiah 35)

 

These words are found in about the middle of the book of Isaiah. Just so you understand the setting, Isaiah was tasked by God to write and preach a message of warning to the Old Testament Jews. They were neglecting the word of God, in danger of falling from their faith completely. Isaiah prophesied a coming destruction of their nation. There’d be a great fall from  glory for the Dynasty and Kingdom of David. God would turn them over to their enemies, the Babylonians.

Then alongside the warning was the invitation to return to the Lord and He would restore them. After a great loss to the Babylonian armies and the captivity of many of the people in Babylon, there was a promise that they would return to Judea and the temple, Jerusalem, the whole nation would be rebuilt and renewed.

When the Jews were led captive into exile in Babylon, they had this message from the Lord to take with them: “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come and save you.”

Be strong; fear not. Face the frighting situation without being frightened. Go forth with boldness—a boldness that comes not from within themselves, because by themselves, they would be weak and helpless not strong. But a boldness and confidence that comes from above and from the promises of God that he would restore, would rescue, would resurrect what had fallen.

God laid it onto Isaiah to preach to the men of Judah to repent of the foolishness of fear that made their hands go limp. He had a message to preach to the women to have peace and faith replace their anxious hearts. “Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God, he will save you.”

Now lately, I’ve noticed a lot of fear among us. We are getting a continuous stream of frightful news.

What’s the world coming to?

Where is goodness, morality, hope for the family and society.

There’s this fear that there are powerful, evil, secret elites controlling world events, at work behind what we can see. There’s a fear that behind the news there’s some conspiracy at work to bring evil and destroy good. It’s clear that there are those who market fear. Fear sells. Fear is much more motivating and captivating than hope.

Whenever you get word of great national and international plots and manipulations, you should ask yourself, “What can I do about it?” When you admit that you can’t do anything, or only very little, to save the world, it helps to put the fear in perspective.

Spend your mental energy on the things that you can affect and control. Focus more attention on the problems near you and within you. But with these also, fear must not reign over faith and hope. Isaiah says “to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!”

There’s the fear of losing what’s precious to me: my loved ones, my comfortable earthly existence, my health, my sanity. Picture those men and women, boys and girls of Old Isaiah’s day, facing a frightening situation without being frightened. 

As those people of old took their punishment from God with repentance and faith, you too must handle the tribulation of this life with a recognition that our suffering comes because of sin, our own sins especially. Fear God, because you are a sinner. But don’t fear anything else on earth or in hell, because you are a saint, saved by Christ. Repenting of our sins, we readily hear of God’s redemption in Christ’s blood.

Fear accomplishes nothing, other than eroding your faith and postponing your work. When you are afraid, you won’t be much good to others. A frightened animal will lash out and bite and claw all the other animals and people around it to try to escape. A frightened person won’t be nice to others, may even hurt others unintentionally as they try to escape.

The Lord calls you to love, not fear. Love casts out fear. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

For love’s sake, “Be strong; fear not.” You don’t have to be oblivious to the dangers and evil that lie ahead of you, but instead of fearing these, do what you can to prepare and to work to correct what’s wrong and avoid catastrophe.  And pray for the help and deliverance that only God can give.

 We read in the Gospel of Luke today, 18:31Taking the twelve, [Jesus] said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. 32For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. 33And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”

This is our invitation to go into Lent, to follow Jesus into that frightful situation without being frightened. See how boldly our Lord goes into the danger of suffering, shame and death, not with fear, but with confidence. He was confident in the promises of God that on the third day He would rise.

The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is what we were baptized for. We walk this path of life daily with the reality of His resurrection and ours. In this life that seems chaotic, unpredictable and indeed sometimes frightening, the road we tread has a destination, a purpose, and a home at the end, Jesus our risen Lord and Savior. Amen.