Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Isaiah 61:1–3, 10,11
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  December 13, 2020

The section of God’s Word we are looking at today is a prophecy of the coming Savior written by Isaiah and it is in the form of poetry. Many people don’t know this, but over 30% of the Bible is written in the form of poetry. That’s significant. One-third of the communication God has given about himself and how he relates to us is in the form of poetry. And it is used when ordinary words will not suffice. In other words, biblical poetry is not just a way of saying something in a flowery or impressive way. The poetry itself, the form of the words, is part of the message. Paradoxically, poetry is an expression of the things that are inexpressible. Most people just want to know what a portion of the Bible teaches and this can usually be communicated directly. But to cry or to laugh, to whisper “I’m sorry” in an empty room. These are things that cannot be related directly. They are experiences. And that is why we have poetry. Because it shows us, it doesn’t tell us. It paints pictures, it uses metaphors, it invites us to imagine and to experience what is otherwise inexpressible. 

That certainly applies when it comes to the picture of joy here in Isaiah 61. I could tell you to feel joy, but I would be naive to think it would work. For instance, if someone tells you that you should be happy, it doesn’t automatically make you happy. In fact, if you’re anything like me, it might inspire an opposite reaction. And so too, I’m thankful for the pictures of joy that we find in Isaiah 61. These pictures, through the Spirit’s power, hold power to cut and to heal, to bring us joy in our Savior.

Isaiah begins like this: 1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,  because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the afflicted. This section is quoted by Jesus both in the synagogue of Nazareth and when he answered John the Baptist’s disciples. When John the Baptist was put into prison, he sent a few of his disciples to ask Jesus whether or not he truly was one who was to come, or whether they should wait for someone else. John had preached about the coming Messiah and had often employed Old Testament pictures of his coming, including great pictures of judgment from the book of Isaiah, saying that the Messiah would clear his threshing floor and burn the chaff with inextinguishable fire. And certainly, Jesus will fulfill those words in a complete way when he returns to judge the living and the dead at the end of time, but John, locked up in prison, seems to have missed the joy of the Savior’s appearing. Jesus told those disciples, “Go and tell John what you see and hear. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy b are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised.” And then he says, and “good news is preached to the afflicted.” (Matthew 11) A clear reference to Isaiah 61. I can only imagine John hearing this in his prison cell, and humbly sitting down and wondering why he ever doubted that Jesus was the one, when all the joy of the Messiah’s coming was being so clearly demonstrated in Jesus’ ministry. 

I think there’s a temptation for all of us who are close to Jesus to miss the joy. We get caught up in what we think God should be doing, that we forget all that he has done. We sometimes start to forget about what he has done for us personally. Sometimes, just like John the Baptist, we miss the joy in knowing that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. With all the problems around us and in us, we are tempted to miss the joy. That’s why I’m thankful for these poetic pictures.

The next picture Isaiah paints really illustrates the mission of Jesus: He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for those who are bound. This reminds me of a story from the book God’s Smuggler. It is a true story of a man named Andrew van der Bijl, known as Brother Andrew, who risked his life smuggling Bibles into communist countries at the height of the Cold War. In the book, he talks about he tells of a time before he came to faith when he was in Indonesia. He decided to buy a monkey as a pet at an Indonesian market. It was a gibbon. And he noticed after a short while that every time he tried to pick it up it flinched and seemed like it was hurting. And so he looked closely and found a raised welt all the way around his waist. And so he laid it down and started pushing the thick fur out of the way and he saw what had happened to him. When the monkey was a baby someone had wrapped a wire around his waist, but as the monkey grew bigger, of course, the wire didn’t. It had sort of become part of him, squeezing him, hurting him. And eventually, it was going to kill him. I can’t imagine what that would feel like. In the book, Andrew says that he got out a razor and started to shave all the fur from around the welt. But then he had to cut very tenderly into that skin around the welt, all the way around the waist. He had exposed the wire, but it hurt getting there. 

You know there’s a part of Christ’s poetry here that hurts us. There’s a part of Jesus’ words that cut. It hurts me because it exposes the problem.  You realize that when Jesus says he has come to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for those who are bound, that picture means that we are captives to sin, that we are bound by it and cannot get out by ourselves. It tells me that my situation is far more desperate than I’d like to imagine. It tells me that there’s a wire of sin that has been wrapped around my heart, which has become part of me, which hurts me, which keeps me from growing, and given enough time would kill me. It would. 

Andrew cut just deep enough to find the problem on his gibbon, just enough to expose the wire. And then as soon as he could, Snip! One cut and the wire was gone. It’s awesome when you read the book, he talks about how he snipped the wire and it popped off the money. And that little monkey, that gibbon, he got up and started turning cartwheels in the room and it jumped up on his shoulders and hugged his face. Because that thing which was binding him, was causing him so much pain—it was gone. He was bound but now had the blessed freedom of release. Just like that, in an instant. 

What Andrew wrote next were words about a man who, at the time, hadn’t yet come to know Jesus. Listen to what he wrote: “After that my gibbon and I were inseparable. I think I identified with him as strongly as he with me. I think I saw in the wire that bound him a kind of parallel to the chain of guilt still so tight around me and in his release I saw the thing I too longed for.” He knew about the wire around his heart but he didn’t yet know Jesus. My friends that is why Jesus came. As he says right here in Isaiah, release for those who are bound. Don’t miss the joy! He came to cut that wire of sin that wraps around us. He exposes the problem, and then with a single snip, he points to his own cross and says, “I forgive you.”  He came to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom and release. Don’t miss the joy!

Jesus, through the pen of Isaiah, paints so many pictures here to express this joy. He talks about the year of the Lord’s favor which is a reference to the Day of Jubilee from Leviticus 25 where every 50 years in Ancient Israel, God commanded that all indentured servants were to be set free and all land should be returned to the original owners. An incredibly joyful picture of freedom and reinstatement of status. He talks about people who are covered in ash and sackcloth, a picture of extreme mourning in the Old Testament, but then are anointed with the oil of joy, dressed in royal clothes, and given a crown of beauty.  He talks about sometimes wavering people, like you and me, becoming oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord to display his beauty. 

It isn’t just that Jesus comes to take away our sin, but that he dresses us in his own righteousness. He calls us his faithful people. When you and I look in the mirror we still see the person we were. We still see the person who falls, who fails, who struggles. But that is not what God sees. He sees his Son. He sees the perfect father, the perfect mother, the perfect child, the perfect student, the perfect employee, the perfect friend. That’s how God sees you because that is what the Messiah, your Savior Jesus came to proclaim about you.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be that monkey? To feel that wire pop off and finally be able to take a full breath of freedom? No wonder he did cartwheels. I wonder what kind of cartwheels are you and I ready to turn in response to the grace of God? Isaiah tells us in the final two verses of our text: (Isaiah 61:10–11)

I will rejoice greatly in the Lord.

My soul will celebrate because of my God,

for he has clothed me in garments of salvation.

With a robe of righteousness he covered me,

like a bridegroom who wears a beautiful headdress like a priest,

and like a bride who adorns herself with her jewelry.

For as the earth produces its growth,

and as a garden causes what has been sown to sprout up,

so God the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up

    in the presence of all the nations.

May your life be filled with righteousness and praise to God’s glory. May you live your life in this Christmas season in a way that shows people you rejoice greatly in the Lord. May your soul celebrate because God has clothed you in garments of salvation. Times are tough these days. And Christmas is going to be different. But the heart of it doesn’t change. Jesus still came for you. As the angel said to those shepherds, “I bring you good news of great JOY for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Christ, the Lord.” Don’t miss the joy!

Amen.