EPIPHANY SUNDAY (2)
Text: Isaiah 60:1-6.
Source from Back to Luther with German archive reference. Back to Walther's Epistle Sermons.
Praised be to you, Lord Jesus Christ, for you have come, a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel; praised by to you, the Dayspring from on high; you have visited us, so that you have appeared to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and direct our feet on the way of peace Arise over us also as the Sun of truth and grace through your Holy Gospel, so that we may learn to know you, believe in you, persevere in you until death, and some day see your glory in heaven in eternal joy. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ Jesus.
As we all know, today we celebrate the Christmas of the heathen. Without a doubt this festival should have a twofold character among us, a festival of thanks and a festival of prayer.
First of all, it should be a festival of the most sincere and purest thanks. For how can we, most of whom have descended from the heathen, ever thank God enough that he called us through the Gospel into his kingdom of grace and through Holy Baptism received us into his covenant of grace? Our German ancestors lived at one time in the most abominable idolatry; they prayed to the sun as the mother of all gods; that is why they called the first day of the week Sunday; they, as St, Paul says of the heathen, turned the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image and honored and served the creature more than the Creator, who is praised into all eternity. They stifled the voice of their conscience and made gods for themselves after the evil tendency of their heart. Of their o wn free will our ancestors left God’s people, had become a wild olive tree, and did not want to grow upon God’s field.
Our fathers and we with them therefore were aliens and outside the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise (Eph 2,12). God had given the German people no promise which he had to keep, as he gave the Israelites. It was therefore God's unutterable, free grace and mercy, when Boniface appeared in the oak forests of Germany in the eighth century and preached
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about the Son of God who became a man also for them. But even more amazing is the grace which God permitted the Germans to experience later in the 16th Century, when he chose our fatherland to be the cradle of the Reformation. At that time God let the light of the Gospel shine among our father with such a brightness as had not been seen since the times of the apostles.
My friends, if German blood flows in our veins, should not every heartbeat today be a thanks for the incomparable grace which we Germans have received from God? that we wild olive branches were grafted into the good olive tree of the Jewish Church and cultivated as his dearest of all plants? Why did not God choose those millions in Asia and the wilds of Africa who still sit in heathen darkness and in the shadow of death instead of us? Why did God choose us who were in between and made us, strangers and foreigners, citizens with the saints and of God's household? We must exclaim with Paul: "God hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." 2 Tim 1,9. Oh, thank, thank the Lord, for he is good and his mercy endureth forever.
But, my friends, if we today on the Christmas of the heathen look about us in the inhabited world, might not our hearts weep bitterly, when we see the countless numbers for whom Christ's coming into the world still has been in vain, who according to an incomprehensible decree are either out and out idolaters or are captive of the lies of Mohammed? and when we also see that so many of God's chosen people in unaccountable blindness still are waiting for him who has already come?
That certainly should make this day truly a day of prayer, in which we most earnestly pray.; Lord, let thy kingdom come! Let it come to those who do not yet know your salvation; let the light of the Gospel arise upon them. See, the harvest is great, but the laborers are few; oh send faithful workers into your great harvest; send great hosts of faithful evangelists; heavenly Father, give the heathen as your Son's inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession. "Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow at thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries." Is 64,1.2a.
Such an earnest prayer for the poor heathen should live continually, and most especially today, in the heart of a Christian.
And my friends, since a true concern for the deliverance of the heathen through the Gospel can in our hearts only when we ourselves have known and experienced the glory of the Gospel and its saving power, let the consideration of this glory be the subject of our today's devotion.
Quote the text here: Isaiah 60, 1-6.
The Jewish Church at the time of the prophet Isaiah was in sad circumstances. The number of believers had melted away to such an extent that Isaiah says in the first chapter: "And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah." Is 1,8.9. In the 6th chapter he compares Israel to an oak and a linden tree which have cast their leaves with only the trunk standing. And to this that the prophet had predicted that the people would be led captive into Babylon. All this had crushed the spirit of the few believers very much. In concern they asked: Is the promise of the
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blessing of all nations at an end? Do we hope in vain for its fulfilment? Out text contains a faith-strengthening answer. On its basis I present to you:
THE GLORIFICATION OF GOD THROUGH THE WORLD-WIDE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL
1. Through the Glorious Nature of This Preaching, and,
2. By Its Miraculous Spread Into All the Word.
I.
That God accepted fallen man and had his dear Son become man for them, that, my friends, is a doctrine which became known in heaven and on earth, a doctrine which no created spirit could have discovered; the teaching that all sinners who believe in the incarnate Son of God should be righteous and be eternally blessed; and this doctrine is called the Gospel, the good news.
Of course, this good news was preached in the time of the Old Covenant, yet the Law still prevailed; for by it hearts should be prepared to long for the coming of God's Son and then to hear the sweet Gospel in still greater clarity.
Isaiah prophecies of this New Testament time in our text says to the faithful little flock of the Old Covenant: " Arise, shine !" In the Old Testament the sitting in darkness signified the state of sorrow. Isaiah therefore means to say: You believers, why do you sit in care and sorrow? " Arise !" Get up you who lie in the dust, and leap and jump; why do you remain in the night of little faith and doubt? Why do you let your souls be darkened by the clouds of tribulation? " Shine !" that is, stop sorrowing and become joyful.
Isaiah now mentions the basis for his encouragement: " For thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." V. 1. See what a glorious description of the doctrine of the Gospel. Isaiah first of all compares it with the Law, which in the Old Testament times had been richly and clearly revealed. He wants to say: Yes, the Law is also a light, but only a light of the Lord; in the Gospel, however, your light comes, oh men, in which you can be joyful; yes, the Law is also full of the glory of the Lord; it reveals God's holiness and righteousness, but in the Gospel the glory of the Lord is risen upon you, that is, God will be glorious also in you, because he gives you in the Gospel his glorious treasures, righteousness, life, and salvation.
Therefore, if we want to rejoice in God's glory, we are not see it in the Law, but we must look for it in the Gospel. The Law does not proclaim joy but eternal sorrow; it does not show us how we can become righteous before God, but how unrighteous we are; the Law does not show us the way to salvation, but reveals to us that we are lost.
To be sure, the Law is necessary. We must first learn from it that we are sinners, otherwise we would not esteem the Savior; from its pages we must come to perceive the sickness of our soül, otherwise we would not ask for the heavenly Physician; from it we must learn to know God's earnestness and wrath over our sins and the greatness of our guilt, otherwise we would not seek our
refuge in Christ's reconciliation and payment.
But unhappy is he who remains with the Law, and seeks his righteousness in fulfilling the Law; unhappy is he who wants to appease the holy God with his imperfect good works and purchase salvation by himself. Such a person either just does not recognize how much the Law demands, for the Law demands infinitely more than we poor human beings can accomplish; or, when he learns to see into it, he must despair.
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When man was still in the state of innocence, he should and could be righteous before God and be saved by obeying the Law; but now that we all have fallen, it is impossible for us to come to God this way; now we are merely to be brought to the knowledge of our fall.
God has revealed a new doctrine, and this is the Gospel; it does not say: Do this, keep that, suffer that; but: Oh man, know that you have fallen and can not help yourself; what you could not do God has done; he sent his dear Son into the world for you; accept him as your Savior, you Mediator, your Intercessor; believe in him and your sins will be forgiven; in this way God will be your gracious God and you will be saved.
Oh " Arise !"; do not remain in your sins but confess them; do not despair, " shine," be happy, " for your light is come;" your Savior, who is the light of your joy, comes to you, " and the glory of the Lord," his grace, his righteousness, his heaven, " is risen upon thee." Accept Christ just as you are, in all your unworthiness, and he will give himself to you, as he is in all his grace and righteousness.
Oh glorious Gospel! Oh pardoned world, oh sinful world where this sermon dare resound! How gloriously are you visited! The Gospel is a doctrine which does not demand something from poor weak men, as does the Law, but offers all of them help for time and for eternity. The Gospel does not accuse men of being sinners, but immediately gives them Christ's righteousness in return. It does not impose a new burden but takes away the load. The Gospel does not demand that man be someone else, but only that he despair of his own power and accept the grace which makes him someone else. The Gospel makes the vale of tears on this world an annex of heaven, which it opens to us wherever we are. In short, the Gospel is the very teaching which we sinful and helpless men need. Oh, blessed is he who has experienced it in his heart and still experiences it daily!
Isaiah continues in our text: " For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee." V. 2. That is a powerful assertion. With these words the prophet declares that the Jews are the ones from whom all other nations must get light and wisdom. How could the prophet do that? In culture, in the arts and sciences, were not the Jews are behind many other nations? The Egyptians, Arabians, and Persians far excelled the Jews in science and astronomy; the Phoenicians surpassed them in business and shipbuilding, the Greeks and Romans in all the branches of worldly wisdom.
The prophet lets all this stand as learning for this world; he speaks of a wisdom which says what a person is, what his destiny is, how he stands with God, and how he can come to God; none of the worldly wise could answer these questions. When it comes right down to it, the greatest philosophers surmise that there is one God and that man also lives on after death, but even about that they could produce only a few weak convictions; the people stayed in their gross idolatry. The philosophers themselves did not know that man was created holy and good for salvation and communion with God, but that man fell; still less could they surmise how to return to God.
If the wisest man of antiquity could now hear one school child who has been given a Christian education speak about God, the destiny of man, and eternal life, he would be astounded; and if he would not resist it, he would joyfully find in it the answer to all his questions, at whose investigation he at one time fell into e ve r deeper darkness. In our text the prophet therefore calls everything night which is not Gospel;, he calls the time of the Old Testament the dawn, and the time of the New the time of the full day and says: "Be hold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee."
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Oh, what a glorious Gospel! Though it is always ridiculed by many, who wish to be the wisest, as darkness and enthusiasm, it still remains the only light of all people. Isaiah therefore continues: " And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising." V. 3. If the scoffers still have one truth, they have borrowed it from the Gospel; those who contemptuously look down on the revelation of the Bible will even now, as the learned Egyptians and people of the East, worship animals and the fire, or as the learned Greeks and Romans kneel and sacrifice before images of wood or marble, had not the light of Gospel, which they ridicule, risen upon them. You see, that is the way the moon mocks the sun for being so dark, the moon which receives its light only from something else.
Oh that God would open the eyes of all to see the wondrous glory of the gracious Gospel of Christ! They would recognize that even kings walk in its light, that all earthly glory is infinitely far outshone by the glory of the Gospel.
II.
My friends, Isaiah also proves that God is glorified through the Gospel by the quick way it spreads into all the world. And that is the second point to which we will direct our attention.
Our text is more of a living, prophetic picture than a talk; in all Holy Writ there is scarcely its equal. Isaiah lived 800 years before Christ, working in a time of one of the greatest declines of Jacob's family; and yet so little does he doubt the coming of the Promised One that he does not say: "Thy light will come," but he cries, as though he saw it dawning: " Thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee."
But even more! Before the prophetic eyes of this truly wise man the unknown future centuries open up, the curtain is drawn aside, and with clear eyes he looks beyond the birth of the Savior, yes, beyond his resurrection and ascension and calls to the little flock of believers: " Lift up thine eyes round about, and see; all they gather themselves together, they come to thee." V. 4. He means to say: I see the apostles of the Lord going out into all the world and millions of heathen are gathering themselves into the Church of Jesus Christ. He therefore continues: " Thy sons," the spiritual sons of the Church, " shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee. The multitudes of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord." Vv. 4b-6.
And all this has been fulfilled in the most wonderful way. On the very first Pentecost thousands from all the regions of the world were won for Christ by Peter's sermon. However, among those who are converted Isaiah mentions first the hosts of the sea; if in the Old Testament only the sea is mentioned without further designation, it means the Mediterranean Sea, which borders not only on Palestine but which also washes the shores of three continents, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Gospel also had won its first and greatest victories among the hosts of this sea; there worked St. Paul who filled all Asia Minor, Greece with its islands, and Italy with the Gospel, and as it seems also Spain, while Mark founded the African congregation, especially those in Egypt, by his sermons.
Now Isaiah adds; "The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromdaries of Midian and Ephah." He means to say: Also those who live where the
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camels live will accept the Gospel. They are especially the countries of the east and south, Persia and Arabia up to India in the east and Ethiopia in the south. Of the beginning of the Gospel in the eastern countries not only the wise men from the east bear witness who today in Bethlehem swore allegiance to the new-born King of heaven, and not only does the treasurer of Queen Candace of Ethiopia from the south, whom Philipp brought to faith and baptized, but church history reports that the Apostle Thomas preached Christ Crucified most to the Medes and Persians, and Bartholomew sealed his witness of Christ in India with his blood. It is also known that Matthias was the herald of the Gospel in southern Ethiopia, and that the great nation of Russia recognizes Andrew as their apostle in the northernmost country; he likewise confirmed his Evangelical preaching with a martyr's death on the cross at Patras in Achaea.
Thus at the death of the apostles they could point to what Isaiah once many centuries before had prophesied as being fulfilled before their very eyes: " Lift up thine eyes round about." on Church of the living God, " and see; all they" from the four corners of the earth " gather themselves together, they come to thee." v.4a, and fall before the Son of God who became a man.
Yes, that has happened. Where today are the boundaries of the kingdom of Jesus Christ? Which earthly ruler can point to as wide a kingdom upon earth as he who died a shameful death upon the cross? Which country does not have subjects who have sworn allegiance in Holy Baptism to the bloody flag of their Redeemer? Yes, the voice of the Gospel has gone out with power into all lands, and its sound to the ends of the world! It has penetrated the jungles of Africa; it has gone as far as the icy reaches of the dark northland; it has re-echoed throughout the isles of the Pacific Ocean; it has made its way through the gates of the Americas which Satan had kept barred for a long time by the powerful bolt of the ocean; Jesus Christ is the only King, who, as the Scriptures predicted, rules in the midst of his enemies.
There is no language or speech in which the name of Jesus is not named; all differences of country, nation, and color have fallen; everywhere men confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. Many emperors, kings, rulers, and lords have laid down their scepters, crowns, and purple before the shepherd's staff of the Good Shepherd, and have humbly worshipped at the foot of the cross.
Oh, how magnificently God glorified himself by his miraculous spreading of the Gospel! If in view of this great speed on the part of those who spread the Gospel we would look at the lowliness and poverty of the messengers of the Gospel, or upon the contemptuousness of their weapons, or upon the number or power of the foe, or upon the countless host of those who became believers, or upon the rivers of blood which it has cost these defenseless messengers, and upon the unprecedented steadfastness of millions of martyrs, we would only be amazed. If anyone can not see God glorified here, where will he see God's honor?
Must not that Gospel be from God, which without the least glimmer of human wisdom and display of human might subjects the whole world to itself? The more the confessors of the Gospel were persecuted, the more blood they shed, the more gloriously the field of the Church blossomed. The persecutions were like a hurricane which instead of extinguishing the holy fire of faith and confession fanned it the more into a raging flame, so that it spread farther and farther and continually kindled more hearts. Oh that was a greater miracle than the fall of the walls of Jericho when the priests blew the trumpets; for when the trumpet blast sounded from the lips of the twelve apostolic heralds, the walls of the Jericho of the entire world fell and we see the victory banner of Jesus Christ lifted high everywhere.
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Of course, the Christian Church did not reckon among its members during the first three centuries a single emperor, yet that very fact proves that it was not the power of the sword but the power of the Gospel itself, which laid men in the dust before Him who took pity on them.
So then, my dear hearers, feed your souls by pondering this fact and let it strengthen your faith, even though the mocking world wants to turn the Gospel into something contemptible. Though the blind may always deny the brightness of the sun of the Gospel, it nevertheless continues to shine before the open eyes of all believers and brings with it light, life, true joy, and heavenly peace.
But above ail, I ask everyone of you: Has the glorious Gospel been able to prove itself in your? Of what profit is it to you if you are amazed at the great speed with which the Gospel spread through the world and conquered it, if it has not conquered your heart?
If you wish to know whether you belong among those who believe in Christ, then listen to the last word of our text. There Isaiah says: " All they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord." V.6b. This describes those who accept the Gospel. They bring gold, and that is the gold of faith. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is truly your Savior also? We read, that they also bring incense and that is the incense of prayer. Do you talk with God every day in prayer? A Christian who does not pray is not a Christian.
Finally we read: They will show forth the praises of the Lord. Do you do that? Do you no longer seek your own praise but only the praise of your Lord Jesus Christ? do you confess from your heart that you are a poor miserable sinner and that you comfort yourself in his grace alone? Are you endeavoring to live so that God is glorified by your life? I ask you, if you do that, are you really and truly in earnest? Believe me, he who tastes the grace of the Gospel can be nothing else but thankful.
Now, you who detect that you lack something, know that God has kept you until this very hour and caused the glory of the Gospel to be expounded to you again today so that you can accept it from your heart. In conclusion I therefore say to you: Wake up thou that sleepest and rise from the dead and Christ will give you light. Perceive how in the past you have not glorified God but by your words and deeds robbed him of it, and accept Christ as your righteousness and he will give you grace to show forth his praise quite soon by a new life.
Once again I say to you: " Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." To him be honor in the congregation which is in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.