Shall We Be Saved?

“Shall We Be Saved?”                                                      Isaiah 64:1-9

     We have come to the beginning of the New Church Year.  I guess I could say “Happy New Year!”  As you know, the Church Year does not follow the calendar year.  Instead it follows the major Church festivals.  Seasons of the Church Year are related to the celebrations of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost.  Since Jesus’ birth seems like a logical place to start, then a season of preparation for Jesus’ coming would seem reasonable.  There are really two main themes for the Advent season, which gets its name from Latin and means to come to.  We prepare our hearts for Jesus to come to us.  His first coming has already happened of course so we can’t really prepare for that but we can consider what that coming means for us.  While we do that, we also have to remember that Jesus will be coming again and we need to prepare our hearts for that time when He will come to judge the world and take His people to their heavenly home.  That theme carries over from the last part of the church year when we also talk about the end times.  Advent is a time for us to consider all of what Jesus did for us and what He will do when the final promise is fulfilled through His second coming. 

     Through it all, Advent is considered one of the penitential seasons, a time for repentance as we consider what Jesus did to bring us back to the Father.  Our Old Testament lesson for today calls us to join with God’s people in a prayer for mercy.  When we consider our sin and how it is an offense to God, we may ask the question that we find in the text.  “Shall we be saved?”  That question often comes to mind when we are faced with the reality of our sin.  Can I be saved?  Have I been too rebellious?  Could God really love me after all I have done?  Thankfully there is a positive answer to that question and as we consider the message of Isaiah the Prophet, may we see how that will have an effect on our Advent preparations.

      In our text, the prophet leads the people of Israel in a prayer that acknowledges their sin.  For a long time the people of Israel had put God’s mercy to the test.  They had followed after false gods.  They had mixed pagan worship with the God-given acts of worship and just generally had been a rebellious people.  The only way that they would be shaken from their spiritual slumber would be if God would suddenly come down and bring some kind of destruction on them.  During the time of Isaiah, that destruction came from foreign powers that came in and destroyed their land and carried many of the people off into captivity in Babylon. 

     While the destruction and the captivity was a drastic call to repentance, it was necessary in order to remind them that God was still in charge.  In the words of verse five the people cry out, “Behold you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been along time, and shall we be saved?”  The lament then continued in the next verses where they spoke of being unclean.  Their righteous acts are even like a polluted garment.  “We fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.  There is no one who calls upon your name who rouses himself to take hold of you.”  Those are the words of a people who know that they have sinned.  They have admitted their sin and that is the first step in repentance.  They look to God even though they know that they don’t deserve anything from Him but punishment. 

     Hearing a cry like that ought to make you feel a bit uncomfortable.  It shouldn’t be hard for you to relate to the sins of the people of Israel during Isaiah’s time because they are the sins of people of all time.  The inherited sin that brought about all of those sinful behaviors is in each of you.  Left to yourself, you would have to say right along with the people of old that you are also unclean, your righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.  You may wonder if you will be saved.

     But the prophet Isaiah continues by acknowledging that there is hope.  “But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”  What a wonderful reminder!  You are our Father.  A father loves his children dearly.  He does not like the disobedient and rebellious behaviors of his children but he disciplines them in love.  The whole purpose of punishment is to help them to see the error of their ways and bring them back in repentance.  That is why we look to God as our Father.  He has created us and He loves us with an everlasting love.  He may discipline us  for a time but it is in love that we often have to deal with suffering.  He does want us to be saved.  He wants what is best for us and that is to be brought back into His loving arms for all eternity.  He also recognizes our inability to do what is necessary for us to be reconciled to Him on our own.  We may try but all of our efforts are going to fail because of our continued sinful behaviors that stem from that sinful nature that is a part of our being. 

     At the beginning of the reading for today, the cry of the people was, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down.”  Actually that was God’s plan from the beginning.  When sin entered the world, God promised that the seed of the woman would destroy the seed of the devil.  That first Gospel promise would be fulfilled when God would sent His only Son into the world.  True God from all eternity came down from heaven to earth to be one of us so that He could take our place.  He took out place under the Law and kept it perfectly.  He then suffered a horrible death on the cross as the punishment for our sins.  The Son was then raised from the dead to show His victory over sin, death and the devil.  His victory is our victory as well.  He then sent the Holy Spirit to work faith in our hearts to believe and trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior so that we could be saved from all that we deserve because of our sin. 

      Here we can recall the words of the prophet again when he says that we are the clay and the Lord is the potter.  We are the work of His hand.  He has taken us and molded us into His special people.  He is the creator and He shapes us into His own special vessels.  We are the work of His hand and therefore we live to serve the purpose that He has in mind for us.  The answer to the question about being saved is an emphatic, “Yes!”  We have been saved by God’s grace alone.  He declares us righteous because of His great love, so great that He sent His only Son to earth to take our place under the law and on the cross. He gives us the power of the Holy Spirit in the Means of Grace to believe in Jesus and respond His love. 

     That is what we celebrate as we remember Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem.  Jesus came to be our Savior.  That is what moves us to true repentance whenever God’s love is brought home to us as we hear His word.  As we hear the Advent prophecies about the coming of the Messiah, we can remember that it was God’s plan to save us.  As we hear the Advent Gospel lessons about John the Baptist calling people to repentance, that was part of God’s plan to save us.  As we celebrate the birth of the Savior, that was the fulfillment of God’s promise to send His own Son to be our Savior.  Throughout the Advent season, though, we have to remember that there is one more prophecy that has yet to be fulfilled.  We have to remember that Jesus will come again, just as He promised.  May we keep in mind that God is our Father.  He loves us and cares for us and has provided for our salvation.  Because of His great love, there should be no doubt in our minds that, yes, we will be saved.    Amen.

And the peace which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.