Isaiah 12:1-6 Sermon

the fourth sunday in lent

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

The Anger Is Over

Isaiah 12:1-6

In that day you will say:

“I will praise you, Lord. Although you were angry with me,
 your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.
  ² Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.
   The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense;
 he has become my salvation.”
  ³ With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

⁴ In that day you will say:

“Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. ⁵ Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world.
 ⁶ Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.” (NIV)

It was a huge piece of Redwing pottery, larger than a five-gallon bucket.  We stored a couple of logs of firewood and kindling in it by the fireplace.  I was told to get some more wood to replace what was burning in the fireplace.  I don’t remember if it was pure carelessness on my part or a genuine accident, but when I dropped a log in the huge pot and it cracked the bottom, I do remember this: my mother was furious.  She was visibly and vocally livid, and I was on the receiving end of her anger.  However, it didn’t take long for my dad to come in and try to calm her down, explain that she was over-reacting, and basically save my life.  Whatever he did or said, it was enough to cause my mom’s anger to subside.

So which parent is God more like?  Is he the angry one who won’t hesitate to jump down our throats with each transgression, or is he the one who appears to be more understanding, recognizing that sin happens, and it isn’t really anything to get all worked up about? 

Perhaps you’ve heard an expression that tries to answer which type God is: “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin.”  Maybe you’ve even used the expression yourself.  Now, putting the best construction on the statement, it can possibly be understood as a well-intentioned attempt to stress the point that God does not despise one type of sin more than others, or that certain sins are less offensive to him than others.  For example, the statement might be made to point out that God doesn’t hate a homosexual for his sin any more than he does a liar for his.  We can at least appreciate the point the statement is being used to try and make.

However, well-intentioned as it might be, the statement as it stands alone is flat-out false.  It confuses law and gospel.  If God only hates the sin, then what do I have to fear?  He has no issue with me, just with what I’ve done.  His bone to pick is with the wake of disaster sin has left in my life and in the life of others, but he’s not going to hold it against me, because I’m just a sinner and that’s what I do.  I’m like the little toddler who just made a huge mess of things, but daddy understands, because “he didn’t know better.  He’s a toddler, and toddlers do these sorts of things.”

But is that really how God feels?  God doesn’t seem to be that loving toward the wicked throughout the Psalms.  He held accountable with their lives those who rebelled against Moses during the Exodus.  He didn’t hesitate to strike down Ananias and Sapphira when they openly lied to him.  No, let the law do its work.  Let it be clear: God hates sinners because of their sin.

Notice that Isaiah didn’t write, “Although you were angry with my sin,” but rather, “Although you were angry with me.”  Sin is not this separate thing that is independent of us.  Rather, it reveals the true colors of our hearts by nature.  It reveals that we are inherently hostile toward God and that we are his bitter enemies.  Yes, God is angry with you and with me, the crown of his creation, because ever since the Fall just after the Creation, man has habitually harbored hate in his heart toward God.

Do you struggle to see how God could hate sinners because of their sin?  Then point your eyes to the cross.  Have you seen nothing this Lent?  Have you not seen the battered Jesus suspended in agony?  Do not turn away; fix your eyes on the God-man as he hangs there for your sins and my sins, and try to convince yourself that it is merely our sins that God is unhappy with, and that he doesn’t really take issue with the guilty party who committed the sin.  If God really had no problem with man, but only with his sin, then why was it necessary that someone die in man’s place, as his substitute?  Could God not have surmised some alternate plan that wouldn’t see his wrath taken out on an individual, but which would have somehow reflected merely his disappointment at sin?

And then stop to think: if that is how God had to treat his only Son because of sin that was not even his own, how must he really feel toward those responsible for putting his Son there in the first place?  How must he really feel toward you and me?  Can we possibly imagine the thought running through God’s mind, “it should have been them instead of my only Son.  Those despicable sinners deserved it; my Son did not.”   Let it be clear: God hates sinners because of their sin.  Or, to put it as bluntly as it could possibly be put, God hates you and me because of our sin.

That is the stark reality of Isaiah’s words, “Although you were angry with me…” (v.1).  Correction: that would have been the stark reality of Isaiah’s words, if history had not been indelibly impacted by Good Friday.  For on that one day in the history of the world, we have the single greatest paradox the world would ever experience: at Calvary, God’s hatred of sinners because of their sin met head-on with God’s love of sinners because of Christ.  Christ’s crucifixion is the display of God’s divine justice playing out to the fullest, as his wrath toward sinners is cruelly satisfied, yet Christ’s crucifixion is at the very same time the display of God’s divine love for sinners, as that wrath was endured by his own Son in place of you and me.  The cross is a crystal clear preaching of the law, in that it shows the consequence of our sin clearly for us to see.  The cross is also a crystal clear preaching of the gospel, in that it shows how deeply God loves us by turning his wrath away from us on to his own Son.

And so Isaiah’s thought was incomplete.  More needed to be written to bring his statement to a resolution.  “Although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away” (v.1).  God’s people in Isaiah’s day knew from history what it meant for God’s anger to be turned away.  God’s anger showed itself in slavery in Egypt, but that hot anger cooled down in deliverance, when God flexed his almighty muscle and brought his chosen people to the land set apart from them.  God’s people in Isaiah’s day would know not just from history, but also from experience how God’s anger could be turned away.  God’s anger would show itself through captivity and exile, but Isaiah was promising that such anger would turn away as God would restore a remnant of his people and allow them to return back to their homes in Jerusalem.

God had established the pattern throughout history so that man could fully count on him to keep his promise when it mattered most – at Calvary.  Calvary is where God turned his anger away from us.  It is where God shifted his attention from sinners to his Son. 

Now in our dealings with one another we are relieved simply when someone’s anger against us subsides.  In anger – justified or not – someone lays into us, filling our ears with a raging rant or flurry of frustration over something we’ve done.  They yell and scream.  We cringe.  We brace ourselves and hope to ride it out just long enough until the anger passes.  Then when it finally does we breathe a sigh of relief.  Their anger has turned away and we can move on. 

But God did more than just turn his anger away from us at Calvary; through Calvary he comforts us.  Isaiah’s statement was still incomplete.  He concluded it with the thought, “and you have comforted me” (v.1).  Yes, God’s anger turned away, but then God turned back at us again – this time not in anger, but in compassion.  Not to condemn, but to comfort. 

Isn’t that precisely what the cross does?  Crosses adorn the walls of our homes, they hang around our necks, they’re stuck on our bumpers, and they enjoy prominence in our sanctuaries.  And why?  Not because God is still angry with us, but because he is not!  What a powerful statement of love, of mercy, and of grace the cross makes!  It is God’s visual aid to us which says more than a thousand words of the depth of his unconditional love toward us.  At the cross a symbol of rebellion has become a symbol of righteousness!  A symbol of punishment has become a symbol of peace!  A symbol of death has become a symbol of life!  It is an image that can be counted on more than my own emotions, for even when my own feelings betray and disown me, leading me to call into question if my forgiveness is real, the cross cries out with the deafening declaration, “Forgiven!”  Through the cross I am comforted with the absolute assurance, “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.  The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation”
(v.2).  The devil will assail me.  The world will deceive me.  But the cross will always comfort me, for through it God has revealed that he is the source of my strength and my salvation.

When we have that comfort, that peace of mind that in Christ Jesus we are safe and secure, objects of God’s forgiveness instead of his fury, then, as Isaiah pointed out, there is a faith-filled response.  “Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.  Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world.
 ⁶ Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you” (v. 4-6).

The anger is over, dear friends.  God left it at the cross.  Let’s live like that profoundly life-changing news is the actual reality in our lives.  Thank the Lord as you praise him in Word and worship.  Proclaim his completed work of salvation and the marvels of eternal life in Jesus Christ to one another, but make it known also “among the nations” and “to all the world.”  Look forward with renewed excitement to the joy of Easter that will soon be upon us and consider one person – just one – to whom you can proclaim the peace provided by the Resurrection.  Don’t hesitate.  Don’t wait.  Don’t avoid.  Tell him/her what you are so privileged to know: the anger is over.  God loves sinners because of Christ. Amen.

“For the freer confidence is from one’s own works, and the more exclusively it is directed toward Christ alone, so much better is the Christian it makes.” (Luther)