Isaiah 45:22-25 Sermon

PAlm Sunday

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

The Gift-Bearing King Comes

Isaiah 45:22-25

 22 "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; 
      

for I am God, and there is no other.

 23 By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity 
      

a word that will not be revoked: 
      

      Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.

 24 They will say of me, 'In the LORD alone 
are righteousness and strength.' " 
      

All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.

 25 But all the descendants of Israel 
will find deliverance in the LORD

and will make their boast in him. (NIV)

Pocket change certainly would have been out of line.  A cheap scented candle from the Dollar Store would have been insulting.  An extra sample of lotion snagged from the last hotel stay would definitely not cut it.  Such “gifts” would likely be perceived as cheap even by one of your own houseguests, to say nothing of being completely unfit for a king.  Gold, frankincense, and myrrh, on the other hand – those were gifts befitting a king, for the king, Jesus.  Those were the types of gifts worthy of royalty.  After all, that’s usually the way it works, right?  Guests or visitors fortunate enough to have an audience with the king himself will not come empty-handed, but bearing gifts.

And that was the case in the early years of Jesus’ life – his visitors from the East brought him gifts, gifts fit for the King.  But that wasn’t the case on the other end of Jesus’ earthly life, not in his last week before dying.  When Jesus entered into Jerusalem amidst the palm branches, the “hosannas,” and the eager-to-receive-him crowds, he didn’t come to receive gifts.  In Bethlehem, he was on the receiving end of some very generous gifts, and rightly so – he deserved them.  But in Jerusalem, he did not come to receive gifts, but to give them.  What gifts did he come to bring?

With the kind of vision and precision that only a prophet of God could have, the prophet Isaiah described how the Lord Jesus would come: “In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength” (45:24).   Isaiah told of these gifts centuries before Jesus would bring them!  And, detailing with what would be an eerie clarity if we didn’t know him to be a spokesperson of the Lord, Zechariah later echoed the news that Isaiah had foretold two hundred years earlier. He proclaimed, “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).  Adding to the announcement that Jesus would come, “righteous and having salvation,” Zechariah revealed details surrounding the humble manner by which Jesus would enter Jerusalem: riding on a donkey.  The King would enter into Jerusalem humbly, and bearing the gifts of righteousness, strength, and salvation. 

I don’t know that righteousness is perceived by people today as being a necessary a gift.  This may be due to a misunderstanding of what righteousness is.  If people take it to mean “doing the right thing,” then two issues could arise: 1) since your average person is pretty accepting of the fact that everyone makes mistakes, then righteousness ends up ranking pretty low on the list of priorities (why do we need it if we all mess up anyway?), or 2) “right” is such a relative term that no two people may even agree on what qualifies as being “right.”  Either issue is a problem. The second is especially hard to nail down in our day and age, but I feel fairly confident saying that no matter what one’s standards of “doing right the right thing” are, our standards as a society are a far cry from what they once were, and they don’t appear to be improving.

Yes, “right” is relative.  It qualifies anything and everything as being acceptable, so long as it doesn’t hurt others.  If it’s right for you and no one else is harmed by it, then there’s nothing wrong with it.  For example, if the end justifies the means, then lying may be perfectly acceptable.  Taking advantage of my employer or my company because they’re not smart enough to figure out what I’m getting away with isn’t my fault – it’s theirs for not doing a better job of catching stuff like that. 

It was a humorous example when it first aired, but sadly I don’t think it’s all that far off from reality today.  Even if you were never into the television show Seinfeld, you may have been familiar with how the series ended.  All the main characters were in a small town together as they witnessed a crime being committed across the street.  They watched in amusement, making fun of the man being robbed, but they didn’t do anything to help.  The humor came in that they ended up being arrested because of what was referred to as the “Good Samaritan” law, which required that citizens do something to try to help when a crime is being committed.

What was funny then has become reality today.  My wife and I had gone out to see a movie months ago.  After the movie was over, we were in the lobby heading out the front door when suddenly one guy attacked another and started punching him.  At first it didn’t seem real, as if two buddies were perhaps staging something.  But the blood on the face of one of them made it clear the fight was genuine.  After seeing that nothing was being done by any employees or anyone else to break it up, I started walking toward them to try to intervene, at which time others nearer to them finally grabbed a hold of them and worked to pull them apart and calm them down.  When it was under control, I turned back to where my wife had been to see people crowded nearby.  I looked for her outside, and discovered that she had gone out to see if there were any security guards outside at all.  What shocked both of us most about the whole incident was not that two people were fighting, but that so many people standing nearby didn’t feel that the right thing to do was to seek help or try to break it up.  No, apparently the “right” thing to do was whip out your phone and make sure you got as much as possible on video.  So are the mixed up notions of what is “right” in society today.

No, I don’t think the gift of righteousness which Jesus was bringing with him to Jerusalem would be seen as all that valuable if defined simply as “doing the right thing” in a society in which “the right thing” is relative.

But what if righteousness means something other than just doing the right thing?  What if it means being right with God, as in fact it does?  What if entrance into heaven would be impossible without being right with God, as in fact it is?  Then Jesus’ gift of righteousness is quite precious.  Its value increases substantially when I recognize that without a perfect and righteous relationship with God, my eternity will be spent cast off from his presence, confined to the fire of hell and the agony of unrelenting pain.

Yes, righteousness matters.  Isn’t that what God the Father made known at Jesus’ baptism and again at his Transfiguration?  When with his own divine voice he expressed delight with his Son, what was it that pleased the Father?  He was pleased with his Son because Jesus had not missed the mark.  His record of obedience was spotless.  His motives were pure and holy – a perfect reflection of what was in his heart.  The Father was pleased with the Son because in him he truly saw hope for mankind; in him he saw the righteousness that was needed for man to spend eternity with God in heaven.

So as Jesus strode into Jerusalem, he alone could bring the gift of righteousness that we need.  And that gift didn’t come alone, but was accompanied by strength and salvation, as Isaiah pointed out.  For how else can I be strong but in the One who is righteousness for me?  Fortified by his righteousness, I can stand up to Satan and flex my spiritual muscle, for my strength in the face of testing and trial is really none other than Christ’s strength in me.  His righteousness strengthens me.

And it is a strength that also goes hand-in-hand with salvation.  Jesus is our righteousness and strength, to be sure, but he came to Jerusalem to seal the deal, to finish everything and make arrangements to finalize our eternity.  He did that not just by making us right with God, but also by paying the price for when we failed to be right with him on our own.  His reward for gifting us with his righteousness?  He received our sin in return.  And our sin came with consequence: judgment and condemnation.  It came with the full fury of God’s wrath against our damning unrighteousness. 

Yet our King entered into Jerusalem knowing full well that abandonment by the Father was a part of the deal.  It was the cost of the gift he came to give us.  But not just us.  And not just to his chosen people of Jewish heritage; he came to give the gift to all.  It was wrapped up in the invitation God extended to humanity through Isaiah:  "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other” (v.22).  His gift was to reach to the ends of the earth.  His gift has no restrictions.  It cares not of class or color, size or shape, but beckons all to open empty palms and receive his gift freely by faith.

And there is no place for questioning the validity of this invitation to all to receive his gifts of righteousness, strength, and salvation.  His invitation is reliable and trustworthy, for the Lord swore it by the highest power possible; he guaranteed it by his own name.  He said through Isaiah, “By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked” (v.23).  The LORD God swore by his own name a word that does not go out without effect.  His words don’t return to him empty, and his oath cannot be broken.  It is true – the gifts have been given for all.  Let our eyes of faith be ready once again this Holy Week to review the price Jesus paid to make it so.

There was a well-known author who had been disabled by disease and struggled with a certain amount of depression as a result.  While visiting an art palace in Paris and viewing the beautiful statue Venus de Milo, which famously at some point in history lost both arms, he was overcome with emotion.  He threw himself down at the feet of the work of art, filled with despair, and, as he put it, “There I lay a long time, and wept so passionately that a stone must have had compassion on me. The goddess looked down compassionately upon me, but she was helpless to console me. She looked as if she would say – ‘See you not that I have no arms, and that therefore I can give you no help?’” 

So it will be with anyone who looks anywhere but to God for rescue and deliverance.  All others are powerless, but the Lord’s arms are strong to save.  Jesus rode into Jerusalem to prove it.  Our Gift-bearing King came, and he brought righteousness, strength, and salvation as his gifts to you.  May we receive his gifts with hearts of faith, and thank him with lives of gratitude. 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)