Isaiah 61:1-11 on December 15th, 2024
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
Below is transcript pulled from the video and formatted by artificial intelligence. There may be inconsistencies or errors.
Waiting. We don't like waiting. Especially when we are expecting something to happen. It is that time of year when I obsessively refresh my Amazon app tracking packages hopeful for an early arrival. We wait in a lot of areas of our lives. There is easy, simple waiting like for a sermon to start or for packages. We wait for food at a restaurant or for Christmas morning. We wait in line at the store for the light to turn green for a roller coaster ride. When we pass the time, we chat, we play a game, we scroll on our phones. That kind of waiting isn't so bad. It's just part of life.
Of course, there is waiting that is harder. We wait for the test results. We wait at the bedside of a loved one. We wait for grief to subside. We wait. And the waiting can wear us down. It can make us restless, even hopeless. Whether it's routine or heart wrenching, waiting shapes us. Waiting is a part of life.
And whether you knew it or not, we have been waiting as we have gone through the story of the Bible this year. The entire story itself in a way is about waiting on God. Which sounds a little bit odd, I know, considering that God has been active in every single story that we've read. But in those stories, each and every time we the people mess it up. And then God comes in to save, to fix, to give, to lead. I mean, that, after all, was the covenant that God made with the people. It's what God agreed to do. In short, God would be God doing all those God things, and we would be God's people. And as God's people, we were to live according to God's ways. We were to shine God's light to the nations, share good news with the world and set people free from whatever it is that holds them back from truly being God's child.
And that's the covenant that we've heard week after week after week. And up to now, God's covenant has been this incredible act of faithfulness. God doing those God things again and again despite our failures. And yet that covenant, as great as it is, has always felt like an unfinished story. A temporary bandaid, a cycle that just kept repeating. And this isn't because God dropped the ball, but because we stuck in our brokenness, we're unable to live out our part of the covenant. The old covenant showed us God's mercy, but it also consistently revealed our inability to fulfill our end of the deal.
But today is a turning point. Today God declares something radically different. In verse 8, God speaks, I will make an everlasting covenant with them. This isn't just another chance or a temporary rescue. It's not merely a promise for better laws or a cleaner slate to begin with. This is a new eternal promise, a covenant that transforms everything. It's no longer about what we can do to uphold our end of the covenant, but what God will do to fulfill it forever. It's the end breaking of God's very self into our world. God has embodied in the one anointed by God's spirit. The one who proclaims good news to the oppressed, binds up the broken heart. It sets the captive free. It's about God coming to do for us what we have not and cannot do.
And it's not like the old covenant where we could screw things up. This covenant is so much more than that. This is God stepping fully into our brokenness, bringing justice, salvation and freedom not as a temporary fix, but as a permanent redemption. And the fact that Jesus uses these verses and says, today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, well, that is God's ultimate liberty, release and good news. Because in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's eternal covenant is insured, showing us that God's faithfulness will never, ever fail.
However, it's easy to read this passage as a promise that that's too good to be true, as a mission that's too hard to live with characteristics that are too lofty to attain. This is a prophet, after all, preaching about life beyond this world. It'll all be fulfilled one day. These issues seem like we're still waiting, doesn't it? The thing about prophets and the visions that they share and the claims that they make, they seem so very far off, but they name them anyway. They share them anyway. They live them anyway. And they do that because God is active anyway. Despite our excuses and our impatience, God is active anyway. God works in us and through us anyway. God pours out the Spirit. We have the promise and the love of God. We have an eternal covenant. We have forgiveness, grace and love, and it is not dependent on us, not on what we have done or what we have left undone, not on our effort or our prayers or our holiness. This promise is wholly and completely because of who God is.
And knowing that we are loved, it changes how we live. It brings us peace, it brings us freedom, joy, hope. The much of the world doesn't know this, live this, share this, show this. So while we wait, sure and certain of who God is, we are instruments, voices, bearers of God's eternal covenant love. Because God is love, we share that love freely. Because God promises liberation, we set people free who are captive. We hope that God is bringing so much, we hope in what God is bringing so much that we are active participants in making it happen. We live the vision that we want to see right now. It's kind of that definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We work with God to make it true today simply because we expect that God is already bringing it to pass.
The hope and the promise that we have in God changes how we see the world. The covenant and the love that we have from God change how we treat the world. The spirit and the calling that we have through God change how we live in the world. The hope that we have in Christ is not a vague wish but a sure and certain promise. Jesus is the fulfillment of God's covenant and the first fruits of liberation, healing and justice proclaimed in Isaiah. This promise assures us that God's work of redemption is already underway even as we await its ultimate fulfillment.
For some things it is hard to wait but we don't wait empty handed. Through baptism we are sealed with the spirit and freed from the bondage to sin and death. At the communion table we taste grace and we rejoice in the presence of Christ among us. These sacraments remind us that the everlasting covenant is not some distant hope but it's a present reality. It is hard to wait but thanks be to God that we don't have to wait to hear those words of promise. We don't have to wait to see hope, to feel love, to taste grace and we don't have to wait alone. Because God is with us and together as a community we are held in that faithful promise of a God who never fails. So even as we wait we rejoice because the God who promises is the same God who fulfills always. Amen.