WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.725 --> 00:00:04.225
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord

2
00:00:04.225 --> 00:00:06.125
and Savior Jesus Christ.

3
00:00:06.525 --> 00:00:07.025
Amen.

4
00:00:09.225 --> 00:00:12.625
Lipstick on a pig.

5
00:00:15.225 --> 00:00:18.125
What is the point of beauty?

6
00:00:19.025 --> 00:00:21.025
What is the value of beauty?

7
00:00:21.125 --> 00:00:26.125
What is the point of making beauty or caring about beauty or loving

8
00:00:26.125 --> 00:00:26.825
beauty?

9
00:00:27.925 --> 00:00:35.325
In a world of aging and injury, death and disease floods, and fires,

10
00:00:35.725 --> 00:00:44.525
warfare, hatred, theft, vandalism, vanity, cynicism and sorrow.

11
00:00:46.125 --> 00:00:52.325
Isn't every effort toward beauty, just a vain act of denial?

12
00:00:52.425 --> 00:00:54.825
Just a pretense. In the end

13
00:00:55.025 --> 00:00:57.425
isn't every glimpse of beauty

14
00:00:58.225 --> 00:01:01.325
nothing more than lipstick on a pig.

15
00:01:03.425 --> 00:01:04.525
This last Saturday

16
00:01:04.525 --> 00:01:07.125
I attended the funeral of a seminarian.

17
00:01:08.525 --> 00:01:14.025
He was a man who had only recently arrived here and begun his studies.

18
00:01:14.025 --> 00:01:18.825
He was excited for the opportunity later in life, to prepare for the

19
00:01:18.825 --> 00:01:19.625
ministry.

20
00:01:21.025 --> 00:01:25.425
At the funeral, numerous people commented on his smile

21
00:01:25.425 --> 00:01:26.125
in life.

22
00:01:26.825 --> 00:01:33.725
His smile had been big and constant and inviting and infectious a

23
00:01:33.725 --> 00:01:36.925
bright smile, beautiful smile.

24
00:01:38.625 --> 00:01:44.825
But on Saturday, loved ones gathered around his mortal remains an urn

25
00:01:44.925 --> 00:01:45.925
of ashes.

26
00:01:48.325 --> 00:01:49.325
This last weekend

27
00:01:49.325 --> 00:01:52.725
I opened up Facebook and half the post that I came across where the

28
00:01:52.725 --> 00:01:56.625
beautiful white country church in Beecher, Illinois, with a beautiful

29
00:01:56.625 --> 00:02:00.425
sanctuary and a beautiful chancel, and above the altar.

30
00:02:00.425 --> 00:02:05.325
This beautiful painting large wall, painting of the resurrection of

31
00:02:05.325 --> 00:02:09.925
Christ with the terrified soldiers, falling to the ground and the

32
00:02:09.925 --> 00:02:12.525
angel sitting on the opened tomb.

33
00:02:14.625 --> 00:02:18.025
And I think many of, you know where this story is going Facebook.

34
00:02:18.025 --> 00:02:22.325
Posts were of this beautiful church engulfed in fire.

35
00:02:23.225 --> 00:02:24.325
Black billowing

36
00:02:24.325 --> 00:02:28.625
smoke something about a shorted fuse in the steeple and the church

37
00:02:28.625 --> 00:02:32.825
burned to the ground, just charred wood and ashes.

38
00:02:34.625 --> 00:02:36.425
In the Prophecies of Isaiah

39
00:02:36.425 --> 00:02:41.825
he foretells a day when the splendor of God's own Holy City Jerusalem,

40
00:02:41.825 --> 00:02:48.225
and it's Temple have been reduced to ashes and even mighty proud,

41
00:02:48.325 --> 00:02:50.725
beautiful Babylon itself.

42
00:02:50.725 --> 00:02:54.825
The queen of the world with its impressive structures, and it's

43
00:02:54.825 --> 00:02:59.025
vaunted hanging gardens, will be laid low in the dust of History,

44
00:02:59.025 --> 00:03:04.025
Isaiah says. And yet Isaiah still speaks

45
00:03:04.525 --> 00:03:09.725
of beauty as something that is real and lasting something more than

46
00:03:09.725 --> 00:03:14.525
pretence or a delusion, something more than lipstick on a pig.

47
00:03:15.725 --> 00:03:20.325
Isaiah prophesied, the coming of the Lord's Messiah, Jesus Christ,

48
00:03:20.725 --> 00:03:25.725
arise Shine for your light has come. Nations

49
00:03:25.725 --> 00:03:29.625
will come to your light and Kings to the brightness of your rising. In

50
00:03:29.625 --> 00:03:30.225
that day

51
00:03:30.225 --> 00:03:31.425
the Lord promises

52
00:03:31.725 --> 00:03:37.125
I will beautify my beautiful house. And people's from distant

53
00:03:37.125 --> 00:03:42.025
places will come with silver and gold to honor the name of our God.

54
00:03:42.925 --> 00:03:49.425
Because he has made you beautiful. Isaiah chapter 60 closes with an

55
00:03:49.425 --> 00:03:51.725
assurance of the certainty of this promise.

56
00:03:52.025 --> 00:03:53.725
I am Yahweh.

57
00:03:55.225 --> 00:03:58.125
In its time, I will hasten it.

58
00:03:59.025 --> 00:04:01.125
And Isaiah 61 continues

59
00:04:01.125 --> 00:04:04.425
this promise of beauty, as the gift of the Messiah.

60
00:04:04.425 --> 00:04:08.325
The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me.

61
00:04:09.325 --> 00:04:14.425
To Grant to those who mourn in Zion to give them a beautiful headdress

62
00:04:14.625 --> 00:04:19.425
instead of ashes. The oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment

63
00:04:19.425 --> 00:04:23.725
of praise instead of a faint spirit. And Isaiah continues

64
00:04:24.025 --> 00:04:26.625
I Will Rejoice greatly in the Lord

65
00:04:26.725 --> 00:04:31.925
my soul shall exalt in my God for, he has clothed me with the garments

66
00:04:31.925 --> 00:04:32.925
of Salvation.

67
00:04:33.125 --> 00:04:36.325
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness.

68
00:04:36.525 --> 00:04:39.025
As a bridegroom decks himself like a

69
00:04:39.125 --> 00:04:45.325
priest with a beautiful headdress and as a bride, adorns herself with

70
00:04:45.325 --> 00:04:46.125
jewels.

71
00:04:48.425 --> 00:04:50.125
Our God will do this.

72
00:04:50.925 --> 00:04:55.325
This work of beautiful clothing and adornment. The god

73
00:04:55.325 --> 00:04:59.925
whom Isaiah saw seated on a throne high and lifted up the trains of

74
00:04:59.925 --> 00:05:02.725
his own, Royal robes filling the Heavenly Temple.

75
00:05:02.725 --> 00:05:08.725
The God who wraps himself in brilliant splendor with shining light and

76
00:05:08.725 --> 00:05:13.525
the stars themselves as His Garment. Above him stand the mighty

77
00:05:13.525 --> 00:05:17.325
cherubim themselves wrapped in fire and crying out.

78
00:05:17.325 --> 00:05:20.125
Holy holy holy is Yahweh

79
00:05:21.025 --> 00:05:25.125
of hosts Heaven and Earth are full of his glory.

80
00:05:26.825 --> 00:05:30.425
In his presence, Isaiah found himself thoroughly

81
00:05:30.425 --> 00:05:31.225
unclean.

82
00:05:32.025 --> 00:05:36.025
Utterly ruined. Desperately ugly.

83
00:05:37.925 --> 00:05:41.425
Without the messiah's coming apart from his work

84
00:05:41.425 --> 00:05:45.525
we too have only the garments of despair.

85
00:05:45.525 --> 00:05:53.225
We are soiled in sin, stuck in morning smeared with ash has dingy with

86
00:05:53.225 --> 00:05:55.525
death. Apart from the messiah's coming

87
00:05:55.725 --> 00:06:00.425
we would be dressed only in ugly bedraggled clothing

88
00:06:00.725 --> 00:06:02.625
emblazoned with the words.

89
00:06:03.625 --> 00:06:05.025
All done.

90
00:06:07.425 --> 00:06:08.225
Hopeless.

91
00:06:10.025 --> 00:06:10.825
Damned.

92
00:06:13.325 --> 00:06:17.325
Are the weight in the gloom of these last two years, really all that

93
00:06:17.325 --> 00:06:21.125
different than the thousands of years that came before.

94
00:06:21.925 --> 00:06:26.325
We live in a broken world cursed by God because of our sin.

95
00:06:26.425 --> 00:06:30.625
This is the holy working of our God and His judgment.

96
00:06:30.825 --> 00:06:32.525
He has banished us from Eden.

97
00:06:32.825 --> 00:06:38.625
He has subjected us and the whole creation to futility and decay.

98
00:06:39.425 --> 00:06:43.025
We like to dress up, we like to strut

99
00:06:43.125 --> 00:06:48.325
with pride put on lipstick on a pig but God strips away

100
00:06:48.325 --> 00:06:53.625
sooner or later every garment of human making. Ultimately our greatest

101
00:06:53.625 --> 00:06:59.325
efforts and we ourselves are reduced to dust and rot and ashes.

102
00:07:00.625 --> 00:07:04.625
Way back at the other end of the book of Isaiah back in chapter 3.

103
00:07:05.025 --> 00:07:09.425
God, rebukes, the vain attempts of his people to hide their own

104
00:07:09.425 --> 00:07:10.025
wretchedness.

105
00:07:10.025 --> 00:07:16.225
The Lord said, because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk

106
00:07:16.225 --> 00:07:21.225
about with outstretched necks glance and wantonly with their eyes

107
00:07:21.325 --> 00:07:24.825
minsang along as they go tinkling with their feet.

108
00:07:24.825 --> 00:07:28.025
Therefore the Lord will strike. In that day

109
00:07:28.025 --> 00:07:30.325
the Lord will take away the finery of

110
00:07:30.425 --> 00:07:34.925
anklets, the headbands and the crescents, the pendants, the bracelets

111
00:07:34.925 --> 00:07:37.825
and the scarves, the headdresses the armlets.

112
00:07:38.025 --> 00:07:42.725
The sash is the perfume boxes and the amulets the Signet rings and the

113
00:07:42.725 --> 00:07:46.725
nose rings, the festival robes, the mantles, the cloaks and the

114
00:07:46.725 --> 00:07:48.825
handbags, the mirrors, the linen

115
00:07:48.825 --> 00:07:51.325
garments the turbans, and the veils.

116
00:07:52.325 --> 00:07:53.525
Instead of perfume

117
00:07:53.525 --> 00:07:59.625
there will be rottenness, instead of a belt, a rope, instead of well

118
00:07:59.625 --> 00:08:06.025
set hair baldness, instead of a rich robe assured of sack cloth and

119
00:08:06.325 --> 00:08:07.325
branding

120
00:08:08.725 --> 00:08:10.025
instead of beauty.

121
00:08:12.625 --> 00:08:19.125
We like to dress up and strut with pride lipstick on a pig.

122
00:08:20.625 --> 00:08:25.225
But God strips away sooner or later every garment of human making.

123
00:08:26.825 --> 00:08:32.425
Yet Isaiah proclaims to us in our text this morning that God will

124
00:08:32.425 --> 00:08:37.125
restore beauty once more to his world to his house

125
00:08:37.625 --> 00:08:42.525
and to his people. God will send his anointed servant to dredge to

126
00:08:42.525 --> 00:08:43.925
dress us richly

127
00:08:43.925 --> 00:08:44.625
once more.

128
00:08:45.525 --> 00:08:52.025
He will take in hand cloth and scissors thread, and jewels, he will

129
00:08:52.025 --> 00:08:56.525
dress us in his own, glory, holiness, righteousness, and

130
00:08:56.625 --> 00:09:01.025
he will dress us in joy and in praise. Jesus

131
00:09:01.025 --> 00:09:01.925
the designer.

132
00:09:03.125 --> 00:09:05.325
Jesus our clothier.

133
00:09:06.225 --> 00:09:10.325
Jesus, the glorious haberdasher. Jesus

134
00:09:10.925 --> 00:09:13.425
the tailor extraordinaire.

135
00:09:14.625 --> 00:09:15.925
Jesus Christ

136
00:09:16.425 --> 00:09:21.225
the anointed of the Lord came to us, not in his proper royal robes of

137
00:09:21.225 --> 00:09:21.725
Heaven's

138
00:09:21.725 --> 00:09:26.325
Throne Room, those glimpsed by Isaiah in his vision, but dressed as a

139
00:09:26.325 --> 00:09:28.525
servant. At his birth

140
00:09:28.525 --> 00:09:33.825
he came to us wrapped only in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger.

141
00:09:34.825 --> 00:09:36.225
In his Earthly Ministry

142
00:09:36.225 --> 00:09:39.025
he went about more like Lazarus than the rich, man.

143
00:09:39.125 --> 00:09:39.725
Our dear

144
00:09:39.725 --> 00:09:42.925
Jesus was wrapped, not in purple, cloth, and linen.

145
00:09:43.925 --> 00:09:50.625
But in the cries of beggars and lepers and desperate parents. He went

146
00:09:50.625 --> 00:09:53.825
about encircled not with the jeweled crown.

147
00:09:54.525 --> 00:09:59.025
But with masses of the hungry, the lost the hopeless.

148
00:10:00.525 --> 00:10:04.525
He was decked out, not with the velvet mantle, but with the blood

149
00:10:04.625 --> 00:10:10.425
crimson stains of sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, soldiers,

150
00:10:10.625 --> 00:10:15.325
Pharisees all. The Lord laid on him

151
00:10:15.325 --> 00:10:22.925
the iniquity of us, all. He had no form or majesty, that we should look

152
00:10:22.925 --> 00:10:26.725
at him and no beauty that we should desire him.

153
00:10:27.625 --> 00:10:33.125
He looked appalling his appearance was marred beyond human semblance

154
00:10:33.125 --> 00:10:37.025
and his form beyond that of the children of man. Soldiers

155
00:10:37.025 --> 00:10:42.325
dressed him in a purple robe, only to beat him and spit on him and

156
00:10:42.325 --> 00:10:43.025
mock him.

157
00:10:44.025 --> 00:10:49.525
Naked covered only in streaming blood and dirt and shame

158
00:10:49.525 --> 00:10:54.925
he was lifted up. The royal robed, God of Isaiah's, vision, high and

159
00:10:54.925 --> 00:10:57.225
lifted up and seated on the throne

160
00:10:57.425 --> 00:11:03.625
of Heaven was now lifted up and thrown in the darkness and nakedness

161
00:11:03.625 --> 00:11:08.425
of divine judgment raining, even there from his cross of love hanging

162
00:11:08.425 --> 00:11:14.525
before God and men dressed in the shame and ugliness of all humanity.

163
00:11:15.425 --> 00:11:20.025
And then, for a short time dressed in death itself and its trappings

164
00:11:20.525 --> 00:11:25.025
in a burial cloth, the garments of our grave.

165
00:11:26.725 --> 00:11:28.225
Unimaginable.

166
00:11:29.325 --> 00:11:32.625
Unthinkable, this was Jesus

167
00:11:33.325 --> 00:11:34.925
the Messiah of God.

168
00:11:36.425 --> 00:11:42.525
But indeed, this was Jesus, the Messiah of God, the Eternal Son of

169
00:11:42.525 --> 00:11:49.025
God, anointed by the spirit to preach, good news. To grant to those who

170
00:11:49.025 --> 00:11:54.625
mourn in Zion to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes. The

171
00:11:54.625 --> 00:11:58.125
oil of gladness instead of mourning the garment of praise

172
00:11:59.125 --> 00:12:01.825
instead of a faint spirit.

173
00:12:02.525 --> 00:12:05.625
And so the beautiful son,

174
00:12:06.425 --> 00:12:08.825
through the power of an indestructible

175
00:12:08.825 --> 00:12:13.825
life was raised to life again by the beautiful spirit with whom he was

176
00:12:13.825 --> 00:12:17.825
anointed through the beautiful will of the Father.

177
00:12:18.925 --> 00:12:25.125
And from that moment from that morning gloom and despair, and

178
00:12:25.125 --> 00:12:30.025
faintness of spirit are on their way out of God's world. The days of

179
00:12:30.025 --> 00:12:35.025
gloom and ugliness are numbered, they are no longer the fashion in the

180
00:12:35.025 --> 00:12:35.925
only kingdom that

181
00:12:36.125 --> 00:12:40.725
finally matters. For God is restoring beauty to his world.

182
00:12:41.525 --> 00:12:44.125
He will beautify his beautiful house.

183
00:12:45.025 --> 00:12:47.825
He will beautify you his people.

184
00:12:48.725 --> 00:12:51.625
He makes all things beautiful in his time.

185
00:12:53.525 --> 00:12:59.325
In Jesus Christ, this scripture is fulfilled today in your hearing.

186
00:13:00.625 --> 00:13:01.525
Today,

187
00:13:01.525 --> 00:13:08.025
Jesus Christ comes to you in his word, to take from you and to hold

188
00:13:08.025 --> 00:13:14.225
for a moment, your grimy gloomy garments, and to stand you in front of

189
00:13:14.325 --> 00:13:19.325
a three-way mirror to check out your new clothes, to behold the rich

190
00:13:19.325 --> 00:13:24.725
and righteous jeweled and joyous garments, which he bestows upon you

191
00:13:25.325 --> 00:13:28.525
and will one day clasp about you forever.

192
00:13:29.325 --> 00:13:34.925
Today Christ sends you out with beautiful feet to proclaim

193
00:13:34.925 --> 00:13:39.425
the beautiful message of his reign. Today

194
00:13:39.425 --> 00:13:40.225
your savior

195
00:13:40.225 --> 00:13:42.825
God speaks to you of beauty.

196
00:13:43.925 --> 00:13:50.525
The unfading beauty of your eternal inheritance in Christ, the true

197
00:13:51.025 --> 00:13:56.225
God, worked god-given enduring beauty of an eternal city.

198
00:13:56.525 --> 00:14:00.225
The Heavenly Jerusalem, his beautiful house.

199
00:14:00.925 --> 00:14:04.125
The beautiful home of our beautiful God.

200
00:14:05.025 --> 00:14:10.525
And in the light of that beauty, his beauty we can receive and enjoy

201
00:14:10.525 --> 00:14:12.225
beauty in this life.

202
00:14:12.425 --> 00:14:19.325
Not as a tragic pretense, not as illusion or delusion or lipstick on a

203
00:14:19.325 --> 00:14:19.925
pig.

204
00:14:21.025 --> 00:14:26.025
But as good gifts of our creator and Redeemer. The beautiful things

205
00:14:26.025 --> 00:14:30.525
that we see around us, the beautiful things that we are called and

206
00:14:30.525 --> 00:14:32.425
gifted to create ourselves.

207
00:14:32.425 --> 00:14:35.725
These are glimpses of beauty.

208
00:14:36.925 --> 00:14:42.925
Foretastes and foretellings of the beauty that is to come.

209
00:14:44.225 --> 00:14:49.425
Arise shine redeemed of Christ for your light has come.

210
00:14:50.525 --> 00:14:55.425
The Holy One of Israel has made you beautiful.

211
00:14:56.725 --> 00:14:57.325
Amen.

212
00:14:59.425 --> 00:15:01.325
We stand for the singing of the Te Deum.