WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:06.400 Grace mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord 2 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:07.500 and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 3 00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:12.200 The text for the sermon this morning 4 00:00:12.200 --> 00:00:16.100 is this Old Testament reading from Isaiah chapter 61. 5 00:00:17.800 --> 00:00:23.600 Isaiah prophesies the coming of the Lord's Messiah, Jesus Christ. 6 00:00:24.500 --> 00:00:30.300 In this one passage, Isaiah talks about so many things, so many good 7 00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:34.900 things and desperately needed blessings that the Messiah brings. 8 00:00:35.800 --> 00:00:39.000 Included in Isaiah's rich imagery is this. 9 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:45.600 The Messiah will bestow on the people beautiful clothing and 10 00:00:45.600 --> 00:00:49.500 adornments, garments from our God. 11 00:00:50.800 --> 00:00:56.500 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he has anointed me. 12 00:00:57.700 --> 00:01:03.400 To Grant to those who mourn in Zion to give them a beautiful headdress 13 00:01:03.400 --> 00:01:09.800 instead of ashes the oil of gladness instead of mourning the Garment 14 00:01:09.800 --> 00:01:13.000 of praise instead of a faint spirit. 15 00:01:14.100 --> 00:01:20.800 I will Rejoice greatly in the Lord my soul shall exalt in my God for 16 00:01:20.800 --> 00:01:23.700 he has clothed me with the garments of Salvation. 17 00:01:23.700 --> 00:01:30.100 He has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks 18 00:01:30.100 --> 00:01:35.900 himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress and as a bride adorns 19 00:01:35.900 --> 00:01:38.000 herself with her jewels. 20 00:01:40.900 --> 00:01:42.800 Our God will do this. 21 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:50.800 This gracious and glorious work the work of clothing and adorning his 22 00:01:50.800 --> 00:01:51.200 people. 23 00:01:52.100 --> 00:01:58.900 The God whom Isaiah saw seated on a throne high and lifted up the 24 00:01:58.900 --> 00:02:04.100 train of his own rich royal robes flowing down and filling the 25 00:02:04.100 --> 00:02:10.100 Heavenly Temple. The God who wraps himself in brilliant splendor with 26 00:02:10.100 --> 00:02:16.000 shining light and the stars themselves as his garment. Above him 27 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:21.900 stand the mighty cherubim themselves wrapped in fire and crying 28 00:02:21.900 --> 00:02:22.000 out. 29 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:23.300 Holy, holy 30 00:02:23.300 --> 00:02:29.100 holy is Yahweh of hosts. Heaven and Earth are full of his glory. 31 00:02:30.300 --> 00:02:32.400 In his presence 32 00:02:33.900 --> 00:02:35.400 Isaiah found himself 33 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:38.800 thoroughly unclean 34 00:02:40.100 --> 00:02:41.200 and utterly doomed. 35 00:02:42.700 --> 00:02:49.800 And yet this same God has been clothing human wretchedness from the 36 00:02:49.800 --> 00:02:51.700 earliest days of the world. 37 00:02:51.700 --> 00:02:58.300 When our first parents Adam and Eve were banished from Eden in sin and 38 00:02:58.300 --> 00:03:05.800 nakedness and shame attempting to hide behind trees and fig leaves. God 39 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:09.300 himself clothed them in mercy and compassion. 40 00:03:09.300 --> 00:03:14.500 He clothed them. And God our creator continues to clothe us. 41 00:03:14.500 --> 00:03:20.300 He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears and all my members. 42 00:03:20.300 --> 00:03:25.600 He also gives me clothing and shoes and all that I have. 43 00:03:27.200 --> 00:03:30.700 In Isaiah 61 this work of God clothing 44 00:03:30.700 --> 00:03:35.400 his people is used as a metaphor for all of God's saving work through 45 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:40.000 his Messiah. Before his coming apart from his work 46 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:44.000 we had only gloomy garments of despair. 47 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:51.600 We are soiled in sin, stuck in morning, smeared with ashes dingy with 48 00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:52.100 death. 49 00:03:52.900 --> 00:03:59.500 We are dressed in bedraggled clothing emblazoned with words like all 50 00:03:59.500 --> 00:04:00.100 done, 51 00:04:01.300 --> 00:04:02.100 empty, 52 00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:04.300 hopeless, 53 00:04:05.600 --> 00:04:06.400 weak, 54 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:08.800 damned. 55 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:14.000 Is the weight and Gloom of 2020 56 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.899 really all that different than the thousands of years that came 57 00:04:18.899 --> 00:04:19.100 before? 58 00:04:20.300 --> 00:04:21.100 Dear friends 59 00:04:21.100 --> 00:04:26.000 we live in a broken world cursed by God because of our sin. 60 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:33.900 These are the clothes that we must wear for a time. This gloom this sin 61 00:04:33.900 --> 00:04:36.600 this faintness of spirit. 62 00:04:37.500 --> 00:04:41.700 This is the holy working of God and his judgment. 63 00:04:41.700 --> 00:04:43.900 He has banished us from Eden. 64 00:04:43.900 --> 00:04:49.100 He has subjected us and the whole creation to futility and decay. 65 00:04:50.400 --> 00:04:55.400 We like to dress up in the midst of all this and strut about with 66 00:04:55.400 --> 00:05:03.000 pride but God strips away sooner or later every glamorous garments and 67 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:08.200 cute covering up human making. Way back at the other end of the book of 68 00:05:08.200 --> 00:05:13.500 Isaiah back in chapter 3 God rebukes, the vain attempts of his people 69 00:05:13.500 --> 00:05:15.500 to hide our own wretchedness. 70 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:22.700 The Lord said because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk about 71 00:05:22.700 --> 00:05:27.900 with outstretched necks glancing wantonly with their eyes mincing 72 00:05:27.900 --> 00:05:30.500 along as they go tinkling with their feet. 73 00:05:30.500 --> 00:05:33.400 Therefore the Lord will strike. 74 00:05:34.200 --> 00:05:39.000 In that day, the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the 75 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:43.700 headbands and the crescents, the pendants, the bracelets an the scarves. 76 00:05:43.700 --> 00:05:48.600 The headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes and the 77 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:54.000 amulets. The signet rings and nose rings the festal robes the mantles 78 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:58.400 the cloaks and the handbags the mirrors the linen garments the 79 00:05:58.400 --> 00:06:00.200 turbans and the veils. 80 00:06:01.400 --> 00:06:03.400 Instead of perfume 81 00:06:03.400 --> 00:06:08.600 there will be rottenness and instead of a belt a rope and instead of well 82 00:06:08.600 --> 00:06:14.800 set hair baldness and instead of a rich robe a shirt of sackcloth. 83 00:06:16.300 --> 00:06:18.500 And branding instead of beauty. 84 00:06:20.500 --> 00:06:22.000 We like to dress up 85 00:06:23.200 --> 00:06:25.200 and strut with pride. 86 00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:33.600 But God strips away sooner or later every glamorous garment and cute 87 00:06:33.600 --> 00:06:35.600 covering of human making. 88 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:44.000 And yet in spite of our foolishness, our shame, our pretension, our 89 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:49.100 rebellion, our lack of praise and our lack of righteousness and even 90 00:06:49.100 --> 00:06:56.400 because of these things because of our great lack and our great need. 91 00:06:57.700 --> 00:07:02.500 Isaiah proclaims in our text this morning that God will send his 92 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:03.400 anointed one. 93 00:07:04.400 --> 00:07:05.300 The Messiah 94 00:07:06.500 --> 00:07:13.300 to dress us richly once more. He will take in hand cloth and scissors 95 00:07:13.300 --> 00:07:15.500 and thread and jewels. 96 00:07:15.500 --> 00:07:21.000 He will dress us in his own glory, holiness, righteousness, strength. 97 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:27.200 He will dress us in joy and in praise, Jesus our clothier. 98 00:07:28.200 --> 00:07:35.100 Jesus the glorious haberdasher. Jesus the tailor extraordinaire. 99 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:44.000 Jesus Christ the anointed of the Lord came to us not in his proper 100 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:49.700 royal robes of heaven's throne room as Isaiah saw in his vision, but 101 00:07:49.700 --> 00:07:51.200 dressed as a servant. 102 00:07:52.200 --> 00:07:57.600 At his birth our God came to us wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid 103 00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:04.700 in a manger. Instead of soft and silk and stuff he had but hay and 104 00:08:04.700 --> 00:08:07.800 straw so rough on which as King 105 00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:11.700 o rich and great to be enthroned in royal state. 106 00:08:13.300 --> 00:08:18.500 In his Earthly Ministry our Lord Jesus went about more like Lazarus 107 00:08:18.500 --> 00:08:20.300 than the rich man. 108 00:08:21.500 --> 00:08:27.200 Dear Jesus was not wrapped in purple cloth and linen but in 109 00:08:27.200 --> 00:08:33.100 the cries of lepers, beggars, desperate mothers and fathers. 110 00:08:33.100 --> 00:08:38.299 He went about encircled not with a jeweled crown but encircled with 111 00:08:38.299 --> 00:08:43.299 masses of hungry, lost and hopeless people. 112 00:08:44.600 --> 00:08:50.300 He was decked not with a velvet mantle but with the blood crimson stains 113 00:08:50.300 --> 00:08:59.000 of sinners, prostitutes, tax Collectors, soldiers, Pharisees, you, me. 114 00:09:00.200 --> 00:09:04.700 The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. Arrested 115 00:09:04.700 --> 00:09:10.900 he was dressed in a purple robe only to be mocked and beaten and spit 116 00:09:10.900 --> 00:09:12.500 upon hail King. 117 00:09:13.700 --> 00:09:16.200 And then naked 118 00:09:17.300 --> 00:09:21.900 covered only in streaming blood and dirt and shame. 119 00:09:21.900 --> 00:09:29.400 He was lifted up. The royal robed God of Isaiah's vision high and lifted 120 00:09:29.400 --> 00:09:35.100 up and seated on the throne of Heaven was now lifted up enthroned in 121 00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:37.500 darkness and divine judgement. 122 00:09:38.500 --> 00:09:44.700 Reigning even there from his cross of love hanging before God and men 123 00:09:44.700 --> 00:09:48.600 dressed in the sin and shame of all humanity. 124 00:09:48.600 --> 00:09:54.600 And then for a short time dressed in death itself and its trappings a 125 00:09:54.600 --> 00:09:57.700 burial cloth the garments of the grave. 126 00:09:58.900 --> 00:10:00.500 The garments of your grave. 127 00:10:02.100 --> 00:10:03.200 Unimaginable. 128 00:10:04.300 --> 00:10:05.700 Unthinkable. 129 00:10:06.900 --> 00:10:10.500 This was Jesus the Messiah of God. 130 00:10:12.200 --> 00:10:19.800 But indeed this was Jesus the Messiah of God the eternal Son of God 131 00:10:19.800 --> 00:10:24.600 anointed by the spirit to preach good news to grant to those who mourn 132 00:10:24.600 --> 00:10:30.400 in Zion to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes. The oil of 133 00:10:30.400 --> 00:10:36.000 gladness instead of mourning. The Garment of praise instead of a faint 134 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:36.400 spirit. 135 00:10:36.400 --> 00:10:41.800 And so the eternal Son with the power of an indestructible life was 136 00:10:41.800 --> 00:10:46.100 raised to life again by the eternal spirit with whom he was anointed 137 00:10:46.100 --> 00:10:50.000 through the eternal will of the Father in from that moment. 138 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:57.700 From that morning gloom and despair and faintness of spirit are on 139 00:10:57.700 --> 00:11:00.100 their way out of God's world. 140 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:07.100 The days of gloom and mourning and faintness of spirit are numbered. 141 00:11:08.300 --> 00:11:10.400 They are no longer the fashion. 142 00:11:11.300 --> 00:11:14.600 In the only Kingdom that finally matters. 143 00:11:16.400 --> 00:11:18.000 In Jesus Christ 144 00:11:19.100 --> 00:11:22.600 today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. 145 00:11:24.500 --> 00:11:29.300 Today Jesus Christ comes to you in his Word. 146 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:38.100 To take from you and to hold for you, your gloomy grimy garments and to 147 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:44.600 stand you in front of a three-way mirror to check out your new clothes. 148 00:11:44.600 --> 00:11:50.900 To behold the rich and righteous jeweled and joyous garments, which he 149 00:11:50.900 --> 00:11:52.100 bestows on you. 150 00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:57.900 In which he will one day clasp about you forever. 151 00:11:59.900 --> 00:12:01.000 Take heart then 152 00:12:01.800 --> 00:12:03.700 dear brothers and sisters. 153 00:12:04.900 --> 00:12:10.600 Though there be sin and gloom and faintness wrapped about you. 154 00:12:11.700 --> 00:12:19.200 In Jesus Christ, all of this is and will be removed exchanged in Jesus 155 00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:19.900 Christ. 156 00:12:19.900 --> 00:12:24.000 You stand closed in beauty. 157 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:31.500 You are wrapped in salvation, in righteousness, in songs of praise, in 158 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:40.700 joy and in God's love. God grant you eyes to see the splendid beauty of 159 00:12:40.700 --> 00:12:42.200 his Messiah's work for you. 160 00:12:43.600 --> 00:12:46.300 This day and always. Amen. 161 00:12:48.400 --> 00:12:52.500 Now May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your 162 00:12:52.500 --> 00:12:55.300 hearts and Minds through faith in this Christ. 163 00:12:55.300 --> 00:12:57.200 Jesus. Amen.