19 December 2007 St. Athanasius Lutheran Church
Advent 3 Midweek
Vienna, VA
“Isaiah’s Vision of
Advent: The Sword of the Lord”
It
may seem odd that I named this third vision of Isaiah “the Sword of the
Lord” when the reading tonight from Isaiah did not mention a sword, but spoke
of so many good things.
Of miracles, restoration, and peace.
Wonders that mark the Messiah’s coming.
Exactly!
Isaiah wants you to know: the sword of
the Lord is not intended for you.
And
so he says: “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with
vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.”
And so the sword of the Lord comes,
to release creation
from its misery, to strengthen weak hands,
to make firm feeble
knees, to open the eyes of the blind,
to unstop the ears of
the deaf, to make the lame leap like a deer,
that the mute sing
for joy, and to ransom those captive to sin.
That we be captives no more.
Our exile in the valley of the shadow
of death ended.
That we return to Zion with gladness
and singing, and rejoice in the Lord.
So what is this “sword” of the Lord,
that would come and do this?
Not a what, but a who.
It is His Word.
The Word made flesh, and lying
in the manger.
The very Son of God.
Who comes not to destroy, but to serve.
Who comes not in a show of great might,
but in weakness.
Who comes not arrayed in splendor, but
wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Our
Lord promised to “bear His right arm” and come and do something about our sin.
And at Christmas, He did.
What good news this is! For how unlike the vengeance we see in
the world.
Swords poised at us –
the swords of greedy
and bloodthirsty tyrants;
the swords of those
who slay reputations with their hurtful and malicious words;
the swords of those
who kill in the name of faith,
thinking they are
doing God a favor.
Swords not only pointed at us,
but often times also by us.
To get what we want.
To put down others that we may be
exalted.
Swords wielded in anger and bitterness;
in selfishness and hatred.
How different the sword of the
Lord! Wielded in love. Wielded to save.
But this should not surprise us.
That the way of a holy God should be so
different from the ways of a sinful world.
And
so God wields His sword – not to destroy us! – but to destroy whatever
gets in the way of His restoring us and saving us.
And
so His sword is like an axe, chopping down our idols, that we trust in Him
alone.
His
sword is like a surgeon’s scalpel, skillfully cutting into our hard and sinful
hearts, to remove our love of sin.
His
sword is like a machete, clearing away the obstacles of sin and worry and doubt
and all that would separate us from Him.
That
we fix our eyes on Jesus.
And
see in Him our hope, our life, and our future.
But
in order to destroy everything that gets in the way of saving us, the
sword of the Lord, our Saviour, would have to destroy also death.
And
there’s only one way to do that.
From
the inside out.
To
take our death-causing sins and put them upon Himself.
To
die the death those sins have earned, and then rise to life again.
That
death itself be dealt a mortal blow.
The
destroyer be destroyed.
And
we be set free. Truly free.
From
all our enemies – both of this world and life, and the next.
And
so have nothing to fear.
And so the sword of the Lord came, in
Bethlehem.
Quietly. Gently.
Humbly.
Just as Isaiah prophesied.
Or as we heard in the words of
Zachariah in Luke:
“Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel,
for
he has visited and redeemed his people
and
has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in
the house of his servant David,
as
he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that
we should be saved from our enemies
and
from the hand of all who hate us;
to
show the mercy promised to our fathers
and
to remember his holy covenant,
the
oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
that
we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might
serve him without fear,
in
holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”
And so we have reason to rejoice!
With
Advent joy, in our Lord who has come to do this, and is still coming to us
today.
Coming in the strength of His weakness;
in the glory of His
humility;
and in the power of
His forgiveness.
The ways of our holy God so unlike the
ways of the world!
Which is good.
For look at what our ways have
accomplished!
So come to Him who comes for you.
The Sword of God. The Lamb of God. The Son of God.
Come! “Be strong; fear not! [For]
Behold, your God [has] come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He
[has] come and [has] save[d] you.”
In the name of the Father and of the (+) Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.