Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
You knew the debate was coming! Before Sunday we had already heard a little of it, but there has been a lot more in the days since. A devotion I regularly receive by email discussed the matter just yesterday, and this morning the headline jumped at me off the screen of the news site I read over breakfast. That headline said, “Fierce debate after Newtown school shootings: Where was God?” Sadly, the debate of which the headlined story told was between what the story called the religious conservatives and the religious “progressives”, and God is hardly glorified when such debate gives those who are not religious more reason to ridicule religion. Perhaps providentially, tonight’s O Antiphon leads us to reflect on the matter of God’s presence. Although you may have noticed that the Office Hymn’s paraphrase of the O Antiphons uses Emmanuel first, tonight’s O Antiphon is appointed for December 23rd and so is the last of the O Antiphons, maybe because of the nature of the name it uses for Christ, “Emmanuel”. Take your service folder and locate tonight’s O Antiphon inside, on the top of the right page. Let us pray it now the way we will sing it later, with the congregation taking the indented portion.
O Emmanuel, our King and our Lord, the Anointed for the nations and their Savior:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.
Tonight’s First Reading, Isaiah chapter 7, is one of only three accounts in all of Holy Scripture where the name “Emmanuel” is used (the others are a chapter later in Isaiah and in tonight’s Third Reading from Matthew, which quotes the First Reading). As we heard in the First Reading, Syria and Israel were waging war against Judah, so King Ahaz and the people of Judah were afraid. Through the prophet Isaiah, God tried to reassure King Ahaz that the other nations’ evil plots would not come to pass. Through Isaiah, God even offered to let King Ahaz ask a sign, something miraculous that the Lord would do as a pledge that his kingdom would be secure. And, when King Ahaz refused to ask a sign, the Lord Himself gave King Ahaz a sign: the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (The Hebrew name literally means “God with us”; and the Hebrew pronunciation simply goes into other languages, spelled in English with either an “e” or an “i”.) In effect, King Ahaz got two signs: one that very soon his kingdom would be delivered from the physical threat, and the other that later there would also be spiritual delivery.
Of course, from the very beginning God had long promised His people physical and spiritual delivery, and from the very beginning God had long been present with His people in various ways. Previously God had told His people that He would be their God, that He would go with them, that He had taken them to be His possession, and that His angel would guard them. And, by various visible means, God was with His people, to lead them, to uphold them, and to bless them. King Ahaz simply should have believed God’s promise without a sign. In fact, over the years God had given many signs, and, through Moses, God told the people not to put Him to the test, a command Jesus quoted when the devil tempted Him (Dt 6:16; e.g., Mt 4:7). But, King Ahaz apparently does not for that reason refuse to ask for a sign, but King Ahaz seemingly wants Isaiah to think that he believes without such a miraculous pledge. King Ahaz pretends piety and would have Isaiah think that he stands firm in faith, as the Lord through Isaiah had said King Ahaz should be firm, knowing where God is and trusting Him.
How firmly do you and I stand in faith? How well do we know where God is? How much do we trust Him? When we are threatened in some physical way—the security of our home, school, family, job, or health—do we know that He is present and trust Him to deliver us? When we are threatened in some spiritual way—anguish of mind and heart, terrors of conscience, temptations to doubt and despair—do we know where He is present and trust Him to deliver us? Too often, people we know—and maybe we ourselves—think that we do not need Him, or at least not that we do not need Him all the time, that we know where to find Him when we need Him. (We wonder why we cannot find Him when we do realize we need Him!) Or, we may pretend piety and think we stand firm in faith apart from God’s Word and the miraculous signs He gives—signs by which He is present with us and signs that effect His deliverance. We sin in these and countless other ways, for we are sinful by nature, from God’s perspective, just as sinful as the shooter in Connecticut. We all by nature deserve nothing but death now and for eternity.
Some of those participating in the debate about where God was in the Newtown shooting are right about one thing: there is a need for repentance. But the United States of America cannot make some corporate confession as a nation. The president is hardly a high priest of the religion of patriotism in a position to confess and make atonement for our nation’s sins. Yes, this country and its schools are wrong on a lot of things: evolution, abortion, materialism, and secularism, just to name a few. But, each of us individually is called to repent of our sin as individuals—our sin of being complicit with the sins of the country and its schools, our sin of pretending piety when we lack faith, or whatever our sin might be. Each of us individually is called to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to do better. Without such repentance and faith, the coming of Emmanuel brings not deliverance but judgment, as God’s deliverance of Judah brought judgment to Syria and Israel.
Humanly speaking, the people of Newtown, Connecticut, and others no doubt would have preferred that God had shown Himself to be present with them last Friday by way of stopping the gunman in the first place, but God hardly ever comes the way we expect. Remember after the prophet Elijah was in a cave on Mount Horeb for forty days and forty nights and the Lord passed by? The Lord was not in a great and strong wind that tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks. He was not in an earthquake or fire that followed, but He was in a low whisper. Similarly, in our Third Reading (Mt 1:18-25), “just” Joseph, who surely knew Isaiah’s prophecy about Emmanuel, needed an angel of the Lord to appear to him in a dream in order for him to take as his wife Mary, who at that point appeared to be anything but a virgin. The virgin birth of the God-man Jesus Christ not only fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy, but the virgin birth of the God-man Jesus Christ is also one of God’s greatest miracles and His greatest gift to humanity: the gift of Himself in human flesh. God is with us in a virgin’s womb. God is with us in a manger. God is with us on a cross. As the Office Hymn’s stanza put it, captive Israel mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appears—Emmanuel, come to ransom us—Jesus, Who saves His people from their sins. And, He not only saves His people of the Jews, but He also saves His people of the Gentiles—the nations, for whom tonight’s O Antiphon says Emmanuel was also anointed. As we heard Peter in the Second Reading tell those with Cornelius (Ac 10:34‑43), Jesus died and rose again so that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His Name. When we repent and believe, God forgives our sins—our sins of being complicit with the country and its schools, our sins of pretending piety, or whatever our sins might be.
People who teach grammar might describe a preposition as everything a ball can be in relationship to a box: a ball can be “in” a box, “out” of a box, “with” a box, and so forth. So, the name “Emmanuel”, God with us, includes relationship. When we repent and believe in Him, then He restores our relationship with Him that was broken by sin. When we repent and believe, we again have fellowship with Him, the relationship necessary for us to serve Him and for us to have eternal life with Him. God is with us restoring that relationship in His purely preached Word. God is with us restoring that relationship in the water of Holy Baptism. God is with us restoring that relationship in the pastor’s words of Holy Absolution (as Dr. Luther quotes Him in connection with Absolution, Jesus says that where two are gathered in His Name, there He is among them). And, God is with us restoring that relationship in the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood of Holy Communion. These are the miraculous signs He gives us today— signs by which He is present with us and signs that effect His deliverance by restoring our relationship with Him. God is present here in these ways, and we can trust Him to deliver us, physically and spiritually.
When we know where God is and trust Him to deliver us, then we stand firm. With the psalmist tonight, we can say, “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (Ps 46:7, 11). God is with us, “though the earth give way, and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with its surging” (Ps 46:2-3). God is with us in a lonely and otherwise empty home. God is with us in a school under siege. God is with us in a troubled marriage. God is with us in our jobs or in our unemployment. God is with us on our sick or death-bed. God is with us when we are afraid. God is with us when we are guilty. God is with us when we feel no one else is. In tonight’s Closing Hymn, we will sing “He never will abandon you / Trust King Immanuel the True”, but Dr. Luther’s makes a stronger statement in the original German: Er will und kann euch lassen nicht, that is, “He will not and cannot leave you.” Indeed, St. Matthew’s Gospel account, that begins with the angel telling Joseph that the virgin carries Immanuel, God with us, ends not with an account of Jesus’s ascension but with that Immanuel telling His disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20).
Where was God last Friday in Newtown, Connecticut? There are lots of ways that question can be answered faithfully: for example, He was in the minimizing of the disaster, or He was in the acts of kindness that have resulted since. Some of those people asking the question may not even be interested in an answer, instead wanting to point out what they think is God’s absence. (Perhaps even the so-called religious “conservatives” and “progressives” get caught up in the debate over “where” God was because we have no real, satisfactory answer to the question of “why” God permitted the shooting.) As God through Isaiah assured Ahaz of His presence, so God through Isaiah assures us of His presence. The past, present, and future relationship of God with us His people is assured in the name “Emmanuel”. So, take your service folder and let us again pray tonight’s O Antiphon responsively:
O Emmanuel, our King and our Lord, the Anointed for the nations and their Savior:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +