The Gentle Shepherd

Isaiah 40:1-11 After years of disobedience and generations of faithlessness, God had enough.  He would exercise judgment on his people at the hands of their enemies.  Homes would be lost.  The temple would be destroyed.  And the Israelites would go into exile. 

Again and again we must learn from their experience that the Lord is a God of holiness who will not abide with sin in the life of his people.  We must never forget that the Lord is a God of power and righteousness who exercises judgment in time and eternity.

But we are also reminded tonight that he is God of mercy who loves his people with an everlasting love and provides a way for us to return to him when all seems lost.  Isaiah prophesied:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. 

            As dark as those days were for Israel (with the people of God at the mercy of their enemies on account of their sins) there was still hope because they had in the Lord a God who forgives an undeserving people.

The northern kingdom would fall to the Assyrians and the southern kingdom would fall to the Babylonians.  The tribes in the north would be lost to history and the southern tribes would go into exile.  But there was a loving God who was still in charge of the lives of his people.

No matter how great and powerful were their enemies, God was greater.  He would set a limit on what they had to endure and would deliver them from exile and bring them home.in the end.  This promise comforted them in the difficult days to come.

So it is for us.  We have a heavenly Father who still disciplines his children in love.  We live in this world as exiles.  We face real enemies who want to harm us in time and eternity.  And yet the hardships and difficulties of life that God allows are not without end.  There is comfort for us too.

God has sent his Son to conquer our enemies of sin and death and the devil.  Jesus has pardoned our iniquities by his shed blood on the cross.  Rather than giving us what our sins deserves, God has made a place for us in his family and given us a share in eternal life.

What a comfort to know that God’s mercy and love are accomplished facts of history in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!

But there is spiritual work that must be done in us if we are to receive those blessings in faith.  Isaiah prophesied of that work:

A voice cries:  “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 

            When the Israelites were carried into exile in Babylon, they labored up every mountain and they scraped their way down every valley road and they trudged over every desert mile.  Each footstep was a testimony to how far they had fallen—the desert a great barrier that kept them from home. 

But Isaiah promised them that it wouldn’t last forever—that God himself would come for them—that these barriers and impediments, as great and lasting as the foundations of the earth, would be removed so that they could make their way home.

These are the words that the Holy Spirit inspired St. Mark to use to describe the work of John the Baptist as he prepared the world to receive their Savior.  Mountain tops of pride would have to be made low and valleys of despair would have to be raised up so that we can be made ready to receive our deliverer who will bring us home.  Isaiah promised that:

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 

            In 539 B.C. God raised up Cyrus the Persian who, in one of the greatest battles in the ancient history, defeated the Babylonian Empire and made the way for the Israelites to go home.  He is the only non-Jew that the Bible ever calls a Messiah—an anointed deliverer of God’s people.  God had promised that he would set his people free and by the hand of Cyrus, his chosen servant, God did exactly that.

But the true fulfillment of these words was found in another deliverer.  You see, the story of the sinfulness of the Jews and their exile in slavery and their deliverance and journey home is not just ancient history but it is a universal story that explains our human condition:  our sin and our exile from God and a deliverer that God has raised up to bring us home.

That anointed servant is Jesus Christ.  God promised that he would raise up a Savior who would defeat our enemies and bring us to our heavenly home and he kept that promise in the birth of his Son.  Jesus is the glory of God in human flesh, the world’s Redeemer who came to do for us what we cannot do because of our frailty and weakness.  Isaiah said:

A voice says, “Cry!”  And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass.  The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. 

            From slavery in Egypt to destruction by Assyria to exile in Babylon the Israelites knew the truth of these words:  that people are like grass.  We live for a brief time and then pass away as if we had never existed at all.

But the Israelites also knew the truth of these words:  that the word of our God will stand forever. 

Throughout salvation history, the one constant in the life of God’s people is the existence of our God from generation to generation and his faithfulness in speaking to his people and calling us back to himself. 

God is faithful and his word can be trusted.  When he speaks words of judgment—it comes to pass.  When he speak words of deliverance—they too come to pass. 

Compared to ten thousand years of human history our lives of 70 or 80 or even 90 years are incredibly brief to say nothing of comparing our lives to eternity.  Because of the brevity of life, there is only one way to gain a perspective on what truly matters—on what will truly stand the test of time and eternity-- and that is by reading and hearing and studying the Word of God.

Just think of the empires that have come and gone since the words of Genesis were written!  Just think of all the scientific theories that have been hailed as great advancements only to be disproved by the generations that followed!  Just think of all the technology that was considered cutting edge but is now rubbish!

What has endured the test of time and comforted God’s people in every generation is God’s Word.  That is why we must not stand in judgment over God’s Word or discard some part of God’s Word or adapt some part of God’s Word to an ever changing world. 

Instead, God’s Word—both the law that convicts our sin and the Gospel that comforts our troubled consciences--must be believed by us and shared with the world.  Isaiah prophesied:

Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

            The message of God through the prophet Isaiah—a message of conviction and comfort—what not intended by God for just a few people.  Rather, he wanted his word shared so that all people could take comfort in his promise to deliver them and bring them home.

It was not just Isaiah who was to take this message of comfort to the people—but all who heard it and believed it were charged by God to share it.

So it still is today.  Pastors have a special responsibility to speak forth God’s word and to do that faithfully—warning their flocks when they are in spiritual danger- and comforting them when they are in need- and instructing them in the ways of the Lord.

But once God’s people have heard the word—once they have learned what God requires of them and the forgiveness he gives them when they fail--then each and every member of God’s church has that same responsibility to lift up our voices and bear witness to Jesus.

Each and every one of us are heralds of Good News, chosen and loved by God and given the task to point those in our workplace and schools and neighborhoods to Jesus Christ and say:  behold, your God so that they too might take their place in the flock of the Good Shepherd.  Isaiah prophesied:

Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.  He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

The Israelites were exiled in Babylon for seventy years.  Those were difficult days.  Daniel faced the lion’s den.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego faced a fiery furnace.  But during God’s people were comforted by his promise to care for them and lead them home—and he did. 

But his love and goodness was not just for a select few, but for all people in every place and time.  God’s deliverance and the return of his people was a sign pointing to what he himself would accomplish in his Son Jesus Christ. 

With the birth of Jesus, our Immanuel, the God who is with us—God himself entered into our world bringing gifts of hope and peace and forgiveness not just for a few-- but for all people.  He is the Good Shepherd who gathers us into his flock where he cares for us.

And he will come again to bring us out of exile and lead us to our heavenly home.  May God grant it to us all for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.