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"You, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name" (Isa 63:16b), God's people of old and we His people confess. In His Word, the Holy Scriptures, He consistently shows that He is our Lord and God, our Father and Redeemer.
He exhibits the truth that He is our God and Father as Creator in His creation of the universe and all its creatures, great and small, in His ac-counts thereof in the Bible, and particularly His creation of us, not merely as a species or a race, or a tribe or clan or family, but of each of us per-sonally and individually as His own dear child.
With King David we affirm, "You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb" (Ps 139:13). Human reproductive biology may be the warp and woof He employs. Mother and father may be the loom, and their baby the fruit thereof, but God is doing the weaving. His is the tie that binds, the glue that sticks us fast. And we're His tapestry, rich and enduring!
This confirms the reality that He is our Father. Anybody here need a reality check? But there is more to the story. There's more to Him and, therefore, more to us, more to go around. The fact that His eyes saw our unformed body (v 16a), that all the days ordained for us, from conception to death and beyond, were written in His book before one of them came to be, indeed, from all eternity (v 16b), confirms the truth that He who is our Father is also our God.
With David we concede, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain" (v 6). And we give glory where glory is due. "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (v 14a). Of that we're quite sure! Yet there is still more to the story, more to Him and more to us, more than enough to go around.
He who is His people's God and Father is also their Redeemer. He redeemed His people of old from bondage and delivered them out of their captors' hands. If, in rescuing the children of Israel from their enemies, the Egyptian slave drivers, in hot pursuit, God baptized them into Moses their God-given liberator, in the sea and in the cloud, He in turn rescues us from the peril of our sins and our enemies--the devil, death and hell--in hotter pursuit.
By baptizing us into Jesus our Savior, God the Father incorporates us into His death for us sinners and into His resurrection for our right standing that like as He died for our sins, we might die to our love of sinning, and like as He was raised for our justification, we might rise to new life in Him here and now and to life everlasting when He comes again.
Inasmuch as through Joshua He led His children of old through the Jordan into the promised land, in His only-begotten Son, the greater Joshua, He has led us children whom He adopted as His own by faith in Jesus through Baptism into His kingdom of grace and, ultimately, into the kingdom of glory, the Church Triumphant.
Thus is this Lord our God and Father; our Redeemer from of old is His name. This calls for faithfulness and love on His part. And it calls forth the same from us, having inspired the same. Because we are by nature wayward and liable to stray, however, God is constantly sounding the alarm. He is continuously jogging our memory, banging our gong.
Insofar as we're apt to wander, we lapse into forgetfulness. We're prone to amnesia. We backslide. We go astray. This calls for the Holy Spirit, and for conviction, contrition and conversion. It calls for a guilty verdict, a guilty conscience and a guilty plea, an admission of guilt, as in, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.
"We shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." This calls for heartfelt confession to God our Confessor. "No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins" (vv 6-7). This insistent impenitence wherein God hides His face from the stubborn reprobate and he wastes away in God's absence, if unchecked, calls forth hardness of heart, such that the hardened sinner actually blames God for his dilemma.
"Why, O Lord, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you?" (63:17a). Foundering in uncleanness, apt to come undone at any moment in our filthy rags, if not in the womb of death, the loom of the grave, the weaving of the devil, his rug to be trodden underfoot, his rug rats exterminated at will, something more ominous than the wind threatens to sweep us away, shriveled up in our sin.
Convicted, contrite, converted, we poor sinners cry out, "Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes that are your inheritance" (v 17b). Thankfully, this is the season of our Lord's return, this Advent. God brings to remembrance His merciful acts of deliverance. And we remember, no longer prone to forget, amnesiacs no more!
"You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways" (64:5a). And why shouldn't He? Why shouldn't we? Since He applies the truth serum and prompts the right doing and stimulates the truth telling. And this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. "When we continued to sin against your ways, you were angry. How then can we be saved?" (v 5b).
That is the question for us who are unclean, who have come undone in our filthy rags and who waste away in our sin. And He who creates our inmost being, who knits us together in our mother's womb, and then, when sin threatens to unravel us, binds us fast, warp and woof, in the loom of Holy Baptism, He who wrote in His book of life all the days He ordained for us before even one of them came to pass, indeed, from all eternity, He who is our God and Father jogs our memory, bangs our gong, sounds our wakeup call.
And we remember without a memory check. Instant recall. Total recognition. There is more to the story, more to Him and, hence, more to us, more than enough to go around. And this is the rest of the story, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord".
Lest in Your fury You dash us to bits and we return to the dust from which You formed us. "Do not remember our sins forever", we plead. Rather, forever remember Your mercy! "Oh, look upon us, we pray". See Your Son in us and us in Him. Look upon us in mercy for His sake. "For we are all your people" (vv 8-9) because of Him.
And God remembers. He never forgets, never lapses into amnesia, never suffers a memory glitch, never has a senior moment! "You, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name." Therefore, with God's people of old we're tempted to say, "Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!" (64:1-2).
How quickly we forget! How readily we lapse into amnesia! How convenient for us to have this memory glitch, this senior moment wherein we fail to call to remembrance that it was precisely to keep from rending the heavens in His anger and coming down on us all in judgment that God sent His only-begotten Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and made man, to bear our sin and our punishment in our stead.
In His great mercy, God jogs our memory and ends our memory lapse. And we recover from our forgetfulness. We surface from our deep amnesia. We remember. There is more to the story, a lot more, more of God and His mercy, more for us, much, much more, more than enough to go around. "Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him" (v 4).
For the Lord who is our God and Father is likewise our Redeemer from of old, indeed, from everlasting to everlasting. This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is the rest of the story. The Apostle Paul gives it to us in the form of a greeting, the same greeting whereby I greet the congregation at the beginning of every sermon. "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1Cor 1:3). He might just as well have said, "our Redeemer Jesus Christ".
This greeting, this grace and peace, goes back to God's revelation of Himself to His servant Moses when He passed in front of him, proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin" (Ex 34:6-7a), a God, Jonah confesses, "who relents from sending calamity" (4:2b) and rejoices in sending deliverance--and speedily!
So, on the occasion of His discourse about leaving His disciples, as far as His visible presence is concerned, Jesus, our Prince of Peace, promises to leave us His peace and the Spirit who confirms us in it. "Peace I leave you. My peace I give you" (Jn 14:27a). Notice, it's indicative; it's a statement of fact. It's not conditional. It's non-negotiable, as non-negotiable as non-negotiable bearer bonds of which He is the Bearer.
Jesus says, "My peace I give you" NOT "May you have my peace". It's a bestowal of Jesus' peace, a giving of it by Jesus' bespeaking it, not mere wishful thinking or glib wish fulfillment but the thing itself, Jesus' peace, the real thing, the rest of the story, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, more of God, more for us, more all around, much, much more, much more than enough to go around.
No, Jesus definitely does not give to us as the world gives, only to take more in return, taking us for a ride and to the cleaners. Jesus gives His all for us. Hence, He is our All-in-All. Therefore, "Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (v 27b).
"Peace be with you!" Jesus greets us as He did His first disciples. "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." And with that He bestows upon us His peace. This is not wishful thinking or glib wish fulfillment. This is the real thing. Jesus gives us His peace in bespeaking it to us. He speaks and it is done: gift conferred, peace received. And with that we become His peacekeepers.
With that He breathes on us and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven" (Jn 20:21-23). And with that, I say to you, "The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus."
I do not say, "May the peace of God keep your hearts and minds". This is no wishful thinking, no mere wish fulfillment. This is the real thing. And this is enough. And this: "The true body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, keep you ever steadfast in the one true faith unto life everlasting. Depart in His peace." And this: "The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace."
More of Him. More for you. More all around. More than enough. Amen.
- Pastor Erickson