Remember These, O Jacob and Israel
A Sermon for Easter Saturday
Based Upon Isaiah 44:21-28
March 29, AD 2008
"Remember these, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have
formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by
Me! I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And
like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you." Sing,
O heavens, for the LORD has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the
earth; Break forth into singing, you mountains, O forest, and every
tree in it! For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, And glorified Himself in
Israel. (Isaiah 44:21-23)
Jacob is a deceiver; Israel is a faithful saint.
Both are the same man.
Both are you.
Jacob is another name for the Old Adam, the sinful nature with which
each one of us is born and is plagued throughout our lives. He
continues to lead you into deceptive practices, in which you feign love
for God and for neighbor while you really are seeking only your own
best interests in your dealings with your neighbor--and with your God.
Even your very best deeds done for your neighbor carry a bit of
prideful self-satisfaction that taints it from being a deed purely done
for the glory of God alone. Even your kindest words spoken toward your
neighbor include the intention that your neighbor would return the
favor someday, and this it is no longer a word spoken for the benefit
of your neighbor alone. Outwardly, it looks and sounds like you have
God alone and neighbor alone at heart, but that outward form belies the
deception that lurks beneath. If we say we have no such sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us--just as it was not in
Jacob.
Yet God dealt in truth with that deceitful Jacob. Almighty God allowed
the consequences of Jacob's deceit to follow him, bringing to Jacob
troubles in his life--especially anxiety and worry over the revenge
that those whom he had deceived -- even his own twin brother -- might
take against him. Jacob came to recognize that his troubles were not
just part of life in a fallen world, but had come to him as the result
of his own transgressions against God's Law--by his own most grievous
fault.
Yet God in His mercy remembered Jacob, and the promise of mercy that He
had made to the world for the sake of His Christ. God would send His
Faithful Israel, His Son, bearing the flesh into which God Himself had
formed man, to be God's servant and bring His redemption into the
world. The life of Jesus Christ was blotted out at His cross, serving
as the sacrifice for the transgressions of the world. He was enveloped
in a cloud of darkness to reveal that He was being regarded by His
Father as Jacob, rejected by God for his great and many sins.
Yet Faithful Israel would not be forgotten by God. Israel had
struggled with God at that same cross, fighting the good fight of faith
and still believing that The Father Who was rightly bringing upon Him
the consequences of the sin of the world -- even death -- would yet
raise Him up in victory after His redeeming work was done.
And God did. For Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! God
had remembered to have mercy upon Jacob, for the sake of Faithful
Israel. On the third day, God the Father raised up the lifeless body
of His Son to life again. Jacob the Deceiver had been forgiven,
through the faith of Israel, Who dwelt in that same body; for Israel
trusted in the sacrifice of the Christ for the forgiveness of the sins
of the world.
So it was also for the man Israel, formerly called Jacob, who wrestled
with God as he contemplated the circumstances of his life and the
consequences that his life of deceit had brought into his life. In
that wrestling at the waters of the River Jabbok, God’s Holy Spirit
blessed Jacob with faith in God while Jacob wrestled with God’s Word,
and Jacob triumphed. He believed that God had graciously blotted out
his transgressions and had covered over his sins, all for the sake of
the Christ Who would come and make atonement for all sin, for all the
Jacob's in the world.
So it is for you, Jacob. For God has given you a new name, like He
gave to our father in the faith, the Jacob of old. At the waters of
your baptism, God gave you the name Israel, even while He gave you the
gift of the same faith as Israel, that you might be fight the good
fight of faith throughout your life and overcome all things in life
through faith in Christ. The thick cloud in which Christ appeared to
His faithful people, who were also named Israel after their ancestor
and father in the faith, continues to envelop you and cover your sins,
for Christ continues to be present with us, the New Israel, through the
preaching of His Word of forgiveness. He has redeemed us from our sins
and sin’s consequences -- even eternal death -- with His holy, precious
blood, poured out for you from the chalice of the Holy Supper as the
holy drink that accompanies the holy feast of His Body, which we eat
and drink for the forgiveness of sins and the strengthening of that
faith of Israel.
And so the struggle between Jacob and Israel continues within you. For
that is the Christian life. Where there is no Christ, there is no
Israel; there is only Jacob, who never struggles against sin, but
delights in his deception. But for you, there is struggling; isn’t
there?
Dear Christian, while you continue to live in this one body, Jacob and
Israel contend for control over your life. Jacob would have you return
to your self-centered life; Israel would have you live as the faithful
one into which God has recreated you in your baptism. Plunge back into
that baptism by its daily remembrance of its graces upon you.
"Remember these, O Jacob, And Israel, for you are My servant; I have
formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by
Me! I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, And
like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you" (Isaiah
44:21-22). In that daily--even hourly--even moment-by-moment
remembrance of your baptism, that Old Jacob within is drowned gather
with his sin and his lust for deception, that Israel, the new man of
faith in Christ, might return to his reign over you, that you might
live for before God in righteousness and purity, now and forever.
Return to the Lord, in that daily remembrance of your baptism.
Return to the Lord and His House and partake of His Holy Supper as
often as it is offered to you from His table. For this holy food
strengthens you in body and soul for your wrestlings, that you might
fight the good fight throughout your life and overcome the struggles of
each day.
Return to the Lord in the daily remembrance of the Word that He speaks
to you. Remember His rebuke against your many trespasses and sins,
Jacob, in which your words and deeds and thoughts and desires reveal
your love of self over God and His Name and His Word, and your love of
self over your neighbor and your neighbor’s life, authority,
reputation, and world possessions. And then, O Israel, remember the
forgiveness He so freely gives, through a love conditioned not on your
own love for Him and your neighbor, but conditioned upon Christ’s love
for God and the world. "Remember these, O Jacob, And Israel, for you
are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant; O Israel, you
will not be forgotten by Me! I have blotted out, like a thick cloud,
your transgressions, And like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I
have redeemed you." (Isaiah 44:21-22) Return to the Lord, in the
daily remembrance of His Word, with His Holy Spirit guiding you in
accord with that Holy Word in holy living, out of gratitude for all
that He has done for you. “For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, And
glorified Himself in Israel” (Isaiah 44:23).
Remember these, O Jacob and Israel, and overcome, through Christ your
Lord.
For He is risen--He is risen indeed!--Alleluia! And with Him, so are
you.
Amen.
The Reverend Jeffrey A. Ahonen
Deacon, Salem Lutheran Church, Malone, Texas
Mission Pastor, Saint Henry Lutheran Mission, Montreal, Wisconsin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.sainthenry.info
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