Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
March 19, 2023
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Lent 4
Jesus Redeems His Creation

For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant. I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools. And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.” (Isaiah 42:14-16)

In the recent past the church celebrated the season of Advent in which the Promise of the Savior is glorified. Then came Christmas which is the fulfillment of the ancient Precious Promise. Next came Epiphany wherein the church specifically demonstrates that this “child who was born,” this “Son who was given,” is God now in the flesh appearing to redeem us. And now in Lent we prepare ourselves for history’s finest hour: the Lord’s Atoning Death, and his life-giving resurrection from the dead which assures our own awakening. The case is exactly as the Lord says, “Because I live, you also will live.” (John 14:19)

For some Lent is a time of frolicking Friday Fish Fry’s, but for others a period of self-denial. A time of severe fasting and abstinence from various foods and other pleasurable activities. During such self-imposed sacrifices Christians contemplate the “wages of sin” as they continue to ravish humanity unabated. But especially as they were experienced by the Son of God in his passion on our behalf; to heal the otherwise incurable wound (Micah 1:9) of our sins; or in the words of Isaiah the prophet “by his stripes” we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

Now in our Old Testament lesson today the LORD GOD says by this same Isaiah that a Great and earth-shattering Change will come to his chosen people, and indeed to the whole world. A change that comes in two parts. And with a twist of divine timing. Because whatever else our God is, he is the master of timing. Because … with the entrance of sin into the world, and death through sin, all creation is seriously out of timing. (Romans 5:12)

The first part of the LORD’s word here is a declaration of his patience. God held his peace, and put penalty into abeyance for the longest time! He promised that our proto-parents would die if they ate the devil’s faux sacrament, but he did not strike them dead! Instead he demonstrated extreme patience, so that men might return to the Source of their Life. But it did not work!

By the time of Noah centuries later, the LORD God says this by the mouth of Moses: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah – cypher Christ – found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” (Genesis 6:5-8)

Now while the Flood was the strongest corrective imaginable it did not work, because though Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord, he was still only a man, not the God/Man. And sin returned.

But in Isaiah’s Day, centuries after the Flood, our God announced the end of his patience. First, like a pregnant woman with a very overdue child in the womb our God will shriek and howl so that hearts the world over will jangle and clatter at the sound. Dread fear will enter the ears and hearts of every person. Knees will jangle and clatter, and all bets will be off. Next, Isaiah says, he will tear down the mountains, dry up the rivers and lay utter waste to all creation. All of this and more because God had been cancelled by his own people, those whom he had chosen to deliver Messiah to the world. “He came unto his own, and his own did not receive him.” (Jn. 1:11)

But that is not the end of Isaiah’s golden prophecy! Because before the ink was dry these following words were also engraved into the Permanent Record of Salvation in Christ.

“And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light … these are the things I do, and I will not forsake them.” (Isaiah 42:16)

Now a moment ago we mentioned God’s timing and here is what we mean, mark it well! He announced these latter words salvation 150 years before the impending disaster even came! Said another way: our God planned and announced the solution of the problem, the definitive end of sin and sorrow when the coming disaster was still 150 years in the future. He does the same for us today, and so keep faith alive! Find joy in believing. (Rom. 15:13) And never doubt that the plan for your restoration – and that of your loved ones especially those who are beyond your reach – is already in play.

The man in today’s gospel who was born blind is the perfect case study.

The first thought of many people upon viewing such a tragedy as a child born without vision is: Who sinned? What did this man do to deserve such a fate? Or what did his parents do to deserve this outcome?

Now human ailments may or may not be traceable to a direct cause, including bad parenting – for which there is also “plenteous redemption!” (Ps. 130) But in this case Jesus reframes us all when he says: “Neither he nor his parents sinned; but this condition exists in order that the work of God might be made manifest in him.”

And then he says: “As long as I am in the world I am the Light of the world. When he had said these things he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, then he anointed him, putting the clay on his eyes. Then he said to him, “Go! Wash in the pool of Siloam!” So he went and washed himself and returned with sight.

And now the promise made by Isaiah comes true in all its glory! The man faithfully receives the Lord’s anointing with mud made from spit and earth, washes at the Pool of Siloam, and now he can see.

But here is something yet more amazing! That before the foundation of the world a decision was made in the Council of the Holy Trinity that this man should be born blind – so that Jesus who is the Lord of Creation, should complete this man’s formation in the sight of all people then, and in the hearing of all men today. Demonstrating that in Christ, “God has indeed visited and redeemed his people.” (Luke 1:68) We are those people, and recipients of the same miracle. We too are healed of our inability to see to the boundless love and glory of God. We too are given the gift of sight, the gift of faith that is, as to the future we can expect in union with our Savior at God’s Right Hand. A union that began when we were washed in the baptismal pool of Siloam, and that continues here at the altar today.

O taste and see that the LORD is good! Amen.