Jesu Juva
“Rending the Heavens”
Text: Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 11:1-10; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, the prophet Isaiah prayed. Come down with fire, fear, and trembling!
Maybe Isaiah was thinking of something like what happened with Moses, when God came down and spoke to Moses out of a bush that was burning with fire and yet not consumed. Come down like that! We need saving.
Or maybe he was thinking of what happened during the time of Elijah, when the fire of God came down and consumed the sacrifice Elijah had prepared, while none of the 450 prophets of Baal could get their god to do anything. A resounding victory, proving who the true God is.
Rend the heavens! Tear open the heavens! The nuclear option. Show ‘em whose boss, God. Perhaps you’ve thought that, too. Wished that, too. When sin and evil and the enemies of the church and the truth seem to be winning. A little shock and awe might just be what they need. Use your power, God! Squash ‘em! Do something to put your enemies in their place. So they know they can’t mess with You and get away with it.
The problem is . . . the God we want to rend the heavens and come down and bring the hammer down on others, is the God who should rend the heavens and come down and bring them hammer down on us! For as Isaiah went on to say, We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. That is, even our best actions and good works are polluted with sin and deserve the fire of God. Though we don’t always see it that way. The sins of others are usually worse than ours, we think. Or maybe we’re just better at hiding them. Or have better excuses. Or our sins are just more respectable, more socially common, or even legal.
When Isaiah wrote this, it was the Assyrians who were the problem. And just about any nation, when compared against the Assyrians, would come out looking better! The Assyrians the roughest, toughest, rudest, crudest, meanest and most proudly violent nation up to that time, and maybe even up to our time. They struck fear in everyone, and flexed their muscles without mercy. Including upon God’s own people, Israel. . . . Well that’s not right! We’re not as bad as them! No one is as bad as them! Rend the heavens and come down, God! Burn ‘em up, God! Smash ‘em! Give ‘em what they deserve!
Well, God will. He has a day and a time set for that. But you don’t want to be the nail under that hammer when that day comes! And at that time, Israel would have been. Their idolatry, wickedness, and evil were at all time highs, and rising. They might not have been the 9 or 10 the Assyrians were on the vileness scale, but is 7 or 8 anything to brag about?
So God was using the Assyrians for a little tough love for His people. Yes, the big, bad Assyrians! For better a few hammer taps now to bring His people to repentance than the smashing blow on the Last Day. And as big and bad as Assyria seemed, that’s really all this was. Though it seemed a crushing blow, it was just a few hammer taps when compared to what the Last Day will be like. So even though Assyria thought they were the world power second to none, their day would come. So Isaiah ends with a plea for mercy. Kind of his own kyrie . . .
But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Be not so terribly angry, O Lord,
and remember not iniquity forever.
Behold, please look, we are all your people.
Please look. The Lord does. Nothing escapes His knowledge, though maybe it sometimes seems that way. Though maybe at times it seems as if the Lord has overlooked you or forgotten me. He sees. He knows. And He acts. For He would, in fact, answer Isaiah’s plea. He did rend the heavens and come down . . . He just had a different idea how. Not the nuclear option, but the merciful option. Not fire and fear, but meekness and weakness. He would come not with the power of the sword, but with the power of His Word. His Word made flesh. And when the time came for that to be revealed (for until that day, Jesus looked and acted just like any other boy and young man from Nazareth) . . . when the time came for that to be revealed, Mark tells us that when Jesus was baptized, God did, in fact, rend the heavens! The heavens were torn open, he says, rended, and the Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove (Mark 1:10-11). Now God would use His power. Now God would vanquish His enemies.
And though by this time Assyria was long gone, the enemies behind that enemy remained: sin and evil, death and decay, satan and his demons. You see, these are the real problem, not Assyria. Nations come and go, people come and go, but the enemy remains the same. The enemy that really isn’t interested in nations, except as a mans to an end - he’s interested in you. In bringing you down. Down in sin. Down to hell with him. To rend your heart and your conscience and dump all of his lying nonsense and wicked ways into your heart and mind. That we not only become unrighteous, but so much so that we don’t even know what good looks like anymore. And look around. Look around at what is being called “good” in our world today. Is it? Really? Or with all our righteous deeds like a polluted garment, as Isaiah said, do we now look at polluted garments and think them clean? That would be a problem. And it is. Consider how your own thinking has changed . . . and the inroads satan has made in your life . . .
So God rended the heavens and came down. The Father sent His Son in the flesh, and then He sent the Spirit upon Jesus that day in the Jordan. And with the power of His Word, those ancient enemies were being overcome. The sick and diseased were healed at His Word. The lepers were cleansed at His Word. The demons were expelled at His Word. The dead were raised at His Word. Sinners were forgiven at His Word. But all of that was prologue to the real work of the Word - when the Father sent His Son to the cross. When all the sickness and brokenness of the world would be heaped on the Word made flesh. When all the sin of the world would be heaped on the Word made flesh. When death would swallow up the Word made flesh. When like with Israel and Assyria, all the sin and evil, death and decay, and satan and his demons seemed to win. When the cries of the people of Hosanna! as Jesus entered Jerusalem would, by the end of that week, become just cries, tears, sorrow, and sadness. When the people would again ask, God, what are you doing? Why are you doing this?
Israel asked that when Assyria came in and conquered them. God, why are you doing this? Some asked that, as we heard today, when the disciples went to get the colt Jesus rode into Jerusalem on. And the disciples certainly asked that when a lifeless Jesus was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb. God, why are you doing this? And the answer we heard today is the answer to all these questions of all these times: The Lord has need of it. But there’s a second part to that answer: The Lord has need of it . . . to Hosanna! us, to save us.
For just as the Lord used evil Assyria not to destroy His people but to save His people, to bring them back to Him in repentance and faith, so He uses evil death to save His people from death. To break the grip sin and death held on us not by rending the heavens, but by rending the tomb, that by His resurrection, not only He, but all of us, too, be victorious. That our ancient enemies be defeated once and for all. So Lord, why are you doing this? Because we have need of it!
And all that we need, our Father has promised to provide. It may not be how we think or what we think or when we think, but He will, and it will be better than we think. Better for the long-term, for eternity. Better that we not try to do it on our own, but rely on Him. Better not to make us feel good about ourselves, but turn to Him in repentance and faith. Better that we see our polluted garments as polluted garments, and the righteousness of Him, His ways, and His Word. Better in that we not learn how to forgive ourselves, but hear that He forgives us. That’s what we need, and that’s why He does all He does. For no other reason than to Hosanna! us.
And so it is as true for us as it was for the Corinthians Christians that Paul wrote to when he said: you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You are not lacking. All you need, you have.
In any spiritual gift. In any gifts of the Spirit. By which he means first and foremost not cool, unusual stuff people might be able to do, but the gifts of the Spirit they had and we have here: the gifts through which the Spirit comes and works and gives us the gifts of heaven: Baptism, Absolution, Gospel, and Supper.
These are what sustain us to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. All we need, we have. As Jesus rends the heavens and comes to us today, not on the meekness and weakness of a donkey, but in the meekness and weakness of water, words, and bread and wine. But then and now, for the same reason: to Hosanna! you.
And then when our Lord rends the heavens one last time and comes down on the Last Day, all the Hosannas! cried out by a multitude of mouths across a multitude of centuries will once and for all be fulfilled as the King and the kingdom comes. Until that day, we live in repentance for our sins and faith that all that our Lord is doing He is doing for us. That Assyria is not winning, He is. The evil cannot win, He has. That our polluted garments are cleansed by His blood. And that here our Father has provided all we need. If you want to try to rend the heavens and get to heaven on your own, you can, though I don’t think you’ll get very far. Better is to know Him who did, and who will again. And who, when He does, will take you home.
So Saviour of the nations (LSB #332), Saviour of all sinners, Saviour of me! come. That’s our Advent prayer. And that is Jesus’ Advent joy! To do just that. To Hosanna you.
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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