Easter 6—Exaudi
Dear friends in Christ. Today we are between two great Church festivals. This past Thursday the Church remembered and celebrated Jesus’ ascension into heaven; next Sunday we remember and celebrate Jesus sending the Holy Spirit, in full measure, on His Church—Pentecost. Just think of how it was for the first disciples waiting those unknown ten days! Before His ascension Jesus told the disciples [Luke 24:49NKJV]: Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you [that is, the Holy Spirit]; but stay in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. The disciples made the most of that time—as St. Luke also records [Acts 1:14 NKJV]: The disciples all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers. May we, too, find—and even seek out—times of quiet to spend around our Lord’s word pondering our Lord and His work, His grace, love, etc.
Let us also look around us and open our eyes and see the truth of what David writes in Psalm 19:1: The heaven declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. Let nature, let the events we experience daily, preach Christ to us.
Luther picks up on this. Preaching on Jesus’ word [Matthew 6.26 NKJV]: Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them, he comments: Early in the morning the little bird rises, sits upon a twig and sings a song it has learned, while it does not know where to obtain its food, and yet is not worried as to where to get its breakfast. Later, when it is hungry, it flies away and seeks a grain of corn, where God stored one away for it, of which it never thought while singing, when it had cause enough to be anxious about its food. All around us are examples from nature that preach Christ to us. One that the Lord points to in our text is an all too familiar one to us living in NY—rain and snow: "For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, unless it waters the earth, and makes it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater”. And what’s the point of comparison? So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; He shall not return to Me void, But He shall accomplish what I please, And He shall prosper in the thing for which I sent Him. Notice, the Lord is here talking about the water cycle—the rain comes down from the clouds does its thing—waters the ground, runs into the river, gets evaporated up and then returns to the sky to make more clouds and rain; and it starts all over again. Notice that language—rain and snow coming down and then returning there. Isn’t that “coming down and returning” really the same thing that Jesus was saying in last week’s Gospel [John 16:29NKJV]: I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father? The Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity came to this earth— came forth from the Father and [has] come into the world—and became also a true man to bring about our salvation—to obey for us God’s holy law and to suffer God’s wrath and punishment and die for our sins and by this reconcile us sinners to the holy God. With His holy law kept as He demands, with His wrath appeased, with all His punishment over sin poured out on Christ, the Father’s heart is turned to us in love!
And now with Jesus’ ascension—Jesus returns: Again, I leave the world and go to the Father. Jesus, the God-man, now fills all things. That means that He can be/ is with His Church, with His dear Christians wherever they may be; that means that where Jesus is as God—and God is everywhere—Jesus is also there as man because Jesus is one Person, the God-man. That’s why He is present and can give us His very body and blood in the Sacrament. Far from meaning that He is gone, far removed from us, Jesus’ ascension means, instead, that He is nearer to us. In other words, Jesus ascended into heaven to be closer, not further, from us.
So what then does our text mean? "For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, unless it waters the earth, And makes it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater. So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; He shall not return to Me void, but He shall accomplish what I please, And He shall prosper in the thing for which I sent Him”. Our OT text is God preaching to us about Jesus and using nature—the rain and the snow—as examples, illustrations, of Jesus and His work. In other words, Jesus, the Son of God, is the Word that goes forth from the mouth of God. This should not be a surprise—after all, isn’t the Son of God elsewhere in Scripture called “the Word.” St. John writes [John 1:1,14, NKJV]: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God….And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
What a glorious proclamation God makes here! What does it mean that the Son, Jesus, the Word, went forth from the mouth of God the Father? It means that God only has thoughts for our salvation. That’s the grace of God! That’s why He sent His Son; that’s why the Word went forth from His mouth and became flesh—to be our Savior from sin, death, devil and hell. Isn’t that a most wonderful and comforting of teachings? Because we sinned against His holy Law, because we offended His just and perfect righteousness we rightly earn and deserve His wrath and punishment but God doesn’t leave us in our sins and damnation. Instead, He sent forth the Word, His Son— So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; He shall not return to Me void, but He shall accomplish what I please, And He shall prosper in the thing for which I sent Him. God the Father sent His Son, the Word, into this world to become also true man precisely to bring about the salvation of the world by His holy life and His innocent suffering and death. What a glorious promise God gives His OT people here: He shall not return to Me void, but He shall accomplish what I please, And He shall prosper in the thing for which I sent Him. And we now live in the time of the fulfillment of that promise. Jesus, the Word, has come and has accomplished the salvation of the world. Like the Lord says through Isaiah in our text, let nature—let the rain— be our preacher: For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, unless it waters the earth, And makes it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater. So shall My word be. Each time it rains and we know that the ground is being watered so the plants will grow and give a harvest that we might eat—the rain carrying out its purpose—let us think of Christ coming and carrying out perfectly the work that the Father has given Him to do—to bring about the salvation of the world. As we will soon harvest the vegetables growing in our gardens, let us rejoice—not only that God provides for us bodily—but let the fact that the rain has accomplished its purpose point us to the fact that Jesus carried out His work to save the world from sin, death, devil and hell: so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth.
The successful completion of the work of our salvation—that’s the ascension! Because Jesus perfectly kept God’s law for us, because He paid for every sin of every person ever to live, because He fully appeased the wrath of God, because He brought us perfect forgiveness and righteousness—His saving job is done. That’s why He could return to the Father; that’s why the ascension—to announce the end of Jesus’ work here on earth. Forgiveness and salvation have been won! Jesus ascended in triumph. For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, unless it waters the earth, And makes it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater. So shall My word be. He shall not return to Me void, but He shall accomplish what I please, And He shall prosper in the thing for which I sent Him. What a comforting sermon the rain and snow preach! We do well each rainy day well to ponder the fact of Christ’s coming and each sunny day the completion of Jesus’ work with the water evaporating and returning to the sky.
2. Now that Jesus has brought about the forgiveness of sin and victory over death and devil as Easter’s empty tomb proclaims; now that Jesus’ ascension proclaims to us that the work for our salvation is completely done, how then can we get the blessing and benefit of it? That’s the work of the Holy Spirit! Jesus, sent forth from the Father, obtained for us that forgiveness of sin—that’s the certainty and glory of the Ascension—and now by the work of the Holy Spirit in the word and Sacraments He gives / distributes to us the blessing of Jesus’ completed work—that’s Pentecost, what we will celebrate next week.
How richly the Lord has blessed us, dear Christian, in and through the completed work of crucified, risen and ascended Christ, who has given the Holy Spirit to us to work faith in our hearts that we might receive the benefits of His work! Our text: For you shall go out in joy, And be led out in peace; The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; And it shall be to the LORD for a name, For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
Notice: For you shall go out in joy, And be led out in peace; two sides of the same coin. That’s us! Like the Jews out of slavery in Egypt—we go out of the slavery to sin, devil and death. We are full of joy from the bottom of our new/ Christian hearts because in faith we know that things are right between us and God—our sin is forgiven us, we are reconciled to God, heaven stands open to us. Even though we are going out with joy—it is not something we have done; we have not brought ourselves into this joy, into the Christian faith, into this new and right relationship with God. Instead, we are led out. Notice, we aren’t leading ourselves out of bondage to sin and devil, we are led out—by the Holy Spirit. That’s what Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit is all about. He comes to us in the word and sacrament and creates faith in our hearts in Jesus and His saving work and through this faith leads us out of our captivity to sin and devil. It is something as Christians, because of our new self/ created in us by the Holy Spirit, we gladly and willingly do; in joy, we receive the forgiveness of sins; in joy we say, “yea and amen” to God’s promises to us in Jesus. Our faith is our own, that is, we do the believing; it is a busy and active thing: For you shall go out in joy.
But our faith is not our own in the sense that it is something we conjure up/ produce in ourselves; instead, it is the gift of God to us, worked in us by His Holy Spirit: you shall…be led out in peace. What a glorious peace we have as Christ leads us by His Holy Spirit. In the midst of every trial and hardship—we have peace, that peace that I am my Lord’s dear Christian and in love He is guiding and leading me —ultimately to Himself in heaven; a peace as I rejoice in my salvation because it culminates in the eternal bliss of heaven. Now, as we, dear Christian, go out in joy, And [are] led out [by the Holy Spirit] in peace, we are different; we have a glorious new condition, a change of nature: Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree. By the working of the Holy Spirit on us already now there is a change in us—we love the Lord and strive to serve Him as we serve others and fight against our sin and temptation; we live lives of faith and good works. Come the Last Day when our bodies are raised perfect and fit for an eternity in heaven and reunited with our soul that has been in heaven since death, there will be our final and eternal deliverance and glorification: And it shall be to the LORD for a name, For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
Dear Christian, look around. Ponder all the sermons the Lord has placed around us in nature to preach to us of His saving work. Even the rain coming down and evaporating again preaches to us that Christ came and was successful in carrying out His work to save us, returning to heaven as Victor. For Jesus’ saving work and our salvation all creation praises the Lord: The mountains and the hills Shall break forth into singing before you, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. May we join with all creation in praising the holy Triune God. INJ Amen