The people of Isaiah’s day had rejected God and His presence in the Temple just as much as people live in contempt of God’s Word and sacraments today.
There is not much to say about the context of our text today. It is at the end of the second half of Isaiah, and refers to exiles in captivity, which is about it. However, there is actually quite a lot we can preach in this short text.
Right away in verse 1 we have two Niphal Perfects in the Hebrew who through repetition emphasize the sincere graciousness of God to make Himself able to be sought and found by His people. He is not some disinterested deity who is aloof and unconcerned about the affairs of the world.
Gracious repetition may sound familiar in Isaiah. It is reminiscent of something which comes earlier in Isaiah when God brings sincere grace and comfort to His people (40:1). If you were to look around for the sincerity of God towards saving His people in the Bible, you could easily find it in other places of the Old Testament (Psalm 40:8; 11-23) and even the New Testament as well (Hebrews 10:7, 9). God is crying out, “Here I am,” and nobody comes. Finally, it has to be Jesus who steps forward and says, “Behold I have come to do Your will” (Hebrews 10:9).
The availability and desire to do God’s will would never be located in us. We, like the people of Isaiah’s day, in sin reject God’s will and gracious invitation. Instead, God is to be sought and found in the person and work of Jesus who says, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of Me in the scroll of the book” (Psalm 40:6-8; Hebrews 10:7). The problem in our text is that the people of Isaiah’s day had rejected God and His presence in the Temple just as much as people live in contempt of God’s Word and sacraments today.
There is a unique arraignment of our text which actually gives us more of an opportunity to preach the Gospel for this Sunday. The Hebrew lection is meant to end at verse 7 and verse 8 is meant to be a new lection with a new idea. The blessing for us as preachers is there is still something left in the juice of this lectionary to squeeze out some more blessed gospel proclamation. In verse 8, the words “on account of” strike a particularly justification-type tone to the closing of our text. Indeed, we are not destroyed for our sin because “on account of” Christ alone we did not have to bear the crushing weight of our sin. No, Jesus bore that weight for us. We only brought sin and rejection to the table, but God brought a blessing forth in the seed of Jacob (Genesis 3:15; Galatians 3:16). The word in verse 9, often translated as “offspring,” is the Hebrew word “zerah,” which is the seed (singular) promise of the Messiah! God’s chosen suffering servant possessed all the life transforming salvation “on the mountain” (verse 9) of Calvary, and then three days later in a vacant tomb where eternal life is found in the resurrection of Jesus for you. We brought a problem and God brought salvation. What a great text to preach in a world that rejects God even as He accepts us graciously on account of Christ alone!
Indeed, we are not destroyed for our sin because “on account of” Christ alone we did not have to bear the crushing weight of our sin.
“Paul Scott Wilson has popularized the law/gospel structure through his work, The Four Pages of the Sermon. In this work, Wilson speaks of four rhetorical units in the sermon, two of them based on the Law and two based on the Gospel: (1) Trouble in the text, (2) Trouble in the world, (3) Grace in the text, and (4) Grace in the world.
During the course of the sermon, the preacher will take his hearers through these four experiences. As Wilson notes, the preacher can vary the way in which he orders the references to these four rhetorical units in order to create some variety with this design.
The sermon could offer a comprehensive movement from trouble to grace. Here, the sermon begins by presenting trouble in the text and trouble in the world and then proclaims grace in the text and grace in the world. This structure works well when approaching a sin that is difficult to speak about in the congregation as it allows the text to begin a conversation leading to a confession of that sin. Or, the sermon begins by presenting trouble in the world and trouble in the text and then proclaims grace in the text and grace in the world. This structure works well when a particular sin is widely known and experienced in a congregation and the preacher desires to help the congregation see how they, in this way, are very similar to people in the biblical text. Preserving the placement of grace in the text at the major turn of the sermon allows the preacher to highlight God’s gracious intervention as recorded in Scripture as the source of our present trust and hope.
The sermon could offer a recurrent movement from trouble to grace. Here, the sermon has two moments of turning from law to gospel: One is situated in the text, and one is situated in the world. For example, the sermon begins with trouble in the text and then moves to grace in the text. Then the sermon continues by exploring trouble in the world only to move to proclaiming grace in the world. By dividing the sermon between an encounter with the text and then an examination of the world, the sermon mirrors the flow of the text application structure. It also allows the preacher two opportunities to proclaim a life changing moment of grace in the sermon, one in relation to trouble in the text and one in relation to trouble in the lives of the hearers.”[1]
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out out 1517’s resources on Isaiah 65:1-9.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Isaiah 65:1-9.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
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[1] https://concordiatheology.org/sermon-structs/dynamic/lawgospel-structure/
