Better than Cyrus, Jesus has come to set the captives free indeed!
What a great text to preach on in the season of Pentecost. Our text opens by talking about an “anointed” king. It is a great start to a sermon that must proclaim Christ the King our Savior.
Obviously, this refers to God or even Isaiah’s Suffering Servant Messiah, right? No, here it is actually referring to Cyrus, a foreigner, but a king like David (Psalm 2:2), who much like a Davidic King “subdues nations” (Psalm 2:8-12; 110). This surprising savior is taken by the hand of the Lord, much like the Lord had done for Israel (Isaiah 41:13). This conundrum of internal politics and the great plan of God is something that is brought up in our appointed Gospel lesson for the day from Matthew 22:15-22. Should we accept foreign rule? What about Caesar? Should we go along with his reign and rule? Jesus answers masterfully. There are Two Kingdoms and God rules both. God worked through Cyrus and God used a Roman rule and a Roman cross to render free and full deliverance and salvation through the true “anointed one” Jesus Christ.
One of the challenges set before this unexpected “anointed one” are the gates of “bronze and iron” (45:2). The “bronze gates” referred to in our text are likely referring to the actual physical gates which Nabopolassar and his son Nebuchadnezzar constructed around Babylon. Historians Herodotus and Xenophon speak of the hundreds upon hundreds of bronze gates that surrounded Babylon in the late seventh and early sixth centuries. Babylon was the most fortified city in the world, and God’s people were trapped inside that city, closed in behind those gates with no way out.
If you wanted to today, you could go and see a magnificent example of these gates at the Ishtar Gate exhibit in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. Long before you could visit those gates in Berlin, in 539 BC, Cyrus visited them in Babylon and strolled right through with great ease. Beginning in 550 BC, Cyrus expanded the Persian empire with general ease. Just his military presence drove away armies, created alliances, and opened gates without any protest. He was truly a king who brought peace to his empire. This peace led to freedom for God’s people (Isaiah 45:13) and further comfort for them by naming Israel’s God as the only God (45:4-6).
The “hiddenness” of God in the last verse reminds us of something mentioned later in 45:15. “You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, the Savior.” The Latin Vulgate translates this verse with a very popular theological phrase which becomes for us an actual locus of theology: “Tu es Deus absconditus Deus Israhel salvator” (translated literally: You are the hidden God, the God of Israel, the Savior).[1] The hiddenness of God brings judgement and a strange sort of deliverer. In His revealed (Deus revelatus) state, God shows us light, life, and the Savior.
The hiddenness of God’s plan in Cyrus proves a three-part plan unfolding in our reading. First, God wants Cyrus to know Him (45:3). Second, God wants to restore His people through Cyrus (45:4). Third, through Cyrus, God wants the world to know Him (45:6) and His great salvation (45:7).
The revelation of God’s true Messiah in Jesus would be revealed in the third day resurrection plan God had for all people’s everywhere. Jesus, who is far greater than Cyrus, is the ultimate Messiah/Anointed One who opens the gates of Hell (Revelation 1:18) and sets prisoners free (John 8:36).
The revelation of God’s true Messiah in Jesus would be revealed in the third day resurrection plan God had for all people’s everywhere
If you want to have proof that He has the authority and power to do this, look at what Jesus did with Lazarus (John 11:1-44). Here, Lazarus was shut away forever from the land of the living in the prison of death. His enemy, death, had a firm hold on him. No gates of bronze were holding him in. Instead, it was the stone over his tomb that barred him in forever. This was true until Jesus called His name with a cry of command (1 Thessalonians 4:16) out of his grave. In John 11:44, after Jesus resurrected him from the tomb, He said: “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Better than Cyrus, Jesus has come to set the captives free indeed! But all of this, from Isaiah to Lazarus, was only a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do by His own death, entombment, and resurrection. Jesus, our King, would, like Cyrus, pass through the gates of death but in a totally different way than the way Cyrus did in Babylon or even the way Lazarus did from his grave. The difference is in who Jesus was as opposed to who they were. They were incapable of accomplishing any of these things unless God Himself intervened on their behalf.
Just like our Gospel lesson, people were wringing their hands wondering if Jesus would be so bold as to weigh in on how God would intervene on behalf of this unclear mess. But in fact, it would be in Jesus alone where God Himself was working through both kingdoms to do a work that Caesar, Cyrus, or any politicians or we could ever do. Peter’s Confession was right; Jesus is the Christ (Messiah/Anointed One) the son of the living God (Matthew 16:16)! He is unlike anyone else in that His Kingdom will never fade away and His authority to raise the dead is not just for one man but for all people by grace through faith. Even better is that Christ Himself says the gates of death and Hell cannot hold up against the true confession of who He is (Matthew 16:18). He is Christus Victor and He is leading a host of captives in His train (Psalm 68:18) that even the gates of Hell could not hold back.
A sermon arrangement which can help us accomplish the task of magnifying this gospel in Isaiah 45:1-7 is Paul Scott Wilson’s Four Pages Structure. In this configuration, there are “four rhetorical units in the sermon, two of them based on 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.”[2]
Trouble in the World
We are held captive in this world behind strong gates that imprison us (Romans 7:23).
A serial depiction of things that imprison us could be useful in this opening unit (grounding it in Paul’s struggle in Romans 7). Especially try and relate it to the lives of God’s people being imprisoned in exile in Babylon.
Trouble in the Text
A possibility here is to create a word picture: Imagine, a deliverer bursts onto the scene through the gates of bronze which held Israel captive. But there is a troubling detail given in this text. The “anointed” rescuer is Cyrus! Why would God use Cyrus to be our anointed rescuer? Why would we go along with that? Just like the trick question in our Gospel lesson from Matthew 22:15-22. Why not an Israelite deliverer? Why this foreign enemy?
Another serial depiction of the strange ways God sometimes answers our prayers for deliverance would work well at this point. Much like the surprising answer Jesus gives to those trying to trap Him in the Gospel lesson, God rules both kingdoms and works through them for our good in Jesus.
Here is a story you could use in this section as well:
“There is a story about three farmers whose fields were adjoined. One was Jewish, one Muslim, and one Christian. Each observed the Sabbath on a different day of the week. One harvest season, bad weather limited the days available for work, and skipping a day for Sabbath observance risked financial ruin. Nevertheless, all three farmers in turn observed their faith, making the choice to stay home on their respective Sabbaths. Upon waking the next day, each farmer found a barn filled with harvested crops. They gave thanks and praise to God, assuming angels had been sent to do the work. In fact, it was the neighbors of differing faiths who did the work in secret.”[3]
Sometimes we are surprised by whom God sends to help, especially when they are different from us. This passage from Isaiah describes God making an unexpected choice to aid the people of Israel. Having suffered in exile, they believe God has promised to send them a Messiah, someone to set them free. They have waited a long time for liberation but count on God’s promise to come true.
In this passage, God is ready to act, but not in the way Israel expects. God selects Cyrus, the king of Persia, to defeat Babylon and allow Israel to return home. As a Gentile and foreign king, Cyrus is perhaps the last person they would have thought of rescuing them. Why not one of them, a native Hebrew? Why a potential enemy?
Grace in the Text
God is delivering His people by means of a King who will break down the bars that hold us in. It was strange but it was a real deliverance. The “anointed one,” Cyrus, was a kind of savior who pointed towards something hidden in God until He revealed the true Savior and Anointed One, the Messiah in Jesus for us (Galatians 4:4). Lazarus’ story proves that Jesus has the authority and power as God’s true “Anointed Messiah” to set free those imprisoned by more than political prisons but also and more importantly by sin and death.
Grace in the World
Jesus broken down the gates of death that stood over us through His own death and resurrection (2 Corinthians 1:9-10). Jesus is the Messiah, the son of the living God, who was unrecognizable to us as the Savior (John 1:10-11). Yet, through Jesus God would break the prison doors and even the gates of Hell could not stand against Him.
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Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Isaiah 45:1-7.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Isaiah 45:1-7.
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!
[1] Biblia Sacra Vulgata: Iuxta Vulgatem Versionem, electronic version of the third edition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1969. Isaiah 45:15.
[2] https://concordiatheology.org/sermon-structs/dynamic/lawgospel-structure/
[3] Silf, Margaret. One Hundred Wisdom Stories from around the World. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2003. 208–9.
