It is well with our soul, because Christ has conquered the grave and brought hope and light to life through His resurrection.
For anyone feeling overwhelmed in life, our text for this Sunday offers a clear message of hope. If you have people in your congregation who have faced so many disappointments that they are afraid to have hope again, you need to preach on this text. In 587 BC, when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and sent its inhabitants into exile, the people of God had little hope for the future. Even though they could come back in 538 after the Persians conquered Babylon, they still faced a constant barrage of opposition and difficulties from the people inhabiting Jerusalem who surrounded them. When preaching on this text, you could develop this idea in the sermon of the opposition and difficulties they faced with multiple examples from the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Notice, though, how in the midst of these numerous challenges Isaiah announces that God’s people have certainty in His promises and they will move from grief to joy. This is only possible because God can bring the fallen, dead, and abandoned (Jerusalem) back to life again (verse 11).
Using the image of a mother (verses 7-9) Isaiah proclaims that Zion will give her inhabitants life-giving milk and life-giving rivers (verses 11-12). In fact, God will offer “shalom” like a river. Shalom means wholeness and peace, and it is an image of grace.
When Horatio Spafford penned the line “When peace, like a river,” an image based off of our text in his well loved hymn, “It Is Well with My Soul,” he is speaking of being “carried” (verse 12) through trying times and a profoundly personal experience of death in his own life, to the hope of life eternal in Christ. In 1873, Spafford’s wife and daughters were traveling ahead of him to England when their ship, the SS Ville du Havre, crashed into another ship and his four daughters tragically died in the accident. Overwhelmed with grief, Spafford himself traveled to England to console his wife who survived the tragic incident. When he reached the spot where the SS Ville du Havre went down, he penned the words of this hymn based off our text from Isaiah 66. His stated hope in this hymn is in the God who can bring life from death.
That is our hope in life as well. It is a hope we can only find in Christ who conquered death by His death and gave us hope and life through His glorious resurrection. Sometimes knowing the story behind the words of a hymn can offer profound insights and change the way you hear it and believe it. Sometimes knowing the story of Christ behind all the things that we do at church can offer profound comfort and hope in a world filled with such disappointments and grief. Finding a way to incorporate this hymn into the sermon can serve as an image which will explore the main idea behind our text so our hearers can connect to the verses through the experience of Spafford and their own perilous journeys of grief as well.
Sometimes knowing the story of Christ behind all the things that we do at church can offer profound comfort and hope in a world filled with such disappointments and grief.
There is in this world a little community of believers who believe in words of comfort and promise and are consoled by the Word and Sacraments provided for us by God in Christ through His Church. The image of God as nurturer. The image that God provided the Church to comfort us like a nurturing mother. The hope that there is peace like a river which comes our way so that when sorrows like sea billows roll, we can have hope in this life that whatever our lot God has taught us to say, it is well, it is well with our soul, because Christ has conquered the grave and brought hope and light to life through His resurrection.
A sermon on this text taken together with the Spafford hymn and story is probably best crafted using a Central Image Based Structure:
“This sermon structure uses a single image throughout the sermon and fosters devotional contemplation of an image.
In the opening of the sermon, the preacher describes the image for the hearers. The preacher then uses that image as a source for continuing devotional contemplation throughout the sermon. The image serves as a lens through which one views the textual exposition, the theological confession, the evangelical proclamation, and the hearer interpretation of the sermon. Having a single image lends coherence to the sermon.
As the preacher returns to the image periodically throughout the sermon, he may approach it in one of two ways: Through a single focus or a multiple focus.
With a single focus, the image remains the same throughout the sermon. The preacher may approach that image from one perspective (for example, viewing the image from the perspective of the artist who created it) or the preacher may approach that image from a variety of perspectives (for example, viewing the same image from the perspective of different people who come into contact with it), but the image itself remains the same.
If approaching the image from one perspective, the sermon can reinforce a single theme in a variety of situations. For example, the first encounter with the image can establish a theme and then, as the preacher uses the image again in the sermon, it can locate that theme in relation to the text and then, later, in relation to the hearers.
If approaching the image from a variety of perspectives, the sermon can develop or unfold the theme. For example, the first encounter with the image could evoke an interpretation that will later be expanded or even corrected in the sermon. By changing how the image is seen, the hearers are able to track the basic development of a larger theme in the sermon. Each stage of development (like moving from a misconception to a clearer vision, moving from application in terms of one’s relationship to God to application in terms of one’s relationship to others, or moving from repentance to forgiveness and finally to restoration) is captured by preaching the image through a different perspective.
With a multiple focus, each time the preacher returns to the image, he focuses on a different aspect of that image. The preacher may begin by looking at the whole image and then focus on one detail and then another. Or he may look at smaller details and, at the conclusion of the sermon, consider the image as a whole. If the image is displayed, the preacher may crop the image so only a small detail is revealed, helping the hearers focus on that particular aspect at that point in the sermon. In terms of the progression of the sermon, the image itself serves as a map of the ideas of the sermon, each portion meditated upon at different points in the sermon. For example, the preacher may use an artistic representation of a biblical event to walk the hearers through the text, slowing down the progression of the story to meditate upon various individuals and their experience of the event.”[1]
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out out 1517’s resources on Isaiah 66:10-14.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Isaiah 66:10-14.
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/imagistic-structures/central-image/
