Isaiah 55:6-9
“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Welcome to Getting ready for Sunday, a podcast of first Lutheran Church. Each week I introduced the readings for the upcoming Sunday with some notes and explanation so you can be ready for worship when you arrive. I look at the Old Testament, Psalm epistle and Gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday and offer a few notes and explanation.
The Old Testament reading for Sunday, September 24, comes from Isaiah chapter 55, verses six through nine. Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. He runs the reading.
Over the last several Sundays, we've been dancing around Isaiah quite a bit, and not the ones immediately before it. But you know, about a month or so ago, and it's all in this section. We're this section of Isaiah is talking about a dance back and forth between the judgment that God has brought on Israel. Well, Isaiah is predicting it, the judgment of the Babylonians coming in and destroying everything, but also the promise of restoration. There is a constant back and forth in Isaiah as ministry during the section. And so here he is saying, turn to the Lord, while he may be found. It's, it's a call to say, Look to God, while he is available to give you mercy, right. It says, Seek the Lord while He may be found call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
This is Isaiah calling out to the people of Israel in those days, return to God well, before the Judgment has happened. ask for his forgiveness, forsake your evil ways, and return to the covenant that God established with Israel. And so while God before God has brought about this judgment, returned to him. Now for us, we're not in the same position. We're not Israel trapped in a covenant. We are not facing down a Babylonian invasion in several 100 years. But it's still true that we need to seek the Lord while He may be found. For each and every one of us a day is coming, when the forgiveness of God is no longer on offer. That day is either the day of our death, or the day that Jesus Christ returned. After that day, there is no chance to turn from our evil ways, there is no chance for repentance. Once we die, we stand before God and we wait the judgment. Once Christ returns, there is no turning to him for grace. And so we call on God while he is near. And to do that, we go to the divine service, where Jesus Christ comes down from heaven, and marks his place among us amongst the people of God in a special and wonderful way, where he offers us the forgiveness of sins, and his holy body and blood for our salvation. What a great time to turn to the Lord and ask for his forgiveness and receive that abundant pardon in ways that he offers to us without question, we don't have to guess we don't have to wonder, we eat his body and drink his blood. And we know that it's certain and true.
Isaiah continues, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My ways your ways declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
We can see in God's plan for Israel, that his plan was unknowable.
He had, he had plans to send that of a invasion. No one knows why or where it happened, why he did it the way he did it, or what the plan was, until after it happened. We also see this happening when God includes the Gentiles into the promises of Israel. St. Paul is just astounded at what God has planned to do and is amazed that this amazing gift that God had promised Abraham now goes out to not just the promised people, but to everyone in the whole world. And I think we see in our own life that God's plans are things that we cannot know. We don't know what will happen tomorrow. We don't know when we will live or die.
We don't know how long our life will be. All we know is that now is the time to turn to God for forgiveness. We also don't know why God chose bread and wine to be the things that communicate his grace, or why he chose individuals to offer the confession and absolution of the pastor's often to the church. We don't know why God chose baptism, water and not other things. But he did. And so as we prepare for the day when when our sudden death comes, and we know that we will stand before the judgment seat, let us turn towards the means of grace to the word to remembering our baptism, to Holy Communion to confession and absolution to leave behind our evil ways and receive God's grace.
That's the end of our reading today. Hopefully, we'll see you on Sunday. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai