Epiphany 1: The Baptism of Our Lord January 13, 2019 Isaiah 43:1–7
Need Stability? Fear Knots and Fear Nots!
Growing up I saw my Cub Pack leader (who just happens to be my father) tie many knots. In Cubs we had knot tying sessions at the end of which we could earn the knot tying badge! I nailed it! Or was that the wood working badge.
Because we camped as a family I also had opportunity to practice my knot skills. There were the awning pole knots, the clothes line between the two trees knots and the very simple but oh so effective, slip knot that looked too simple to keep the canoe in place atop the camper or car but it did!
In life there are really two kinds of knots. K,n,o,t,s that tie us up and n,o,t,s that untie us!
Have you ever thought about how powerful fear and worry are in our lives? In his book Fearless, Max Lucado says that when fear moves in, happiness moves out. When our hearts are filled with fear, he reasons, there can’t be room for anything else. You can’t be confident and afraid at the same time. Nobody says he has a new spring in his step now that he worries more (Lucado, Fearless [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2009], 5).
Fear grabs us. Worry holds us. We find ourselves held by “fear k,n,o,t,s.” Those are the knots in our stomach when we think about tomorrow’s surgery or the court date we have coming up. Fear k,n,o,t,s are the things that bind our hearts when we’re concerned about our children. Fear k,n,o,t,s tie us up and refuse to let us go. Fear exhausts our energy and makes us weak.
The One true God comes to release us from our fear. To those who are fearful and worried, he says, “Fear n,o,t.” We can be hopeful. We can have confidence in God and his promises. Isaiah 43 tells us that by God’s word, “Fear N,o,t,” He releases us from the worries and fears, the fear K,n,o,t,s, that bind us.
Israel was bound up by fear k,n,o,t,s. They were worried about how God felt about them. After all, they had disobeyed God time and again. Beginning in the wilderness with Moses, the people of Israel complained against God, doubted his goodness, and turned to idols. This continued in the days of judges and the kings.
God warned his people against their idolatry, but they refused to listen. Instead of changing and repenting, they told the prophets to stop preaching, even imprisoning some of them and killing others.
Finally, the Lord had had enough. At the end of Isaiah ch 42, immediately before our text, the Lord reminds Israel of what he has done: “Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned? . . . [The Lord] poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle” (42:24–25).
They were also afraid of the future. Yes, God had promised that their exile in Babylon would last only seventy years, but would he keep his promise? They had sinned against the Lord. They deserved his anger. They had earned his punishment. Would God still be faithful to his Word? Could God ever forgive them? Would God ever forgive them? Would the Lord take them home? These knots of fear bound them like chains.
We are often bound by fear knots. Like Israel, we have disobeyed God. We even admit that. Earlier in worship we confessed that we have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone.
Worse yet, we have actually rebelled against God. The Introit for today is drawn from Psalm 2. Earlier in vv 2–3, David writes, “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.’ ” Who are those kings? Who are those rulers who set themselves against the Lord? Not just governments but ourselves included!
So how do we rebel against God? Let us count the ways? Ever not fully feared, trusted and loved the Lord our God? Or put another way, have any idols in your life? Ever misused his name? Ever taken His Word, His Sacraments, and Worship for granted? How about authorities? Ever looked down on them with disdain, or told jokes about them? Do you pray for them daily? Ever killed anyone with your thoughts? Ever slept with anyone (not your spouse) in your mind? Ever failed to return the extra $20 that cashier mistakenly gave you? Ever put the worst construction on a relationship. Ever coveted people or things? All of it rebellion! All of it an attempt to live for ourselves and burst as it were God blessed bonds and cords given to protect us.
No wonder we tell God that we justly deserve his temporal and eternal punishment. Because we do!
It’s no wonder that we are often afraid of God and worried about what he thinks of us. Look at Luther. He was so afraid of God and his wrath that he nearly fainted when he conducted his first Holy Communion Service. During the prayers, he wanted to run away. But we can’t run away from God. Where we going to go? We have to deal with him!
When we get afraid of God (for the wrong reasons), our lives get tied up in fear knots. We don’t trust God to take care of us, so we worry about tomorrow. We don’t have confidence in God, so we get filled with anxiety. Sometimes, that worry and anxiety come out in anger at God and other people. In many ways, we are tied up in worry; we are bound with fear knots.
We can’t say that our Lord Jesus was bound with fear knots; certainly he was without any sinful worry; he was never tied up, prevented, or paralyzed from doing what he needed to do. But as he came to John at the Jordan River, about to begin his ministry, with the prospect of Satan’s attacks, certain horrific death, and the duty of saving the world before him, he surely knew the terror that was ahead.
The writer to the Hebrews wrote, “Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears” (Heb 5:7).
“But now . . .” With those words, Isaiah comes to comfort us and in such give us stability! Yes, the Lord was angry, but now his anger is taken away. Yes, he punished his people Israel, but he will do so no longer. Now he will save them. Now he will protect them. He tells them that they are precious and honored in his sight and he loves them. The Lord comes to release Israel from their fear knots. He says to them, “Fear not.”
“Fear not!” “Remember what I have done for you! I created you. I formed you. And now I redeemed you, (have bought you back). I have called you by name; you are mine” (see Is 43:1).
Those words are so powerful. “Created” and “formed” take Israel back to the very act of God’s 6th day of creation. Then the Lord made them into a nation. More than that, he redeemed/exchanged them for Egypt, punishing Pharaoh and drowning him in the Red Sea. He made Israel his people! He called them by his name! He made them a nation of priests! They belonged to him!
“Remember who I am!” says the Lord. He is not just the Creator; he is Israel’s Creator. He is not merely the Holy One, but the Holy One of Israel. He is not just the King; he is your King. Because the Lord is their God and Israel is his people, they can be freed from fear and have confidence and full stability!
Passing through the waters, walking through the fire—it makes no difference. God is with his people, and he will bring them through. The water will not overwhelm, and the fire will not burn; God will protect them. “Fear not,” says the Lord, “for I am with you” (v 5).
What God says to Israel, the Father said to his Son at the moment of his Baptism! With Jesus facing the road that three years later would take him to the frightful cross, God the Father spoke from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Lk 3:22). When his Son would need him the most, the Father would be there. “I am with you.”
Now in our Baptism, God says the same to us a hundred times over. God has created us. In Baptism, he made us his own. He formed us so that we are his people. His NT people! His NT Israel! As Peter reminds us, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (1 Pet 2:10). God has made us his people. God has made us a nation of priests. We belong to him!
He has redeemed us. The Lord told Israel that he gave Egypt for them and that he gave “men in return for you” (v 4). The Lord has done much more for us. He did not give men in our place; he gave one perfect Man in our place: his Son, Jesus the Christ! At the cross, the Lord bought us back for himself with His only Son. Jesus paid for our sin. He made us his own!
At the cross, something miraculous happened. We disobeyed God. We rebelled against him. We, like Israel, deserve his punishment. But the Lord did not punish us. He punished his Son. Our disobedience, our rebellion, our sin was laid on him. As Isaiah would say later, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (53:5).
The Lord created us, he has redeemed us, and he has called us. In our Baptism, God reached down from heaven and placed his name on us. He called us by name, and he said that we belong to him!
We are the Lord’s because of what he has done. We do not deserve grace, but God is gracious. We are not faithful, but God is faithful. We did not choose God, but he chose us. Therefore, the Lord is not just “the Saviour;” he is “your Saviour, and mine.” He is not just the Lord God, but he is “the Lord your God, and mine.”
Since God has done all that for us, we do not need to be afraid of him. We are his children. Since we are his children, we do not have to be afraid of what life throws at us! As I was writing this sermon in Calgary my father (that cub scout leader of old) was on the operating table in Regina. And upon that table he was fine! He and our family are not tied up in knots of fear or what if’s. We fear not because my father and each of us are moment to moment in the nail pierced hands of Jesus our living Lord and Saviour!
We will be tested by many trials. We will be confronted by many challenges. But the Lord promises to bring us through them all. “In the world you will have tribulation,” says Jesus. “But take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33).
In Jonathan Swift’s book Gulliver’s Travels, Lemuel Gulliver is the only survivor of a shipwreck. He swims to shore and falls quickly asleep.
When he awakens, he finds his arms, legs, and hairs have been tied down by many small threads. A six-inch man walks over him. Several other small men, called the Lil/li/pu/tians, also appear. When Gulliver tries to get up, the Lil/li/pu/tians fire small arrows. Individually, they, like the threads, would be nothing. But together they are quite fierce.
Our problems are often like that. They’re not necessarily great, but they often gang up on us. We give up under their collective weight. Like Gulliver, we find ourselves tied up by hundreds of fear knots. But God releases us from our fears. He says, “Fear not!” (Is 43:1). We are set free by his grace. In Baptism, he releases us from our bonds. He sets us free.
Fears besiege us. Worries attack us. We often find ourselves tied up in fear knots. But the Lord comes to us. He says, “Fear not.” “Fear not, for I have created you. Fear not, for I have redeemed you by the blood of my Son. Fear not, for I have summoned you by name in your Baptism. You are mine.” Be confident in the Lord. Let his Word undo your fear knots. Remember his promise: “Fear not, for I am with you.” Amen.
Isaiah 43:1–7
1But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. 4 Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. 5 Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. 6 I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth,7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
Psalm 29
1Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.
3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over many waters.
4 The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.
7 The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire.
8 The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”
10 The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD sits enthroned as king forever.
11 May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace!
Romans 6:1–11
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Luke 3:15–22
15 As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, 16 John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 18 So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. 19 But Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison. 21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”