Tasting the Complexity of Isaiah's Prophecy

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, the 7th chapter.

Glory to Thee, O Lord. Jesus returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the

Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to Him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged

Him to lay His hand on him. And taking Him aside from the crowd privately, He put His fingers into His ears, and after spitting

He touched His tongue. And looking up to heaven, He sighed and said to Him, Ephatha, that is, be opened.

And His ears were opened, His tongue was released, and He spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one, but the more

He charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, He has done all things well.

He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. This is the Gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

Amen. Alright, see if these words sound familiar to you. In fact, I might even try to chant this.

This should sound familiar to some of you, hopefully some of you even more. Oh Lord, open my lips.

How does the next part go? And my mouth will declare Your praise.

Make haste, O God, to deliver me. Make haste to help me, O Lord.

That's the order of Matins. And so you know, Oh Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare

Your praise. You'll note that throughout the scripture, muteness, blindness, deafness, and things like this, oftentimes have kind of a double meaning, if you would.

And so God, throughout the scriptures, will point to physical bodily ailments, like the inability to hear, the inability to speak, the inability to see, as metaphors regarding our spiritual deadness, our spiritual blindness.

You see, not all of us are physically incapable of seeing or hearing, although my wife would argue that I have a fairly bad hearing, but I don't need hearing aids, it's the strangest thing.

But all of that being said, when we don't suffer from the actual physical ailment, then you'll note that scripture points to physical ailments like this to kind of get to a bigger reality, one that has to do with spiritual realities.

And that's part of what's going on in our gospel text. So here we have

Jesus, and let's kind of work our way through our gospel text, and then we'll use Isaiah to kind of help unpack all of this.

When Jesus returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the

Decapolis, there's our opening sentence in our gospel text here today, and you'll note that Tyre, Sidon, region of Decapolis, these are where the unbelieving pagan

Gentiles live, right? This is technically outside of Israel. Although the

Decapolis may be within the borders of what historically was Israel, the Decapolis, the ten cities established by Rome, they were known for their paganism.

They ate bacon and things like that there. Tyre and Sidon, Old Testament enemies of Israel.

And so Jesus here in our gospel text is hanging out with the Gentiles, and you'll note that Jesus isn't treating them poorly.

He's being kind. He's forgiving their sins. He's healing their sick and things like this.

You'll note that Christ came to die for the sins of the whole world. And so His behavior here is unique.

It's not normally Jewish for Jews to mingle with pagans and Gentiles in such a way, but Christ is.

And so you'll note that as Christ is extending kindness and mercy, preaching good news to them and healing people, this, well, inspires them to bring a man to Jesus who was deaf and had a speech impediment.

And so they begged Jesus to lay his hands on him. And you'll note what Jesus does next is rather interesting.

Jesus doesn't do the Benny Hinn thing, all right? Or the TBN thing. You don't see Jesus going, all right, this is a great opportunity for me to demonstrate the power of God, right?

And so he takes his coat off and swings it in the air. I want you to hear. He doesn't do any of that.

Instead, Jesus takes him aside privately. And what happens next is so interesting.

He puts his fingers in his ears. And you'll note that what Christ is, who He is,

He is our great God and Savior. And as I look at this, it kind of reminds me of two things.

Number one, the Garden of Eden. It reminds me of the, well, God forming Adam from the dust.

And there's Adam's lifeless body, newly fashioned by Jesus in the Garden of Eden.

And what does it say? That God breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life.

And his eyes open up. First thing Adam sees is the face of his God. I mean, it's such a beautiful picture.

But the other thing here now is that now our broken body is being brought to our Creator. Jesus is doing some diagnostic work.

I'm not exactly sure how any of this works. I've never seen a doctor behave like this. But the other thing it kind of reminds me of is, you guys remember

Star Trek The Next Generation? And Data? He had the opportunity to, in one of the episodes, run into his

Creator. And so he's getting a tune -up and a check -up. It's kind of like that. So here this fellow, he's got a broken body.

And it just so happens his Creator is standing right in front of him. And Jesus is doing poking, prodding, taking, and all this kind of stuff.

And then looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed. And he said to him, kind of a breathy word.

You have to say it like this. Ephetha. It's very breathy. It kind of invokes the wind of the

Spirit. And that word itself means, be opened. His ears were opened.

His tongue was released. And he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them, tell no one.

But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. You'll note that Jesus wasn't trying to draw a crowd.

Because the more crowds came to him with bodily ailments and broken bodies and things like this.

The harder it was for him to actually preach the word. Which was the important bit. But they were astonished beyond all measure.

Saying, he has done all things well. He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.

And we should know, indeed he does. I need to remind each and every one of you, myself included.

That our state when we were conceived and born into this world was not a healthy one. Despite the fact that you may have got a good

Apgar score by the doctor who delivered you. That's beside the point.

Each and every one of us are born dead in trespasses and sins. So we can say, spiritually, our eyes don't work.

Spiritually, our ears don't hear. Spiritually, our mouths do not speak.

Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

In fact, that's exactly what David taught us to pray. Oh Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.

Why? Because corpses don't speak. Corpses don't sing.

Corpses don't do anything except for decompose. And that's our state spiritually when we are born.

We are all born dead in trespasses and sins. And so the deafness, muteness, blindness theme runs throughout scripture.

And it's here where I would take us back to our Old Testament text. And we'll see if we can weave in a little bit of meaning here.

Because it connects so well with our gospel. And here's where I have to do a little bit of explaining about how the

Old Testament prophets work. Have you ever noticed that when you're reading an Old Testament prophet.

Maybe Isaiah or Jeremiah. Or you're reading Micah or things like, you know, prophets like this.

You'll note that somehow it seems like they're constantly changing the subject.

As you're reading through some of these prophetic texts. It seems like they're talking about one thing and then without any solid transition.

It's like immediately now we're talking about something else. Now we're talking about this. And you just seem to kind of go back and forth.

Well, let me give you a metaphor that will kind of help us here to understand what's going on in Isaiah.

And this requires me to talk about something that's very uncomfortable for Norwegians. But that's a good wine.

All right. Now let me explain. Years and years and years ago, I knew nothing about wine. Absolutely not a thing.

I would go to Trader Joe's. Because we had Trader Joe's in Southern California. And they have all kinds of wines that you can choose from.

And you know how I would choose? Based upon who had the coolest label on their bottle. Because I don't know a thing about wine at the time.

And so at the time, I was also in the corporate world. And I was a CEO running a company. And one of my employees said, we need to have a management retreat.

Well, that's fine. I'm in Southern California. Management retreat seems like a good thing. You kind of get everybody on the same page.

Work on things where people are lacking. And kind of team build and stuff like this. It's an important thing.

But they came up with the idea of having a management retreat in Sonoma, California. All right.

So we're going to travel from Southern California to Sonoma. Now if you're not familiar with Sonoma, let me explain. You've heard of California wine country, right?

All right. California wine country, you kind of think of it, it breaks up into several pieces. But two main parts are going to be

Napa, which is like super commercialized. But Sonoma is a little more, let's just say, mom and pop.

Okay. Good way to put it. And so we were doing our retreat, our corporate retreat in Sonoma, which is a really nice mom and pop kind of wine country.

And one of my employees said, you know, we should go on a wine tasting tour. All right. Wine tasting tour sounds good.

So they went, I didn't know what they were using because this is a long time ago. This is probably before Yelp even existed.

But they went online and were looking at different reviews and things like this. And they came up with a fellow who had really good reviews as to somebody who would take us on kind of a cook's tour of the wineries in the

Sonoma Valley. And so he shows up in his, and he's got this white van. It looks kind of governmental.

It's just nondescript, kind of ugly van. Shows up. And first thing he does is he sits us down at like a picnic table and he ends up, because I'm the boss, he ends up like interviewing me for like 10 or 15 minutes.

I'm thinking, are we going to go on this thing or not? All right. And he said, now I like to personalize each and every wine tour.

And so I'm going to find out what you are all about. And he wanted to know about me as a person.

He discovered that I was a nerd. It only takes like three seconds to figure this out. Right. And, and so he figured out some other things about me.

He goes, all right, I know exactly which wineries I should take you to. First winery on the list was a winery run by a retired

JPL rocket scientist. No joke. Retired JPL rocket science.

And he was an Aussie to boot. He grew up on a vineyard in Adelaide in the

South of Australia, spent 15 years working for the jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena and decided that he wanted to go back to being a winemaker.

So he sold all of his stocks, retired, took out of all of his retirement and then used the money to parlay into buying a specialty vineyard up in, uh, in the

Sonoma Valley. And so we are in this guy's really basic winery and he begins to pull out some of his choice wines.

One of them was an award winning. Um, uh, what do I want to say? It was, uh, it was a war, a war winning harvest.

Zinfandel. Now I didn't know a thing about Zinfandels at the time. Again, I just know that labels are pretty and I kind of pick based on that.

And so at this point I get poured an award winning harvest Zinfandel and I taste it and it's like, okay, well that's all right.

And he looks at me like, that's all right. And our tour guide is like, Oh, this is terrible.

And so at this point I now get the entire lesson on how wine is tasted.

All right. And so, and, and, and this was a complete education for me. Like wine tasting 101 number one, you're going to swear your glass.

But the important thing is, is that that first taste you're going to be listening for with your tongue, different notes of flavors and things like this.

So he says, all right, take a swig. Tell me what you taste. Do you taste any vanilla?

And I go, yeah, there's a little bit of vanilla right there at the beginning of it. Good, good, good.

What else do you? And I said, well, there's a little bit of kind of a cherry hint to it. Perfect. That's exactly correct.

And so he said, all right, so we got vanilla. We got a little bit of cherry. And then tell me about the finish. Tell me about the very last bit as it's leaving your palate.

I go, it's, it's kind of peppery. He goes exactly right. And so you'll note that at this point

I've now had my mind blown. Right. And then he says, Oh, it doesn't stop there.

And he goes, let me do something really quick. So he takes the glass kind of pours out what's left of the, of the, of the wine.

And then just this tiny little drop and he takes the wine goblet and he spins it, you know, and he ends up drying it inside.

And it points the wine glass right to the center of my nose points right there. It says, now take a whip. What do you smell? I smell vanilla.

He's all right. That means it was aged in a French oak barrel. It's like, no way.

My mind is like, it's like all of a sudden the whole world just opened up.

I was like, are all wines like this? No, not only the good ones, but yes, the good ones have these kinds of complexities, these kinds of notes, these kinds of flavors and stuff like this.

And as a result of that, from then on, it's like I've had a real appreciation for good wines and their complexity and the different things that they bring to the table.

All of that being said, when you read an old Testament prophet like Isaiah, you have to sip it kind of like a wine.

There's different themes and different things that are happening and there's no transitions.

They just go from one concept to another concept. And then once you're able to kind of take it all in, you can see how the different complexities work in an old

Testament reading like Isaiah. So watch how this works. Isaiah chapter 29. It is not yet a very little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field and the fruitful field shall be regarded as a forest.

Now, in this first sentence of fruitful field, is Lebanon a fruitful field today?

Is Lebanon a zip code where you'd probably want to move your family and live? No. Okay.

So that being the case, what, what is this note in this drinking of Isaiah's prophecy here?

Well, we have some eschatological notes here, things pointing to a coming reality.

When Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, the recreation of the, of the universe and the renewing of it and it going back to being the way it should be.

But note, then he says in that day, the deaf shall hear the words of a book and out of their gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blinds shall see.

Oh, now that's interesting, right? Different note here, a different flavor.

And this refers to the fact that each and every one of us born dead and trespasses and sins, we are blind, deaf and mute spiritually.

And we have all today heard the words of a book. The book is the scriptures. And so you'll note that Isaiah is prophesying of those who would hear the words of Christ, hear the words of scripture, the assurance of the forgiveness of our sins in Jesus Christ and how we are renewed.

We are risen from the grave and we are given back our spiritual faculties. So that we are no longer deaf and blind and mute, but instead we can see, we can hear and we speak.

And out of the gloom and the darkness of sin. Now our eyes, which were once blind, see the meek shall obtain fresh joy in Yahweh and the poor among mankind shall exalt in the

Holy one of Israel. This is talking about the meekness and poorness of the one who confesses their sins and recognizes that they have nothing to offer

God. And they cry out to him for mercy. And here Isaiah prophesies that the one who does that will actually exalt in the

Holy one of Israel. And who is that? Well, that's none other than Jesus Christ. And then note without a single transition word.

Then we just going to take a hard turn into a different flavor, a different note altogether. A word of warning for those who are ruthless and for those who are scoffers.

And you'll note ruthless and the scoffers. These are the people who are not penitent. They have no trust in Christ.

In fact, they mock those who believe in Jesus and even worse, in many cases, they even persecute them.

This is the lot of being a Christian. We are called to suffer the same way that Christ has suffered. Remember Jesus committed no sin.

There was not a single thing you can point to Jesus and say, dude, you were absolutely in the wrong there.

What were you thinking? You need to repent. But he was crucified anyway.

Right? How so? Well, by people bringing forth false witnesses who testified against Jesus.

And you'll note it took a lot of false witnesses because they needed at least two of them to agree with each other. And even then they twisted the words of Christ in order to trump up false charges against them.

Talk about ruthless. The ruthless, they will come to nothing. The scoffers, they will cease.

All who watch and do evil, they will be cut off. And these are people who, by a word, make a man out to be offender.

All right. Now, let me explain here. What is the biblical standard for a charge to be leveled against anyone?

Pastor or even just layperson. Two or more witnesses. Right? You have to actually have two or more witnesses.

But when somebody is made out to be an offender merely by a single word, what is that?

Slander. That's slander. That's lying. It is bearing false witness against your neighbor.

And those who persecute Christ and those who trust in him, that's what they do.

They offend by making people out to be offenders merely by a single word.

But they do not abide by the biblical standard. A true charge must be brought to the right people.

And a true charge must be established by the testimony of two or more witnesses. As a result, the ruthless, they lay a snare for the one who reproves in the gate.

And the one who reproves in the gate, who is that fellow? That's the fellow who tells his fellow citizens in his either town or his state or his country that we are doing wrong.

We need to turn away from doing wrong. We need to do what is right. And there are people who are annoyed by folks like this.

And so what do they do for them? They lay a snare for people like that. That's exactly what they did with Jesus.

And then with an empty plea they turn aside him who is in the right. These are people who are constantly subverting the truth, subverting justice, subverting the message of God, and finding a way to persecute, to slander, and to demean those who would speak the truth to us.

Completely different note altogether. And note, this is a word of judgment against such people.

And if you don't think that applies to you, believe me when I tell you, I know this from my own personal experience, that you and I have all participated in this to one degree or another.

When we hear the truth and we go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That pastor, he's just crazy.

He's just a little tightly wound or whatever. You get the idea. We've all done things like this.

But therefore, thus says Yahweh, who redeemed Abraham concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall no more be ashamed.

No more shall his face grow pale. For when he sees his children, the work of my hands in his midst, they will sanctify my name.

Now, a little bit of a note here. Without a single warning, the flavor on our palate in this drink from Isaiah changes again.

Kind of back to that original note in the text. Not yet a little while until Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field.

That eschatological taste, that hint there. Here it now comes again, full circle.

And we get that taste back. It's kind of like the aftertaste of this text. No more shall Jacob be ashamed.

No more shall his face grow pale. For when he sees his children, the work of my hands in his midst, they will sanctify my name.

They will sanctify the holy one of Jacob, and they will stand in awe of the

God of Israel. Again, a picture of the end of the world. And so, as we see what's going on here in this wonderful text, we can see the connections then with Christ in our gospel.

Christ, by physically opening the ears of the deaf, by physically opening the mouths of the mute, by physically opening the eyes of the blind, was pointing to the spiritual reality that in him, we must be raised from the dead.

We must have our eyes opened, our mouths opened, our ears opened, so that we can see and hear.

And for those who have had these things done to them by Christ, they have a hope, a hope of a world without end, where we will stand, and we, with our own eyes, will see the awe of the

God of Israel. And here's the promise. Those who go astray in spirit, they will come to an understanding.

Each and every one of us has truly done that, gone astray in our spirit and in our body.

But because of Christ and his word and his grace and his mercy, we now have come to have understanding.

And even we who murmured against God will finally accept instruction.

It's a beautiful text when you think about it. And so how does then all of this work? Well, a good connector on all of this would be the gospel itself.

You'll note that Christ is opening the eyes of the blind. He's opening the ears of the deaf.

He's opening the mouths of the mute. This is the work of raising people from the dead. But how was it possible that people who have participated in the sins of the devil could have such great things done for them, to them, by God?

Number one, it's by his grace and his mercy. But you're gonna note then that Christ bore your sins and mine in his body on the cross.

He suffered, bled, and died. And on a Friday afternoon at three in the afternoon, while suffering for your sins and mine, bleeding in the darkness because the sun was no longer giving its light,

Christ cried out, It is finished. And he gave up his spirit. And you'll note that the author of life, the one who opened the eyes of Adam that day, the one who opened his eyes by breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam, his eyes open, the first thing he sees is

Jesus. That same Jesus, who, the author of life, took that poor fellow who was mute and was deaf and opened his ears and opened his mouth like the creator that he is because he is that.

Our creator died. And when he gave up his spirit, his eyes no longer saw.

His ears stopped hearing. His mouth stopped speaking.

He died so that we could live. It's a beautiful picture when you kind of tie it all together with that gospel bow.

And all of that being said then, the author of life died on the cross so that you and I can be forgiven, pardoned, and redeemed.

We who have acted in deadness and blindness and muteness and have blasphemed and resisted

God and acted ruthlessly against him, that we can be forgiven and pardoned and made alive in Christ.

And so at three in the afternoon on the Friday of the crucifixion, Christ's eyes stopped seeing, his ears stopped hearing, his mouth stopped speaking.

And he stood and rested in silence in the tomb all

Friday evening, all Saturday, and then on into Sunday.

But you'll note something amazing happened, and that is that the author of life could not be swallowed by death and stay there.

Using the imagery of Jonah, and Jonah's three days in the belly of the great fish is used as an analogy of Christ's death and his resurrection.

Well, if you remember the story of Jonah, that fish got a belly ache about the third day and took

Jonah and vomited him up onto the shore. I'm sure that must have been a sight to see and a smell to smell.

You know, you've got to throw the smelling into there because it's kind of interesting. But all of that being said, on the third day, death itself got a belly ache and vomited up Christ, and he's conquered death so that you and I never have to die, that you and I can live forever as a free gift because of the great love that God has for us.

Again, note the compassion of Christ in our Gospel text and how he is ministering to pagan

Gentiles who don't even rightly believe in the God of Israel. That doesn't matter. Christ shows up and gives them mercy and grace and heals them, and all of that points to the fact that he also heals us.

He heals us spiritually and promises us in the new earth that he will also take our dead corpses and raise us from the grave because there is a day coming, if Christ continues to tarry, when your eyes will no longer see a thing.

Your ears will no longer hear anything and your mouth will say nothing. You'll note that every time we sing hymns here, the folks in our graveyard do not join us in chorus that we can hear.

Right? But despite all of that, Christ died so that we might live and you will live because you are in him.

So trust in this Jesus and repent of all the ways in which you continue to be blind to his truth, blind to what is right, blind to what we should be doing and not doing, and repent and trust in this

Jesus who will raise you from the dead. And so you'll know what a fine wine we had today.

Nice little hints of judgment and mercy and the coming eschaton and the promises of Jesus. We'll never look, pun intended, at blindness and we'll never hear about deafness the same.

In the name of Jesus. Amen. 1 -5950 470th

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