Epiphany 1
Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Luke 3:15-16, 21-22
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I.
I would like to examine with you this morning the remarkable promises of Isaiah 43:1-3, which we will sing in paraphrase for our last hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.”
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 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.”
The first question to ask is: to whom was this promise made? Who was told to “fear not”?
From verse 1, “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel.”
The promise is made to the children of God, those who were created by Him, those who were formed by Him.
The second question to ask is: what has been promised?
He does not promise that homes will not be burned. He does not promise that homes will not be flooded. We see the extraordinary flooding last fall in Appalachia and now the fires which are still burning in Los Angeles.
He does not promise these catastrophes will not happen.
Rather, He says, when they happen, I will be with you.
Yet we know that believing Christians, regenerated children of God, die in these sorts of catastrophes all the time.
So, what are we to make of these extraordinary promises?
II.
Before we answer that question, let us look at the second part of the reading from Isaiah, as well as today’s reading from Luke, which describes the baptism of Jesus.
Listen again to these verses from Isaiah 43:3-4, “I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you… I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.”
The opening verses from Isaiah 43 made remarkable promises, and these verses now give us the basis for those promises.
God will barter men in order to redeem His people. He is willing to traffic in the flesh of the men of Egypt and Ethiopia and Seba.
He is willing to work out some kind of deal in order to save His own people. The people He created. The people He formed.
And God is willing to do this for His people, because Isaiah 43:4 tells us, “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.”
Now, you might have already noticed the similarity with these words from Luke, spoken by God after Jesus has been baptized and while He is praying.
A voice came from heaven and said, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”
Setting aside the obvious difficulties with this text for a moment, which I will come back to, the point being made here is clear.
First, Jesus is identified as Jacob/Israel. The children of God as a whole are represented by the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Second, the redemption of this beloved Son is inevitable. God is willing to sacrifice entire nations to save His Son, who again, represents the whole people of God.
If that leaves you a bit unsettled, you only have to look again at Luke’s Gospel to see that you are in good company.
Luke 3:15 tells us that “the people were in expectation, and all men questioned in their hearts concerning John, whether perhaps he were the Christ.”
When you hear that God is willing to sacrifice entire nations for the sake of His own children, for the sake of His own Son, you may be wondering what’s in it for you.
You may be questioning in your heart as well concerning the news of this Christ.
John the Baptist does not provide much comfort. Indeed, that’s not ever really his role in the gospels, is it? The man is thrown in prison and loses his life because he calls out King Herod for his unbiblical marriage.
In Luke 3:17, John has these words to say. They are not very comforting. He says, “I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Spirit is sometimes translated as breath and Isaiah 30:27-28 tells us that God’s “tongue is like a devouring fire; his breath (ruach) is like an overflowing stream.”
God’s Spirit is a Spirit of judgement, and there’s that fire and flood imagery again.
But John’s words are not attached to any comforting verses about not being overwhelmed and consumed by water and fire.
Instead, the comforting words are for Jesus only, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”
However, these words are perhaps not as comforting to Jesus as they sound, because they foreshadow something ominous.
In Isaiah 41:1, God speaks these words, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him.”
Anyone who saw the heavens open and the dove descend and heard the words just spoken over Jesus would have made this connection back to Isaiah’s prophecy.
Jesus is clearly God’s servant.
Which means anyone who witnessed this miracle at Jesus’ baptism would have also remembered the words of Isaiah 53:8:
“By oppression and judgment he was taken away… cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of [God’s] people.”
The conclusion is inevitable. The opening of the skies, the descent of the dove, and the voice from heaven all mean one thing: though Jesus is God’s Son, the Messiah, He is also the servant appointed to die for His people.
III.
Luke 3:15 says “the people were in expectation, and all men questioned in their hearts concerning John” so let’s examine as best we can their expectations and questions.
When Luke first introduced us to John the Baptist in Luke 3:3, he tells us that John “went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
I wonder if some of the people thought that meant they could get away with just making a few superficial changes to their lives.
If so, then John might be a suitable Messiah, one who would “let them off easy.”
Perhaps that is why John calls some of them “a brood of vipers” in Luke 3:7, and John’s words in 3:15 certainly do not let anyone off the hook: “I baptize you with water… he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
I’ve already described how these are images of coming judgement.
The point is that the revealing of Jesus as the Christ by skies opening, the dove descending, and the voice from heaven declaring the Father’s pleasure in His Son, means that a choice has to be made.
Christ has come to baptize each one of you, either with living water and the fire of the Holy Spirit, or with an overwhelming flood (like the one that drowned the old world in the time of Noah) and the fire that will one day consume heaven and earth (2 Peter 3:7-12).
Which one it will be depends on whether Christ comes to you as your judge or as your redeemer.
People are afraid to change, especially when what they need to change has become a sinful habit.
The fact of divine redemption requires a real change in us.
The fact that Jesus is revealed as the Messiah means that change must happen now.
IV.
Now, I think we are in a better position to understand the promises I discussed at the beginning of this sermon.
When God the Father says to His Son Jesus, “with thee I am well pleased,” He is speaking words of fulfillment.
In other words, there is a bit of foreshadowing going on here.
Much later, when He is about to die on the cross, Jesus will quote these words from Psalm 22:1. He will say:
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
And what is Jesus experiencing when He says this?
He is experiencing the fire of consuming pain as His body writhes on the rough wood.
He is drowning, as His own blood fills His lungs.
It is with His death in full view that we are to understand these words from God.
To the question, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” comes the answer, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”
The words from heaven spoken at Jesus’ baptism tell us that the promise of Isaiah is fulfilled. The flame shall not hurt Him, the water shall not overwhelm Him.
When we say that we believe Jesus rose from the dead, we are saying just that. The flame did not hurt Him, the water did not overwhelm Him.
But there’s more.
I said before that God’s promise that the flame would not consume, and the water would not overwhelm His children was based on something else. Do you remember what it was?
Listen again to these words from Isaiah 43:3-4, “I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you… I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.”
What Isaiah is getting at here is the principle of substitution, of taking someone else’s place, which is exactly what Jesus has done for us.
He has taken our place on the cross.
God has given His only begotten Son in exchange for our lives.
This is what redemption means. This is what it is.
Moreover, it has already taken place. It has already happened.
We are not like the children of God in Isaiah’s time, believing the promise, hoping it’s true, and trying to understand how it will come true.
It has come true.
The voice from heaven bore witness that it came true.
All those who saw Jesus dying on the cross, whether they mocked Him or tried to give Him something to drink, bore witness that it came true.
Most of all, the empty tomb, the women who first saw Him, Peter and John, the apostles, even Doubting Thomas, all bore witness: the flames of hell did not hurt Him, and the floods of death did not overwhelm Him.
Right now, this book, this Bible, continues to bear witness that it came true.
All of you, professing yourselves to be Christians, taking the very name of Christ upon yourselves — in defiance of a world who will only mock you for it — you, by coming here, by singing His praises, by hearing His holy word, by partaking of His Body and Blood, you bear witness that these promises came true.
You bear witness to the reality of redemption.
V.
Now, if redemption is true, if Jesus is who the Scriptures reveal Him to be, then that’s going to require real change in us.
The people who came to be baptized by John had expectations, they had questions.
Well, their expectations were met. The beloved Son of God appeared. The heavens opened, the dove descended, the voice was heard.
And their questions had been answered.
Was John the Christ? No, but Jesus is.
Are there real consequences for sin?
Yes. Sin is a deadly business. It not only kills in this life, it kills in the next life too. For a brief moment it even seemed to overwhelm God Himself.
Sin simply must be dealt with.
And we know now that it has been dealt with, once and for all, which means we need to deal with its lingering effects in our own lives: the bad habits, the consequences of things done and left undone.
But we have powerful remedies at hand and readily available to us.
We have prayer, which means we have direct access to God.
We have the assembly of the saints who gather here every Sunday morning.
We have the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.
This means that the consequences of past sin can be blunted, made to be not as serious as they might have been.
Think about that. You can’t completely undo a past wrong, but you can mitigate it. You can make restitution, which, if you can, you should.
But there are many circumstances that will not be fully restored, at least not in this lifetime.
That is why prayer is so important. That is why coming to church to join the assembly of saints in worship is so important. That is why baptism is important. That is why communion is important.
You are doing more than you think, more than you realize, when you do these things.
You think you are just muttering words, talking to no one when you pray.
Not true! You are cooperating with God to reverse the effects of evil in this world and to advance the cause of good.
You think you are just showing up, perhaps out of habit, perhaps to see your friends, perhaps even because you really want to be here and give God the praise and honor that is His due.
But you haven’t just shown up!
You have ascended into heaven. What you do for an hour on Sunday you will spend eternity doing: praising God with all creation.
And there is no sin in that new creation, in that eternal assembly, and so, even now, just by coming to church you bring about real change in the world.
You think the sacraments are important symbols, rites of passage, but not really more than that.
Not true!
Your baptism was the divinely appointed time and the divinely appointed means for you to have these words spoken over you: “You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. With you I am well pleased.”
No baptism is an accident. No baptism is an empty ritual.
The same is true with Holy Communion.
No communion is an accident, or a less-than-satisfying meal.
It is your opportunity to consume the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that, when that dreadful day of judgment finally comes, you are not consumed by Him.1
The sacraments can be the means of real change in your lives, with a lasting effect in the life to come.
Judgment and redemption are facts of history. The story of Jesus’ baptism bears witness to both.
Which one you experience is up to you.
Make no changes and you’re headed towards judgment.
Make the simple changes I’ve just described, and redemption is yours, both in this life and in the next.
Let us pray.
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan didst proclaim him thy beloved Son and anoint him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Preached on January 12, 2025 at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
God’s promises were made to ____________.
God is not promising that ____________ will not happen.
Rather, He says, when they happen, I will be ____________ you.
God will ____________ men in order to redeem His people.
____________ is identified as Jacob/Israel.
The ____________ of the beloved Son is inevitable.
Jesus is God’s ____________ appointed to ____________ for His people.
People questioned whether John was the ____________.
The words “with thee I am well pleased” ____________ Jesus’ death.
“I give Egypt as your ransom… I give men in return for you” illustrate the principle of ____________.
The ____________ of past sin can be blunted.
Through ____________ we are cooperating with God to reverse the effects of evil in this world and to advance the cause of good.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Discuss with your parents one or both of the following: 1) Describe a tough or scary experience. What helped you get through it? 2) Describe a situation that “could have been worse” than it was. What kept it from being worse?
(1) Jacob/Israel; (2) catastrophes; (3) with; (4) barter; (5) Jesus; (6) redemption; (7) servant/die; (8) Christ; (9) foreshadow; (10) substitution; (11) consequences; (12) prayer
Savoy Declaration of Faith 30.7
Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament,[a] do then also inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are, to their outward senses.[b]
a: 1 Corinthians 11:28
b: 1 Corinthians 10:16
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