+ 2nd Lenten Midweek Service – March 16th, 2022 +
Isaiah 44:1-5
Beautiful Savior Lutheran
Milton, WA
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior + Jesus Christ. Amen.
In the baptismal liturgy you’ll hear the pastor say these words as the sign of the cross is traced upon the baptized. “Receive the sign of the cross, both upon your forehead, and upon your heart, to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.”
In Holy Baptism, Jesus – who was marked in death for you – marks you as his baptized child, makes you his own. In that blessed, saving flood and washing away of sin, you are cleansed from sin, yes, and also adopted by God’s grace. You belong to him now. You are marked by the cross.
In Isaiah 44, we hear something similar… “This one will write upon his hand ‘Belonging to the Lord.’”
One of the ancient Near East’s most dominant narratives in the sixth century BC was the Babylonian creation epic called the Enuma Elish. The Enuma Elish narrates Marduk’s defeat over Tiamat. He cut her in two and built the universe out of her remains. Read during the annual Akitu festival, the feast reached its pinnacle with the acclamation, “Marduk is King”!
Connected to the pomp and pageantry of Babylonian religion was the empire’s program of changing people’s names. Remember the names of Hannaniah, Mishael, and Azariah? You probably know them better by their names from Daniel 1:7, where the chief of the eunuchs changes their names to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Why the name change? The Babylonians marked the Judeans with a new name hoping it would entice them into worshiping the Babylonian diety, Marduk.
But, as we read in the Old Testament, many of the Judean exiles in Babylon would not comply. God’s called upon His People—When in Babylon, don’t live like the Babylonians.
God sends his prophet Isaiah with a similar message for us. Remember that though you live in the world, you are not of the world. You are marked as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. Still, there’s no doubt that our life in Christ, marked by Christ, is one where we are called to live like salmon, constantly swimming against the current of this fallen world.
On a typical day in America, from the time we open the morning paper (or, scroll through the news on our tablets and phones) until we finally doze off in front of another Netflix show in the evening, we are bombarded by thousands of sound bites and enticements to be marked by a new name. To seek fulfillment, satisfaction, peace, contentment in people, places, and things of this creation, rather than in our Creator and Redeemer.
And that’s the problem isn’t it. Not the earthly stuff, necessarily, but the love of that earthly stuff, the desire to live in the name of the fallen world rather than under the name of Christ that is yours. In other words, the temptation for us, as it was for Israel in exile, is to look for every good not from God’s hands, but from our own. To trust ourselves and our name rather than the holy name of Jesus. To trust in the many and various Marduk’s of this world, rather than the true and saving Name of Jesus.
This is why God sent his prophet Isaiah to the Judeans in exile, and to us in our exile in this fallen world. In Isaiah 40–55, the prophet takes dead aim at the Babylonian empire. Babylon is a drop in the bucket (40:12). Babylonian leaders are nothing (40:23). Babylonian gods are an empty wind (41:29). Marduk is a fantasy, a fake, a fraud, and a huge phony.
In contrast, the true God brings his righteousness, redemption, and restoration to his people Israel, and to you. “Comfort, comfort My people, says your God” (40:1). “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, God is doing a new thing” (43:18–19). God is stirring Cyrus to get Israel out of Babylon raising up the Suffering Servant to get Babylon out of Israel. As Isaiah goes on to declare later in 52:7: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God is King.’ ”
The Lord proclaims to you, His people, that, unlike the false gods of this world, His word lasts forever (40:8). The Lord’s word does what it says. Isaiah 55:11, “So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty.” You are marked by Christ as not “belonging to Babylon,” but “belonging to Yahweh.”
Throughout Scripture God marks his people in his mercy. They belong to him. In Genesis 4:15, the Lord marks Cain. In Genesis 17, the Lord gives Abraham and his offspring the covenant mark of circumcision. Deuteronomy 6:8 describes people tying God’s words on their hands and binding them on their foreheads. In his vision, the prophet Ezekiel sees the Lord command a man to use a writing kit to put His mark on the foreheads of the faithful.
All these marks point to the greatest mark of all, the marks of the nails and the spear in Jesus’ hands, feet, and side. As Isaiah foretold, “His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man, and His form marred beyond human likeness. . . . Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. . . . We all, like sheep, have gone astray. And the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 52:14; 53:3, 6).
“I gave My back to those who strike, and My cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I did not hide My face from mocking and spitting” (Isaiah 50:60). One spear, three nails, and a crown of thorns left their marks on Jesus.
After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus continued to show his disciples his glorious scars, the marks of his mercy for them…for you. And because Jesus was marked on the cross as the crucified one, he marks you as one redeemed in his crucifixion.
In the blessed waters of your baptism, you were, and are forever marked by Jesus. As the prophet Isaiah declares, you belong to the Lord.
This is how you live in the world, but not of the world. How you live as one marked by Christ. Living daily in your baptism. You belong to the Lord. In Christ you rejoice that “I am the Lord's,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord's,’ and name himself by the name of Israel.”
Remember the water, remember the Word, and forever cherish those precious words “Receive the sign of the holy cross, both upon your forehead and upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.”
Now the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ + Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
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