The Second Sunday after Trinity
Hymns: 239, 238, 246, 244
Isaiah 25:6-9 — “In this Mountain”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you all from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Sermon text is the Old Testament Reading appointed for the Second Sunday after Trinity, Isaiah 25:6-9:
And in this mountain The Lord of hosts will make for all people A feast of choice pieces, A feast of wines on the lees, Of fat things full of marrow, Of well-refined wines on the lees. And He will destroy on this mountain The surface of the covering cast over all people, And the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, And the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces; The rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken. And it will be said in that day: “Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Introduction
The Lord is like no other god. He is not like the gods that we invent for ourselves. Not at all. The Lord loves us as our Father. His demands are that we look to Him and trust Him as our God so that we may receive from Him all that He has ordained for us. He gives Himself for us and sacrifices Himself for us to restore us from our wanderings and our rebellious transgressions. This is our God. He identifies Himself to us by name and He brings us into His presence to receive from Him all the blessings that He has prepared for us. Again today He gives to us this blessed word of promise and hope and everlasting rejoicing.
I. In This Mountain
Our text begins with these words, “In this mountain.” However, the Hebrew text actually begins differently. The Hebrew text actually begins by saying, “Will make Yahweh Sabaoth to all the peoples in mountain this . . .”
Notice the emphasis of Isaiah’s prophecy. It begins with what the Lord of hosts will do. The Hebrew language certainly allows for the sentence to begin with the subject, but Isaiah begins the sentence with the verb. “Will make” is the beginning of the sentence. This is the very first thing that we are to hear. Action. The Lord our God, the Lord of hosts, is a God of action. He acts on behalf of us. He does not command that we act. He acts for us. He is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the first and the last. He acts and gives and makes.
The word order begins with what will be done and then identifies the maker of this action as Yahweh Sabaoth. This is the God who seeks out the lost and identifies Himself clearly as the one who is. He is the God of heaven and of all the hosts of heaven. He is mighty to act and to save. He has legions of angels who serve Him and who look to Him as their God. The heavens are full of holy angels who fear God and rejoice in His goodness and in His holy name serve those whom He loves. This God is taking action. This God is making to all the peoples a feast. This feast is not for only one people but for all the peoples. All who gather into His name in this mountain commune with Him in the feast that He prepares in this mountain.
Isn’t it interesting that the peoples are nonspecific but only one mountain is specified? The action is made for all the peoples but in a specific mountain. Isn’t it interesting as well that He says IN this mountain. The action for all the peoples is to be worked In this mountain.
The text continues, describing this action that is to be fulfilled in this mountain.
And will swallow in mountain this face of the veil covering over all the peoples and the mail interwoven over all the goyim (gentiles). He will swallow the death forever and will wipe away Adonai Yahweh tears from over all faces and reproach of His people He will turn aside from upon all the land, because Yahweh has spoken.
In this mountain. This is mount Calvary, where the Lord took away the veil that covered all peoples, the veil of sin that made all the peoples unclean and bound them to the death of sin. In this mountain He has taken way the mail interwoven over all the gentiles, that is the blindness of unbelief has been stripped away by the preaching of the Gospel of what God has accomplished in Christ. In this mountain He took death into His own body, swallowing it as He drank the cup of wrath that we deserved, dying in our stead and being buried in the earth so that death was swallowed up by His death and burial. Now all tears have been wiped away by the burial cloths of Jesus and the reproach of the guilt of sin has been turned aside from us all by the declaration of the Lord where He has declared us to be righteous for Jesus’ sake.
The Lord has spoken. It is so. Amen.
II. A Feast of Choice Pieces
By this action in this mountain the Lord has prepared a feast. Yes, this is the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, by which God feeds us the choice pieces, that is, His very own body and blood. The very body of our union with Him and the very blood of our salvation and forgiveness He prepared for us in this mountain. Now this feast is available to us every time that we gather into His name. He has spoken it. He has promised it. He has ordained it. It is so. Amen.
This promise has been proclaimed throughout the world and with the proclamation the Lord has provided the promised feast of blessing and life to all the peoples. No one is excluded. The Lord has made this feast for ALL the peoples. Yet it is available only in connection with the people who bear His name. Those who have been baptized into His name are entrusted with the Holy Communion. In fact, they ARE the Holy Communion, the body of Christ, where the feast is offered. But the feast is for all the peoples. All are invited to come and commune as God’s holy people. Only those who refuse to acknowledge what the Lord has declared are excluded, and they are excluded only because of their choice.
The Lord has prepared the feast. It is prepared for all. All who come with the white robe of Baptism are worthy to commune with God in the feast of His body and blood. All of this is the Lord’s doing. We merely receive what He has promised.
III. We Have Waited for Him
And will be said in day that, “Behold! Our God this! We have waited on Him and He will save us. This Yahweh, we wait on Him! We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
Truly this is an accurate description of the life of the saints of God. All around us the world cries out against the truth. Deceptions of many kinds pour forth from those who arrogantly ignore the clear words of the Lord. The world grows worse and worse. People are becoming more and more selfish and thoughtless. We begin to doubt. We become afraid. We worry and fret. We feel hopeless.
This is why the Lord has commanded that we not forget the Sabbath day! We hear His loving commandment and we Remember that the Lord has set aside His Holy Communion for us. We gather into His name on the Lord’s day and we receive again the blessings of His feast that He has prepared for us.
All around us we encounter trouble and confusion. We experience our sinfulness and our endless shortcomings. But we remember the name into which He has baptized us. We wait on Him, that is, we look to Him. He works repentance in us so that we are turned in our hearts and minds and lives from the things that trouble us so that we look to Him and wait upon Him. As He promises, He is present for us in the Holy Communion. In His body, He is present for us. In His blood, He gives us the peace that we cannot find for ourselves by our own actions or remedies. With His blood we receive His forgiveness and we know that we are safe. No matter what else happens in our lives, having received His blood we know that He is Yahweh, the Lord, and we are glad and rejoice in His salvation!
Conclusion
Is this not the message that is worth hearing again and again? Is this not a feast that fills us with gladness and rejoicing? How good we have it we do not even realize. But He holds His goodness before us continually in the Holy Communion. Is it any wonder that the Church that was gathered by the Lord through the events at Pentecost excitedly gathered daily for this feast? How often should we partake of the Lord’s Communion? How often do we desire to be turned from our worries and fears to gladness and rejoicing? Our partaking of God’s blessings is limited only by how often we eat and drink of His feast. This is what God has done. Our part is merely to receive His grace through the means that He has ordained. Truly, we wait upon Him and He makes us glad so that we rejoice in His salvation! In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus forever. Amen.
The Second Sunday after Trinity
Hymns: 239, 238, 246, 244
The Introit (Ps.18:18,19,1,2)
P: The Lord was my Stay;
C: He brought me forth also into a large place.
P: He delivered me;
C: because He delighted in me.
P: I will love Thee, O Lord, my Strength;
C: the Lord is my Rock and my Fortress.
The Collect
O Lord, who never fails to help and govern those whom Thou does bring up in Thy steadfast fear and love, make us to have a perpetual fear and love of Thy holy name; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.
The First Lesson Isaiah 25:6-9 (NKJV)
And in this mountain The Lord of hosts will make for all people A feast of choice pieces, A feast of wines on the lees, Of fat things full of marrow, Of well-refined wines on the lees. And He will destroy on this mountain The surface of the covering cast over all people, And the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, And the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces; The rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; For the Lord has spoken. And it will be said in that day: “Behold, this is our God; We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; We have waited for Him; We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
The Gradual (Ps. 120:1,2; 7:11)
P: In my distress I cried unto the Lord:
C: And He heard me.
P: Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips:
C: And from a deceitful tongue. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
P: God judgeth the righteous:
C: And God is angry with the wicked every day. Hallelujah!
The Epistle 1 John 3:13-18 (NKJV)
Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?
My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
The Sentence for the Season (Ps. 119:124)
P: Hallelujah! O Lord, deal with Thy servant according unto Thy mercy and teach me Thy statutes. I am Thy servant, give me understanding:
C: that I may know Thy testimonies. Hallelujah!
The Holy Gospel St. Luke 14:16-24 (NKJV)
Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’”
So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.”
And the servant said, “Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.”
Then the master said to the servant, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.”
Isaiah 25:6-9 — “In this Mountain”
Introduction
I. In This Mountain
II. A Feast of Choice Pieces
III. We Have Waited for Him
Conclusion
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