Homily for Epiphany Walk 2012

(Audio)

Isaiah 11:1-9

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

It is an election year. Even now men are jetting and motoring across this vast nation vying to win the support of the masses, telling them much less what they believe than what the polls inform them that they want to hear, taking jabs at their opponents at every opportunity, digging up dirt from their past while spending millions to bury and hide their own skeletons. They judge by what their eyes see and decide disputes by what their ears hear, for there is none righteous, not even one.

How different is the governance of our LORD and God than the governance of men. “It is obviously different from that of an earthly kingdom,” wrote Martin Luther, “where an assembly of people is provided with a king. In this case the King is born first, and then He gathers a people for Himself.” Yes, Jesus was born to be our King – He was born to be our true King: A King anointed by the Holy Spirit of God, who judges, not by what He sees with His eyes and hears with His ears, but with righteousness; a Servant King who defends and protects His people, even laying down His life in death to save them; the result of whose rule being, not the building of a nation according to the values of men, but the restoration of a world in peaceful communion as it once existed, but so much better still for the communing of God in and with men.

For, the kings of men had left His creation in ruin: blackened, burnt earth ravaged by the fire of war, stumps for trees in the wake of advancing armies, rivers of blood and mountains of bodies of men and women and children. When man’s hope had been extinguished, when man’s might had been proven helplessness, when the world was cold, still, dark, and dead with no hope, no life, and no expectation left in it, that was when God enacted His mighty deliverance: From the dead, dry stump of the father of the great king came forth a shoot of new life, a new King from our True and Only Father. Once again, out of the nothingness God produced life, this time by entering His creation Himself.

While the world continues in its deathward course, now there is another way, the Way of Life. And, while the world continues to look to men for wisdom and understanding, counsel and might and knowledge, now these may be found in one person, one Word, one King. And, while the world continues to wage war, to kill, and to destroy, a life that cannot die is available to all who are willing to die to themselves, to the passions of the flesh, and to this world – a life that cannot die, a life that never ends in the Prince and King of Peace, Jesus Christ.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.