Dear Christian friends:

The first Sunday in Advent sets the stage for the festival seasons of the church year. And the first one, Christmas, the birth of our Lord, is at hand. The zest of Emmanuel's name and the refreshing breezes of our redemption are drawing near! But today penitential purple drapes the altar and the pulpit. Our sinful nature trails along with us into the new church year, which begins today.

The uncleanness of our flesh did not get left behind in the old year. So there is a good chance that we have some sins to remember and confess and resolve. We cannot wear the white of Christmas until we first wear the purple of Advent.

So, while we are excited and hopeful at the coming of Christmas, we also have a great deal of soul searching to do, just as Isaiah did here in our text as he offered this prayer to God for Israel. As he did this Isaiah became so concerned and anxious that he wondered if Israel could be saved at all.

As we honestly examine ourselves and look at our own adverse situations, we, too, must have some anxiety and we may also ask Isaiah's question:


So what is the reason for this question? Those who reject God's grace have no other way to be saved. It isn't so much that we sin or that Israel sinned which causes this anxiety and hence this question. After all, we are sinners and no matter how hard we try not to sin, we do sin. We know this; our spouse knows this, our children know this; our friends know this; and God above all knows this. As I said before, we didn't leave our old Adam and old Eve behind in the old church year. It is always with us until death.

Our problem, as was Israel's problem, is that we might reject God's grace, either out of pride and arrogance or out of despair of his mercy since we keep on sinning even after we have been forgiven and seem to make so little progress in improving in holy living and our sanctification.

Those who reject God's grace have no other way of being saved. They may well ask, "How then can we be saved?" Israel rejected God's grace. In his prayer Isaiah says to God, "You come to help those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?" (Isaiah 64:5)

God's ways which Isaiah refers to are not just his commandments, the moral law, but chiefly the ceremonial law, the laws and rules by which God chose to confer his grace to them and to forgive their sins. All those animal sacrifices, all that shedding of blood, day after day, festival after festival, year after year, which God commands Israel to do pointed to the one great sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.

Israel either failed to do these at all, or if they did them, they did them without true repentance and faith. It all became a weariness to them. They even, at times, went to worshiping strange gods. In his prayer Isaiah says, "They rebelled and grieved the Holy Spirit." (Isaiah 63:10)

Have we done like Israel? God has shown the same kindness and mercy to us. He has called us to be his people. He has also redeemed us through "the Angel of his presence," Jesus Christ. (Isaiah 63:9) He has graciously given us also the means of grace, Confession, and then absolution through the Gospel and Sacrament. Are we, with truly sorry hearts, confessing our sins and receiving his forgiveness through the Gospel and Sacrament?

Are we, with his gracious help, seeking to amend our sinful lives? Have the old gracious, sacred ordinances of God's house become a weariness to us as they did to Israel? Perhaps we are also looking for and trying strange gods and new rituals, which are ego satisfying, but not soul saving.

When Israel rebelled and grieved God's Holy Spirit God withdrew his grace from them and turned them over to sin's control. Isaiah complains to God about this severe punishment, saying, "Why, O Lord, do you make us to wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you? _ _ _ No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold on you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us to waste away because of our sins. (Isaiah 63:17, 64:7)

When God first called Isaiah to be his prophet he gave him this severe message for backsliding Israel: "Go and tell this people: Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." (Isaiah 6:9-10)

We, too, like Israel, may come to church regularly and go through the ceremonies, but with calloused hearts, dull ears, closed eyes, unrepentant longing for something more exciting. This is God's punishment for those who do not sincerely repent when their sin has been shown to them, who reject his grace.

How then can we be saved? Only if God gives us grace upon grace and helps us to true repentance. He graciously helps us to honestly confess our sins, setting aside our pride or despair.

God graciously help Isaiah confess Israel's sins in this prayer. With blunt honesty he confesses, "You come to help those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry _ _ _ All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf." (Isaiah 64:5-7)

As God graciously helped Isaiah to confess Israel's sins, so he helps us to confess our sins and the sins of the whole Church.

A minister was preaching in a college chapel when one student asked the other, "What is he talking about? He says, sin, sin, sin!" The other student replied, "I think it has something to do with Adam and Eve." The first student then surmised, "Oh, then, it doesn't have anything to do with us."

I'm afraid that a good many churchgoers listen to Bible readings and sermons much like those two students. They are definitely in need of God's grace to open their eyes, ears and hearts to see themselves in his word. We can identify with the depraved characters in our soap operas and the detestable characters in our movies and videos, but somehow we can't seem to identify with the sinners in the Holy Bible such as Cain, Esau, David, Judas and Peter.

May God be gracious to us and open our ears, eyes and hearts so that we see ourselves in the people of the Bible. Then we shall be able to honestly examine ourselves and confess some real, specific sins. Yet we need to do more than confess our sins.

By His Word and Spirit God graciously helps us sinners to trust in His salvation. He graciously helped Isaiah to trust His salvation for rebellious Israel. As he prays, he reminds God that he is their Father, their Redeemer of old. (Isaiah 63:16) He pleads with God to return with his grace "for the sake of his servants, Israel, the tribes that are his inheritance" (Isaiah 63:17b)

He reminds God of the covenant relationship he has made with Israel. And although they have been detestable people, breaking this covenant, he reminds God that they are fully and completely at his mercy, just as disobedient, rebellious children are at the mercy of their natural father, who although provoked, cannot forsake his children. He pleads, "Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."(Isaiah 64:8) Deal with us according to you Fatherly grace, not according to our detestable sins.

Isaiah also reminds God of his past great saving acts at the Red Sea and at Mt. Sinai, how he rend the heavens and came down and saved his people, doing awesome deeds for them, although they had provoked him at those times also. (Isaiah 64:1-4)

We, like Isaiah, although we may be at the brink of despair, need to trust God's gracious salvation. We need to remind him of our covenant relationship through Baptism, that he made us his children and heirs of heaven through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.

We need to remind him of his rending the heavens and shaking up the whole earth at the birth of Christ, which we are about to celebrate again! Remind him that he sent his only beloved Son to a detestable, uncaring world which allowed him to lie in a manger stall as a homeless waif. If he could show such amazing grace to that world of the first Christmas, might he not show the same grace to us and our world this Christmas.

We need to remind our dear Father that he, with unheard grace, permitted his holy, innocent Son to bear and suffer all the sins of all mankind upon the cross, and that our sins were among them; that his grace and mercy has already made full atonement for our sins in his Son, Jesus Christ. In reminding him, we are reminded, forgiven; renewed and restored.

As we, during these penitential, purple Sundays of Advent examine ourselves and become aware of our sinfulness and sins, we may well ask: "How then can we be saved?" However, God by his gracious, wondrous intervention through the Gospel and Sacraments subdues our fears and restores to us the joy of his salvation.

Amen.