God’s plan for salvation

A Sermon preached on 17^th December 2017, Advent III, at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11, 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24, John 1: 6-8, 19-28

For the second week running, the lectionary offers us an introduction to John the Baptist, this time you heard the version from John’s Gospel. But I will avoid the temptation to revisit last week’s sermon and talk about John’s role, and the role of prophets in general again – though I hope you remember what I said about that role (“comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable.”)? Instead, my focus, as is Isaiah’s, is on Salvation: what this means and how, and through whom, we obtain it.

It is always interesting to start with a dictionary definition. The Cambridge dictionary offers the following: “Salvation, noun: (a way of) being saved from danger, loss, or harm. In the Christian religion, salvation … is the state of being saved from evil and its effects by the death of Jesus on a cross: The Gospel message is one of personal salvation.”

That is a reduction and simplification that I can’t agree with, although I know it is a view held by many Christians. Salvation in a biblical sense is so much more than just personal, spiritual salvation, and is by no means restricted to what happens after we die, to the question of whether we head up or down. Salvation is also physical, it includes being saved from danger, loss, or harm in this life too. Nor is our salvation just brought about by the death if Jesus on the cross. But one thing at a time. 

A Concordance is a sort of dictionary, it lists all the passages in the Bible in which certain important words occur. Not surprisingly, the word ‘Salvation’ gets a lot of mentions, 138 times in my version. But the two books with the most mentions are from the OT: The Psalter followed by Isaiah. Isaiah is the prophet of salvation. The salvation he describes, as we heard this morning, is “total” – it is both physical and spiritual, and both individual and social. It includes liberty for captives, and release for prisoners; the rebuilding of ancient ruins; the restoration of a just society. 

On the spiritual side, when this chapter was written, the Jews had already returned from the exile they believed was a result of their faithlessness, so were sure they had been forgiven. Isaiah tells them that God now promises an everlasting covenant, one not dependent on their behavior, but on God’s own faithfulness. They are to be an example to all nations, an example for God’s blessing. All God wants in return is their faithfulness to God: that they put on the mantle of praise, rather than the uncertainty of a faint spirit. Out of this faithfulness they are called to live lives that reflect the God they follow. In Isaiah’s poetic language, he hopes his people will be called oaks of righteousness: as strong, solid, visible, and long-lasting witnesses.  

This is not just an Old Testament reference, not just something for our Jewish brothers and sisters. The beginning of this passage from Isaiah was the text Jesus chose for his first recorded sermon, which we find in Luke’s Gospel. There we hear how Jesus went to the synagogue, stood up to read, found the passage we just heard (or a version of it), and after reading it “began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” (Luke 4:21) Jesus took the words of Isaiah and made them his own. In his Gospel, Mark just tells us that Jesus travelled through Galilee saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ (Mark 1:15) But we can be sure that the good news Jesus taught was in part the good news that he, Jesus was sent “to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19) 

Jesus practices what he preaches, releasing those held captives by demons, disease and exclusion, healing the blind, rescuing people from certain death, even bringing them back to life: saving them, in other words, from danger, loss, or harm.

There is of course a spiritual side to this offer of salvation too. When Jesus proclaims a year of God’s favor, and on other occasions announces the coming of the kingdom of God or heaven, he is proclaiming and promising reconciliation with God. The forgiveness of our sins, whether real or imagined, allows us to overcome our self-imposed fear of and separation from God, to return from our own exile so to speak. The salvation Jesus brings is also total: physical and spiritual, individual and social, now and forever. 

How do we obtain salvation? We don’t – it is already there. It comes from God and is freely offered. Our problem is that we, as individuals and as a society, do not always see and acknowledge our need or ability to be saved. Either we think we can manage without God, and have all the power we need, or we resign ourselves to our fate, and accept the world as it is, believing that a change for the better is not possible. Both are wrong. 

In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul urges them to take part in God’s plan of salvation by rejoicing always, praying continually and being thankful to God.  Paul also encourages them to listen to the words of the prophets and to act on them, to take a close look at the world as God sees it, with the Spirit’s eyes, to identify what is good and what is evil, and to act accordingly in holding fast – and facilitating – what is good, while abstaining - and fighting – every form of evil. 

Mary, Jesus’ mother whose great song of praise we read together this morning instead of a Psalm, agreed to take part in God’s plan of salvation by acting as the “God bearer.” In the Magnificat she prays that God will cast down mighty from their thrones, because they are the ones who cause oppression, who take away liberty, and make prisoners of the innocent, all the things that the prophet and Jesus say they have been sent to change. 

Isaiah calls upon his people to take part in God’s plan for salvation by rebuilding Jerusalem, by recreating a kingdom in which God is the judge, the ruler, and the king (Isaiah 33:22) and which will be known among the nations as symbol of righteousness and a blessing to the world.

Jesus is God’s plan for salvation, his whole life, and not just his death. He becomes human to tell us that we need God, and to be God for and with us. He becomes human to sanctify, to save the human condition, to make all of us – spirit, soul and body – sound and blameless. (1 Thess. 5:23) He becomes human to show us that we are all children of God and that we have a role in implementing God’s plan for salvation. 

Saving this world and the people in it from starvation, deprivation, sickness, discrimination is our job. It is not impossible at all if we follow Jesus’ example, if we live in love, and if we trust, in Paul’s words, that the one who calls us is faithful and that he will do this with us. (1 Thess. 5:24) Our trust and our strength and our power come from our knowledge of God’s love in Jesus, and from the assurance of forgiveness given even at the moment of his death on the cross. In that sense, the Gospel message is one of personal salvation, but meant not only as a promise to each individual, but also as inspiration and encouragement to cooperate together in God’s plan for the salvation of all.

Amen.