The Living Jesus
April 4, 2021
Preached by Ben Bechtel
Scripture Reading
Isaiah 61
1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
5 Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks;
foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
6 but you shall be called the priests of the Lord;
they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;
you shall eat the wealth of the nations,
and in their glory you shall boast.
7 Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion;
instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot;
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion;
they shall have everlasting joy.
8 For I the Lord love justice;
I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their offspring shall be known among the nations,
and their descendants in the midst of the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge them,
that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.
10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.
As we approach Isaiah 61 with a particular emphasis on that final phrase of our vision statement, the living Jesus, I have a bold claim to make. If Jesus were to have a vision statement it would be Isaiah 61. In Luke 4 Jesus begins his public ministry by reading Isaiah 61:1-2 in a Jewish synagogue. He then sits down and says, “today, this is fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus is the Anointed One of Isaiah 61, the Messiah. In the Old Testament kings were anointed with the Spirit of God for their rule and reign. Here in Isaiah 61, we get a window into the primary goal of King Jesus’ life and ministry. The vision of King Jesus is massive. It is all-encompassing. Jesus proclaims the good news that weak, wounded, and wayward people can find joy as citizens of his kingdom.
1. The Jubilee of the Kingdom
It’s with this phrase in verse 1 that we begin: “to proclaim good news to the poor.” This phrase summarizes and encapsulates each of the following phrases that describe who Jesus came for and what he came to do. Jesus came to proclaim good news to the poor. He came for those who feel like they can’t go on one more day, for those whose pillows are wet and crusty from crying themselves to sleep, for the captive to addiction, for the chronically anxious, for the materially poor who feel like they have nothing to offer, for those who can’t imagine another day with the hole in their hearts from missing that loved one who has passed, for those who feel like God wants nothing to do with them, for those who feel like a waste of space. To simplify it down into three categories, Jesus came for the weak, wounded, and wayward.
What is the nature of the good news he proclaims to the poor? The good news he proclaims is good news about his kingdom. In order to grasp what Jesus means about this good news of the kingdom we need to press into that word “liberty” in verse 1. That word is the same word used to describe the Year of Jubilee as given to the people of Israel in Leviticus 25. This Year of Jubilee functioned as a sort of restart button for the people of Israel. Every fiftieth year was to be the Year of Jubilee in which slaves would be set free, debts cancelled, and property returned to its rightful owners. It was to be a time of freedom and rejoicing in the land, especially for those who were slaves or underprivileged economically. Interestingly enough, this was never put into practice one time in Israelite society (likely because of how hard this practice would have been on those who were benefiting from the enslaved and indebted). Jesus is saying that his mission is to bring ultimate Jubilee for the people of the world, to make all things new.
Imagine what this would look like in your life. The consequences of your sin on yourself and on the generations after you erased, the trauma of sexual abuse eradicated, the relationships that were severed because of your selfishness restored, injustices and wrongs made right, fear and anxiety eliminated, the big bags under your eyes and aches in your bones gone, societal institutions clear of corruption. The outworking of Jesus’ good news for the poor means nothing else than total joy for his destitute, down-and-out people. Look at verse 3:
[Jesus was sent] to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
The good news of Jesus for the poor and captive, for the weak, wounded, and wayward is none other than a complete reversal, an exchange of sorrow for joy, to bring nothing short of what the book of Revelation calls heaven coming down to earth.
However, Jesus did not just come to bring a kingdom without himself as the King. In other words, Jesus’ vision was not just to give us new moral principles upon which we could improve ourselves and produce a just society. This is why Jesus doesn’t just come as a prophet announcing Jubilee but also as a King enacting Jubilee. Think about that for a second. If you are here this morning and you are not a Christian you would probably agree that Jesus is a good moral teacher, a prophet of sorts even who announced a better way to live. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in a society like what Jesus is announcing here? But if all Jesus did was proclaim a new and just way of life, if Jesus’ vision was simply to tell us what we are doing wrong and how to fix it this is not good news.
This is true because all of our ways as human beings ultimately lead to decay and death. Everything we touch comes to ruin. Not only that, but this idea of Jesus just bringing new moral commands also does not square with what Jesus himself claims in Isaiah 61. Jesus did not claim to be a mere man whose goal was to set up an ethical program that could continue on without him. Jesus proclaimed himself as God in the flesh, our King who would save us from the stinking garbage heap of our collective human projects.
2. The Joy of the King
King Jesus himself comes as our salvation, to bring about his kingdom of Jubilee (verse 10):
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
This might sound like a strange question, but have you ever thought about what brings Jesus the most joy? What makes his heart overflow with gladness? We get a picture of it here in verse 10. Jesus, the Anointed One from verses 1-3 is speaking again, and this time he is letting us in on what brings him joy. And not just joy but great joy (literally “joy, joy” in the Hebrew). Jesus takes utmost joy in this: bringing his salvation and righteousness to sinners.
It’s Easter, which means many of us have new clothes on today. We feel good in fresh, springtime clothes. The day in life when we probably feel most special because of the clothes we wear is our wedding day. This is partially true for guys (who doesn’t love a fresh suit?) but is especially true for the bride in her dress. The bride and family spend a fair amount of time and money on their wedding day wardrobe. And this wardrobe, particularly the wedding dress, signals to the guests which woman among the guests is getting married. The bride’s garments set her apart as beautiful and she takes great joy in her dress as she walks down the aisle. But even more than that, the bride takes joy in the one she is wearing her wedding garment for, her husband.
Jesus is set apart as the one who will bring salvation and he delights to bring salvation. But even more than this, Jesus delights in wearing the garments of salvation and righteousness for us. You see, in Hebrews 12:2 it says,
[Jesus], for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
This is what it meant for Jesus to wear the garments of salvation for you. He stared down death on a cross, bearing the wrath of God for the sin of all who would come to him. And yet, he swallowed up sin and death with joy and took them to the grave.
But church, he did not stay there. The most important phrase of this verse is “and isseated.” The most important phrase of our vision statement is that last one “the living Jesus.” If Jesus stayed in the grave there is no joy. If Jesus stayed in the grave, then he put on the garment of salvation in vain. If he remained in the grave, we today cannot enjoy the living Jesus any more than a grown adult can truly enjoy playing with an imaginary friend. But Jesus devoured death and rose from the grave and now sits enthroned as the King of the Universe, where he extends his gracious kingdom of joy to all who would come to him. Jesus’ vision was not to bring a renewed ethical system; he came to turn mourning to dancing, to bring dead things to life, starting with himself. We can enjoy Jesus today because Jesus is alive.
This morning if you have never experienced the joy of the living Jesus but rather are walking through the confusion, doubt, and dread that come from this world of sin and impending death, come to Jesus and live. Trust that his death was your death, and that his life ensures your life forever with him. Trust that he is the one who satisfies every longing of your heart.
Now look at what begins to happen as the weak, wounded, and wayward trust in the living Jesus and experience his kingdom of Jubilee (verse 3):
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
Several years ago, my wife and I went out to California and got to camp under the Redwood trees along the coast in Big Sur State Park. It was a surreal experience going for a morning walk sipping coffee in between these ancient giants. As we experience the grace of the living Jesus and begin to delight in his love for us, we begin less and less to resemble a twig that snaps under your feet on the forest floor and more and more to resemble a sturdy Redwood tree. Jesus may not have come just to give new moral teachings. But when Jesus plants us in the garden of salvation, when he raises our dead hearts to life, we grow in both joy and righteousness. God is most glorified, and Jesus is most happy when the resurrection power of Jesus springs up in lives of joyful obedience.
To say that another way, because Jesus is alive, his people ought to display the power of his Jubilee by our lives of overflowing joy and justice. This world ought to look at your life, at this church, and not be able to deny the reality of the living Jesus because of the joy we have in his salvation and the types of lives he produces in us. As we experience the Jubilee of King Jesus and live that out together, we will show the world what it looks like that Jesus reigns as the resurrected king of the universe. We will be an embassy of divine joy.
Our community group here at church has adopted a phrase for ourselves in the past few months through the discussions we have been having together: no more grumpy Christians. A grumpy Christians is an oxymoron. Not only that, but grumpy Christians are also an unfaithful witness to the world that Jesus is alive and that he changes lives! This world doesn’t need more grumpy Christians. This isn’t just a call to be happy. If life is horrible and I just tell you to be happy anyway that’s cruel. But joy in the resurrected Jesus can be yours if you look beyond our circumstances to the King who conquered death, who will make all things new, and who will one day wipe away every tear from our eyes. That’s not cruelty; that’s hope.
We could argue that for both ourselves and our world, nothing is more urgent than hope and joy. What we need most in this life is to enjoy the living Jesus. What this world needs most is to see the joy of the living Jesus in us. Our joy is serious business to God and the resurrection of Jesus is proof of that. No more let sins and sorrows grow/Nor thorns infest the ground/He comes to make his blessings flow/far as the curse is found.
[1] Phillip Graham Ryken, Luke: Volume 1 Chapters 1-12, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2009), 168.
[2] This illustration and subsequent point is an adaptation from Irwyn Ince, The Beautiful Community, 61-62.
