Pastor Dan Eddy

Isaiah 44:1-5

Finding Christ in unlikely places – Part 2 – The Marks

3-20-11

Let us pray: Lord Jesus Christ please be our guest, our morning joy and our evening rest. And with this weekly Word let us live what we have heard. In Your Name we pray. Amen.

Christ’s peace and truth be with you as you hear His Word this morning. Amen.

I. Introduction – marks define us

If you were part of a rescue team walking a neighborhood shortly after Hurricane Katrina you would have noticed that many houses had an “X” painted on them with numbers above and below the “X”. The number above was the GPS coordinates of the house. The number below was the number of bodies found dead inside. And the “X” was the mark as condemned and set for destruction.

Marks can also have their benefits. When I worked in radio that there was a special concert…we could get into a VIP area if we had a mark on our hand. We were being allowed into certain areas with privileges for special food and beverages or maybe even to meet celebrities. You were allowed in only if you had the special mark.

Marks can also identify unique groups of people. Navy reunions are filled with men who have certain tattoos tied to a certain groups who did specific functions or who were on special missions. Marks as tattoos or clothing can also define which street gang you are a part of, which means either you can get protection or be marked for death.

Marks are all over the Bible, too. In Genesis 4 the Lord marked Cain for protection after He murdered Abel so that he would not suffer the same death he inflicted on his own brother. In Genesis 17 the Lord God gave Abraham and his offspring the covenant mark of circumcision. Deuteronomy 6 describes people tying the Lord’s words literally on their hands and binding them on their foreheads. And when the Israelites were in Egyptian slavery, they marked their doorposts with the Lamb’s blood to save their first born male humans and animals from destruction as the Angel of death passed over. If you didn’t have that mark death occurred.

And marks are mentioned in verse 5 of our text from Isaiah 44: “…and another will write on his hand ‘the Lord’s.’”

Marks define who we are, what we can do, and what will happen to us.

In our sermon text…God’s marks are meant to secure continual and eventual everlasting blessings. But as we will see with this morning’s sermon…marks can have the potential to bring about destruction.

II. Background of text

One of the original audiences to hear these words from Isaiah 44 was the only remaining Israelite tribes, Judah and little Benjamin, but I will speak of both as Judah.

Isaiah wrote these Holy Spirit inspired words about 700 years before the birth of Jesus. At that time, Judah was on the fast track to being marked for destruction by God. Lack of faith, inattention to worshipping only Him, trust in their military power, love of a comfortable lifestyle and relatively good economy had lulled God’s Chosen people into a false sense of security. They forgot Whose they were….The Lord’s.

The destruction of their cousins in the Northern Kingdom woke them up to short term repentance…but a little over a hundred years later God marked them for invasion by the Babylonians and off to slavery they went.

So the second audience to hear this Word of God was those Judahites (or Jews) in Babylonian captivity. The Lord was saying, “I forgive you, love you, want to restore you and have marked you as My own.”

In this text He reminds them they are marked, because they are descendents of Jacob.

Now a little aside here…you have to remember that I have spent many more years in the pews, listening to sermons like this than preaching behind a pulpit. So whenever these texts came up I wondered “Why do they keep mentioning Jacob? What’s so special about him?”

Jacob is mentioned in the Old Testament alone over 250 times.

Well, if you remember Jacob was the son of Isaac, and he was the son of Abraham, mentioned in this morning’s Epistle. So Jacob was Abraham’s grandson, who stole the birthright from the first-born Esau, even though God was going to grant it to him anyway. Jacob didn’t believe he really had the birthright. So Jacob ran away from home in fear of his family and one night he got into a wrestling match with God, or more precisely the Angel of Lord. He was wrestling for the blessing of being the Lord’s patriarch in which through His descendants would come…the Messiah. And if you remember God let him win and renamed him, Israel, which literally means “He struggled with God and man and overcame.”

And in order to remind Jacob of his “victory” and new name “Israel”…God marked him with…a gimpy hip. Remember that for later. It’s from Jacob’s 12 children, his offspring that we get the 12 tribes of Israel, which is represented through Jesus’ 12 Disciples and that’s where we get the Church…God’s Kingdom opened to all.

Oh…there you are in the text marked. But more on that later.

So through Isaiah, the Lord reminded the servants of Jacob or more precisely the Children of Israel that He chose them, made them into a special people, formed them to bring salvation to all people. He marked them with blessings and success.

So even though the Lord God punished them by putting them into Babylonian slavery…He was saying to them, “Stop being afraid of Me. I will bring you home. You have been marked for this special occasion. You are being restored.”

Well there was only one problem. The Israelites in captivity were being treated very well. They enjoyed the comfort of slavery and were more than happy to be re-marked, re-named and re-made in this luxurious captivity. The Lord God was reminding them there was something much better than their current circumstances. That through them there would be an everlasting relationship of blessings and happiness with Him far beyond the few perks they were now experiencing.

III. Tie text to today

Do you see where you fit into this text? Do you see the parallels to your life today and your relationship with our Lord and Savior?

Do you understand that you were marked for destruction at your birth because of sin? And are marked for destruction every time you commit sin?

Psalm 130 verses 3-5: “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope”

That hope was realized by God’s Word when you were marked for salvation when the pastor who baptized most likely said, “Receive the sign of the holy cross, both upon your forehead and upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.”

Just like the Israelites were marked with circumcision.

The Lord chose you, made you special, formed you at baptism. You are a testimony to salvation being made available to all people. You marked with everlasting blessings.

But often times our daily lives don’t reflect those baptismal marks. We live in the luxurious captivity of our American lifestyle and all the benefits, even in a recession. We encounter at least 2000 advertising images each day many filling our hearts and minds in attempt to re-mark, re-name and re-make you and me. Short term blessings come with a long term thirst…as verse 3 implies. The dry land of our needs of love, security and contentment aren’t being satisfied by the world. Yet the illusion is still there that we aren’t being marked by God to be loved and to love. We are convinced to be afraid of Him.

Most of the Israelites in captivity felt that way. Few took the Lord up on His offer to return to the Promised Land.

In this text God is reminding you and me that we have been marked for salvation. What kind of marks do you have? The Mark of Christ? Or the Mark of the Beast, Satan?

The only way you could have been marked for salvation was through the bloodline of descendants of Jacob who returned home from Babylon to Judah. Through this remnant’s bloodline, this tiny fraction of people, the Lord emphatically stated in verse 3 that He would pour out His Holy Spirit to eventually conceive Jesus.

Oh yes, I know Isaiah didn’t use the word, “Jesus,” but look at verse 2. He used the name Jeshurun (Jess-sir-run). That name literally means “upright one.” The one with whom God is well pleased. The Lord was referring to the one He had chosen who would be actually the way He wanted Israel to be, from the start.

Who else fits that description but Jesus…the ultimate Jacob…the ultimate Israel who fought with humans who nailed Him to the Cross because of all our sins. And who wrestled with His Heavenly Father to receive eternal blessings for you, and won, but not without being marked, not with a gimpy hip, but marked with nail scares in His hands and feet, marked with holes in His skull from the crown of thorns. Marked with lip lashes in His back. All marks of suffering.

And then He was marked with a spear in His side to show He died. The marks that Thomas was asked by Jesus to touch after His resurrection in the flesh. Thomas saw those marks, saw that he was marked for salvation by saying to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.”

He knew Jesus was his Lord and Savior and so are you by faith alone and not by good works. The marks are invisible in the heart and visible in Baptism, and visible when you eat and drink the marks of forgiveness for your sins in a few moments. You have been marked by God for love, for everlasting success. You have been restored.

In fact to remind you of that this morning…if you wish…you can be marked as you leave worship and go out to live in the world. You will be mark with the Cross, where Jesus received all His marks of destruction so you could be marked for life.

Remember you have been marked by God…marked for success. Don’t allow yourself to be re-marked for destruction. See yourself again as marked with God’s love. Marked for healing. Marked for salvation.

We need that as a reminder because like the Israelites we are saved but Satan wants us to be re-marked in his image. The drought sin causes has been and will continue be quenched by Holy Spirit overflowing by the water of His Word springing up growth in Your faith, as verses 3 and 4 state. That growth will result in future blessings…being able to better handle life’s challenges…showing a friend or relative your marks so they can receive faith in Christ or come back into the Church. And the ultimate future blessings of one day seeing our Lord and Savior face to face.

But in order to get there that involves today seeing where we are lacking in our walk with the Lord…where in our lives the potential marks of destruction still exist, where the Christ is still wanting to mark you.

Let me illustrate: I was on the phone this past week with my dad. He was telling me about his upcoming radiation treatment. In order do this treatment right; the doctors marked a spot on my body where the radiation needs to go to eliminate the tumor to heal his body. Do you know that mark on his body is in the form of a cross? He is marked for healing.

Take it from my dad. It’s one thing to be cured of cancer. It’s another thing to stay cured. It is here where we, through God’s Word, can be prevented from falling back into luxurious captivity and comfortable slavery, and being marked for destruction.

Radiation treatment can be scary. Being sanctified by God and strengthened in our faith can be, too. Stop being afraid. You have restored. You are marked for being made stronger.

That’s why over the past 6 weeks at Adult Bible study, many people have shared how they daily pray to God and meditate on His Word. They want to keep Christ’s marks.

We do that so as the Apostle Paul stated in Galatians 6:17, “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.” Eye marked with tenderness and kindness, a mind marked with toughness and truth, and a mouth marked with Jesus and joy. Christ marks us with love to love.

And you will have a chance to do that this morning. You can put Christ’s mark on others by supporting the Japanese relief efforts through Lutheran World Relief. Your door offering will be matched by CLC’s Missions Committee and those dollars will go to help Japanese families in distress who have been misplaced due to the earthquakes, tsunamis, and/or the nuclear power plant’s radiation.

What a great way to show that believers in Christ not only take good care of their own but take care of those not in the Church…so they can see our marks and want to be remarked into Christ’s kingdom…so they too can be a descendant of Jacob…so they know they are the Lord’s and have the name of Israel, forever…the name of Jesus Christ.

IV. Conclusion

Mark God’s word on your head and heart. Open His Word and see how God will mark your actions in speaking of Him to others and showing it.

Being marked in Christ shows who you are, whose you are, what you can do, and what will happen to you. The marks of faith we don’t deserve, but graciously receive. God’s blessing as you live marked in Christ. Amen.