You Were, You are, I am!
Isaiah 12:1-6

† In Jesus Name †

May the grace and peace of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ bring you great comfort.

 Have you ever seen….

 He was so angry that his nostrils flared.

He couldn’t control his breathing, as his strongly worded rebuke comes out with great deliberation and focus.  His face was bright red, the kind of anger that you wonder whether his heart or mind will explode before you.

If it weren’t for the control over those words, you would wonder if there was any control left in Him.

The anger so powerful, that you can’t focus

I don’t think this is exactly what we were picturing when we chanted the gradual, when we said, “fix your eyes on Jesus…”

I think most of us have a hard time seeing God this angry, especially Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  I mean – how does a dove get angry?  God the Father maybe, but God that angry?  But then we think of the parable of the prodigal, and that Father wasn’t all that mad…

That furious?  So much so that it physically was revealed?

Who was God that mad at????

For the definition of the word angry describes someone based on physical appearance, so angry their body cannot hide it.

You were…

Who was it Isaiah was quoting when he wrote, “You were angry with me, O LORD”.

Most of us would love to point at someone else, and say – God must have been mad at, and name a name.  Most likely a name that betrayed and hurt us in the past.  Or maybe someone who is breaking the laws, or threatening our way of life, our future or children/grandchildren’s future.

This is what we need to realize, God was that angry with us.

Angry with us because of our sin, because of our rebelling against Him, angry as we rejected His love and his care.

I think sometimes we would prefer to think he was disappointed, or maybe a little upset.  That because God is understanding, that he doesn’t get emotional over our idolatry, our gossip, our sexual sin, our jealousy, and coveting.  Somehow I think we want to minimize the things we do wrong, we want to justify them, argue that their right, say that the Greek or Hebrew doesn’t really mean that its wrong, just that it isn’t as good as God would hope for us to be.

Sorry,

God was mad; he was angry, so angry that it caught there attention.

He caught our attention.

He was that mad at us, that angry at our sin,

There is a need to recognize this, that we can cause God so much anger that He must pour it out on someone, for if we don’t understand this, we don’t understand the cross.

We can’t understand the wrath of God that was poured out upon Jesus, that He bore out of obedience.

What happens if we don’t understand how angry God was with us, is that we don’t worry about our sin, and we continue to dwell on it, and we will struggle with the need for repentance, with the need for more than a quick “I’m sorry.”

We need to look at the cross from the point of seeing God so angry, that He needed to pour out that anger, and instead of pouring it out on us, He chose Christ Jesus.

You are…

Hear those words again,   

In that day, you will sing: “I will praise you, O LORD! You were angry with me, but not any more. Now you comfort me. ²  See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The LORD GOD is my strength and my song; he has given me victory.”    Isaiah 12:1-2 (NLT)

You were angry O LORD- not His title but His Name…
You were angry, but not any more… now you comfort me.

Now you comfort me.

All because of the cross.  Where that anger was satisfied, where the sins met the wrath of God and were consumed.  The cross where the people who had no god, who had walked away from Him saw His love overcome to His anger, and broken, and crushed, we were given life in Jesus.

Yes, we ticked God off, more perhaps than we can ever understand.

He didn’t set it aside, He dealt with it, as Christ Jesus was nailed to the cross.

He was angry, but because of Jesus- He is no longer.

And that is why we worship and praise Him, that is why we tell the world what Jesus has done.  The wonderful things He has done, that we make known around the world.

That He has brought people from around the world to hear about.

He was angry at us, not any more, now He comforts us…literally in Hebrew, He allows us to breath easy.  He allows us to sigh in relief and drink deeply of His cup of salvation!

I am…

This is the reason for our joy!  That one little verse, not even a whole verse, talks of our sin angering God, and the rest of the chapter praises Him.  It is that joy that springs up from seeing what was crushed, restored, what was broken healed.

At first, we cannot believe it, and then we are in awe… then life becomes incredibly infused with the love of God.

Hear the last words of Isaiah’s reading this morning

⁶  Let all the people of Jerusalem/Concordia shout his praise with joy! For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.”