September 16, 2024 

Today's Reading: Isaiah 50:4-10

Daily Lectionary: 2 Chronicles 35:1-7, 16-25; Zephaniah 1:1-3:20; Colossians 3:1-25

“He who vindicates me is near…” (Isaiah 50:8)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. 

In the words of Isaiah the prophet, we hear our Lord, the Man Jesus, who suffers as the holy and righteous Servant of God. As a man, He hears the Word of God, learns it, grows in the knowledge of it, and obeys it (see Luke 2:52). He does not exercise His human will in rebellion to His Father’s (and His) divine will. He goes willingly to the suffering and death that is the wages of human sin. He gives His back to those who strike and His face to those who pull out the beard. He does not hide from disgrace and spitting. The Lamb goes uncomplaining forth.  

But He doesn’t do this for Himself. He does it for you. His knowledge, earned in the flesh by His life, suffering, and death, is for all the unrighteous, for those who do not do the will of God, who do not want to hear His Word, and who rebel against Him. “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.” (Isaiah 53:11).

He knows His Father and has full human trust in Him. So He knows that He will not be left in the humiliation of the cross or ashamed in His trust. The Father raises Him from the dead and vindicates Him. So we, too, have been given Jesus’ holy confidence in the Father: “Behold, the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty?” (Isaiah 50:9a). Paul says it this way: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” (Romans 8:31-34).

The One who has been vindicated in righteousness, the Holy One whom the Father would not let see decay in the grave, now stands alive forever, interceding for you by His death and resurrection. If this is how God has helped you, neither sin nor death nor anything else can condemn you as guilty. Nothing in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God that is Christ Jesus, our Lord. If God is for you, who can be against you?

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

O Lord God, You have justified and vindicated us in Christ. Cause all those who walk in darkness to trust You, the Light of the world, and keep us forever in that same faith. Amen.

-Rev. Timothy Winterstein is pastor at Faith Lutheran Church, East Wenatchee, Washington.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

The new Guiding Word series takes you through all the books of the Bible in six volumes. Starting with the Books of Moses—Genesis through Deuteronomy—you will explore every passage of every chapter of each book with the help of maps, diagrams, links between the testaments, and clarification points.