Jesus Is Lord

Good Morning. Just to set the stage for what I want to share today: In these Sundays after Easter, we have the opportunity to look at some “extra” things about Jesus we don’t always consider. You know, the things other than his birth, death and resurrection. So, did you catch the amazing thing St. John told us about Jesus today. John shows us that he believed and taught that Jesus is the Lord God of the Old Testament, and not just a great prophet and teacher.

You could read our lessons many times without realizing the depth of what they’re saying. And that’s John’s Gospel in a nutshell. Gregory the Great said the Gospel of John is shallow enough for a child to wade in, but deep enough for an elephant to swim. Or for a more modern analogy, it’s line an Ogre, it’s got layers.

In verse 41 of our Gospel lesson this morning, where John says Isaiah beheld Jesus glory, John makes a clear statement that Jesus Christ is the Lord God. So, how do we get there?

Our first lesson was from Isaiah 6, and I’ll highlight it again:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. (Train = glory Hebrew idiom)

Above him stood the seraphim... And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”...

Isaiah sees the glory of the Lord, Yahweh, seated on a throne, surrounded by seraphim proclaiming his holiness. You may remember, Hebrew has no superlatives, so instead of Holy, Holier, Holiest, they say Holy, Holy, Holy!

Isaiah’s response to seeing this? “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips... and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Just seeing the Lord, Isaiah is overwhelmed by his own sinfulness. Yet he is cleansed and commissioned to serve. By whom? The Lord on the throne. God commissions Isaiah to go and preach to the people, but he gives him bad news. Real important to catch verse 10 of Isaiah 6. Though Isaiah preaches with all his heart, the hearts of the people will be dull, their ears heavy, and their eyes blind-

lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

To Clarify - it’s not that God wants them to choose the darkness, but He gives them over to their choices. Turning away from God is a turn to nothing, because God has made everything. Evil can only twist and distort, it can’t create, it can’t use virtue. God blinds and hardens hearts by simply letting people alone to run from him in their own way into the darkness. They choose darkness.

Now, let’s turn to John 12:37-41, where the Apostle John reflects on the end of Jesus’ public ministry and the people’s unbelief.

Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:“ Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” That quote is from Isaiah 53:1 – the Suffering Servant Song.

He continues - Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”

Now we see he is quoting Isaiah 6:10 about hardened hearts. But he continues…Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.

In verse 41, John declares, “Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about Him.” That’s the linchpin. We started in Isaiah 6, so we could see clearly that the prophet saw the glory of the Lord God Almighty. Right?

Yet John says Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory. The Apostle John, the one who was closest to Jesus for the 3 and ½ years of travel around the land, says as an article of Christian faith that the one Isaiah saw on the throne in Isaiah 6 is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Lord God. Jesus not just prefigured and promised and prophesied about in the Old Testament, but Jesus present, and on the throne.

This connection is the foundation of our faith. This is what the New Testament means when it says Jesus Christ is Lord.

In John 1:1, “In the Beginning was the Word…the Word was God.”

In John 8:58, Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am,” echoing Exodus 3:14.

Here, John ties Isaiah’s vision of the Lord on His Throne directly to Jesus, affirming that Jesus is God incarnate. Jesus is the same Lord Almighty who reigns in holiness and glory, and not merely a messenger or a human representative.