Sermon for November 30, 2025, First Sunday in Advent

Isaiah 2:1-5 (First Sunday in Advent—Series A)

“Beginning at the End ”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

November 30, 2025

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is the Old Testament Reading recorded in Isaiah, chapter 2:

¹The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz visioned concerning Judah and Jerusalem. ²And it will be in the latter days that the mountain of the house of Yahweh will be established as the head of the mountains, and it will be raised up above the hills. And all the nations will flow to it. ³And many peoples will come and they will say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob, so that He may teach us His ways, and so that we may walk in His paths.” For from Zion will go forth instruction and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem. ⁴And He will judge between the nations and He will decide regarding many peoples. Then they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not raise a sword against nation, and they will no longer learn war. ⁵O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of Yahweh.

          When the movie Titanic was released in 1997, I was a senior in college. As a history major, I was definitely intrigued. So, my girlfriend and I went on a date to see it. Now, without having seen the movie before, Mica and I already knew the ending. The Titanic sinks! Why would anyone want to see a movie when they already know the ending? Maybe it was interest in seeing the great ship recreated, or the unknown dramatic plotline that would get the viewer to the known end? Or it was just nice to be out on a date!

          We begin a new Church Year on this First Sunday in Advent. Through the prophet Isaiah, God’s people begin by knowing how it will end. In the middle of the darkness along the way, Israel knows where she is going. Zion, the place of God’s presence on earth, where He reigns as King over His people and all creation, will one day be raised up as the center of focus of judgment and salvation for all. “The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz visioned concerning Judah and Jerusalem. And it will be in the latter days that the mountain of the house of Yahweh will be established as the head of the mountains, and it will be raised up above the hills.”

          The “latter days” for the people of Israel in the 700s B.C. was the “future age,” or “the coming age” that would break in with the coming of the Christ, the promised Messiah. It is a looking forward through the word of God spoken by prophets like Isaiah, and his contemporaries Amos, Hosea, and Micah. These servants of the Lord often spoke His Word looking forward to the “Last Days” or “the end of days,” going beyond normal experiences and even geographic realities of history as we know them.

          During the time of Isaiah’s ministry, this prophet witnessed some of the most tumultuous history of God’s ancient people Israel. During that time, Zion as the Temple Mount already played a central role in the lives of the Israelites. “Zion” is the mount itself where tradition placed the offering of Isaac in Genesis 22, known then as Mount Moriah. Later, this mount was the site of David’s stronghold when he captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites and named it “the city of David” (2 Sam. 5:7-9). Once Solomon, David’s son, built the temple, he moved the ark of the covenant from “the city of David, which is Zion” (1 Kings 8:1). The glory of the Lord filled the temple, and God Himself established it as His dwelling place among His covenant people. It was His “palace” and “throne room” over the ark. Ever since, the terms “Zion,” “the temple,” “the mount,” and even “Jerusalem” became somewhat interchangeable.

          Even though the Lord had made His dwelling place among the people, the people turned aside from Him. In Isaiah, chapter 1, God said, “How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers” (Is. 1:21 ESV). Israel was “prostituting” herself with false gods like Baal. Although she was the bride of the Lord, and He had promised to be husband to her, Israel cheated on him with other deities. Jeremiah 3:20, “Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel, declares the Lord.”

          The result of Israel’s disobedience and breach of covenant was their punishment. Ezekiel 11 shows “the glory of the Lord” departing from Zion, from the temple, which no longer had any special promise of divine protection. Jerusalem and her people would be as vulnerable as any other city. Within Isaiah’s lifetime, nations were indeed coming to Jerusalem, but as conquerors. The mighty Assyrians took over the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C. Jerusalem’s end would come in 587 B.C. when the Babylonians destroyed the temple.

          But here in Isaiah 2, the prophet has skipped over much of this (to which he would return later in the book). Here at the beginning, God showed Isaiah a vision of how it will all end for His people in the future age, well beyond 587 B.C., well past A.D. 70 and the destruction of temple again, this time by the Romans. God directed His people to what He was going to do “in the latter days” when He redeemed Zion and raiseed it in a new creation. “In the latter days . . . the mountain of the house of Yahweh will be established as the head of the mountains, and it will be raised up above the hills. And all the nations will flow to it. And many peoples will come and they will say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob, so that He may teach us His ways, and so that we may walk in His paths.’”

          This is unbelievable! Nations will flow to the place where God will dwell among people. Almost by supernatural magnetic force, there is the drawing of ALL nations to Mount Zion, with the “flow” of the nations going uphill! They come, not for war and not to conquer. The nations will come to hear the Word of the Lord, to be taught His ways so that they can walk in His paths.

          Between the “now” and the “not yet” for God’s first testament people, what changed? The Lord’s just punishment against Israel was carried out. He saved a remnant of those who lived by faith in His promise to one day send a Savior who would rescue and redeem not just Israel but all the nations. And from this remnant, the Lord sent forth His instruction and teaching—His Word. Zion and the mountain of the Lord is pictured in a visionary experience by the prophet as the home and source of the Word that goes forth for the sake of all nations. This Word, and this God, is there for all people.

          Zion’s mission as the central place, the earthly location for the presence of God, began to be fulfilled when the Word of the Lord became flesh as the Messiah Himself. With the coming of the Son of God in human flesh and blood, so began God’s last chapter, “the future age” of Isaiah 2. John wrote in the prolog of his Gospel that the Word became flesh and, literally translated, “templed” among us. Jesus is the new and greater temple who proclaimed God’s word and teaching during His earthly ministry. Jesus taught and proclaimed from the temple mount itself the reign and rule of God now come among the people. Where the glory of the Lord had once left the temple, now the glory of the Lord had come back to His temple in body and soul as the Incarnate God.

          After Jesus had cleansed the Temple in John 2, we read, “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” (John 2:19-22 ESV). God-made-flesh had come to His temple to “teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths. For from Zion will go forth instruction and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.”

          The flesh and blood, body and soul of Jesus was taken to another hill not far from the temple mount. He was lifted up, nailed to a Roman cross on Mount Calvary, the place of a skull. It was there that the God-Man shed His blood to redeem Zion and all the nations, all the people of the earth, from their sins, from death, and from the devil’s power. So that all people might walk in the light of the Lord, Jesus allowed the light of His life to be extinguished in death. There on the cross as He bled and breathed His last, the Lord made a judgment between the nations and decided regarding many people. In this new age, salvation has come to sinners because God has given the verdict from His throne. The blood of the Messiah has won forgiveness for all sinners. According to His good and gracious will and plan, the Father declares us “not guilty” of sin because of the merits of Jesus’ perfect life, sacrificial death, and resurrection on the third day.

          We receive this verdict, this forgiveness, this new and eternal life, because the Word and instruction of the Lord have gone out from Zion and is received by us in the Gospel! The very Word of Christ draws us to our Savior and delivers to us forgiveness and life because of His shed blood and resurrection life. As Jesus promised, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32 ESV).

To Zion, to the place of God’s presence, the nations flow as Jesus draws us to Himself. For God’s temple presence is among us in Jesus, and where Jesus is rightly proclaimed in His Word, He is present as He promised to be. God’s presence on earth is with us in the mysterious yet real presence of Christ, the Word made flesh. And as that Word of Christ goes forth, with it comes God’s verdict for all people and His declaration of righteousness on account of Christ. This we receive by grace through Christ present in His Gospel Word, through Christ present in water and Word in Holy Baptism, through Christ present with His own Body and Blood, given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins in His Supper.

With this Good News, we begin a new Church Year in confident expectation—and knowledge—of how it will end. We know what the final verdict will be—not guilty, forgiven by Christ the Savior. “Even when all the forces of the world, the might of the nations, and all the powers of the fallen creation seem to be coming to Zion to threaten, to attack, and to destroy, we know the final outcome.”[1] As empowered by the Gospel of our Christ, “let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, . . . so that He may teach us His ways, and so that we may walk in His paths. . . . let us walk in the light of Yahweh” until we are eternally with Him, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in His new creation. Amen.

[1] Andrew H. Bartelt, Isaiah 1-12, Concordia Commentary (St. Louis: Concordia, 2024), 237.