Sermon for Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026

Isaiah 50:4-a (Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion—Series A)

“Jesus Knew”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

March 29, 2026

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 50:

⁴The Lord Yahweh gave to me the tongue of those being taught, to know how to help the weary with a word. He awakens morning by morning; he awakens my ear to hear as those being taught. ⁵The Lord Yahweh opened my ear and I myself was not rebellious; I did not turn back. ⁶My back I gave to those who are striking, and my cheeks to those who are pulling out my beard. My face I did not hide from disgrace and spit. ⁷And the Lord Yahweh will help me; therefore, I will not be disgraced. Therefore, I will set my face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed. ⁸Near is my Vindicator! Who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him draw near to me. ⁹Behold, the Lord Yahweh will help me. Who is he who will declare me guilty?

          CBS news anchor Dan Rather once said, “If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.” I’m sure for most of us that would be true. If we knew that the car would get a flat tire on the highway, the hotel would lose our reservation, and we would forget to pack socks, we’d probably not go on that trip. Yet, for Jesus, when our Lord rode into Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday, He did know all the difficulties that would happen to Him in just a few short days. Jesus would be betrayed, denied, mocked, hit, spat on, flogged, crowned with thorns, and crucified. The Son of God knew what was going to take place during what we call Holy Week long before that Palm Sunday; He knew it from eternity.

Throughout the pages of the Old Testament, God revealed to His people what would happen to His Son following Palm Sunday. Our text is the Third Servant Song in the Book of Isaiah. Through these songs, Isaiah describes how God reduces Israel to one person, the Messiah. His perfect obedience and sacrifice would pay for the sins of Israel. Through the Servant, God would establish a new Israel, the Holy Christian Church.

In Isaiah 50, the Servant of the Lord speaks. This Servant will see and will hear, in contrast to the people to whom Isaiah was sent. This Servant would be rejected, but He would not flinch because He knows that the Lord God helps Him. He has faith in His God to vindicate Him. He has no fear because God can and will overcome all adversaries.

This Servant is none other than the Messiah, Jesus. All four Servant Songs in Isaiah reveal something about Him. Jesus, here, tells us plainly that He knows exactly where His journey is going to take Him. He is well-prepared for the task and, even though it means suffering and ultimately death, Jesus the Servant of the Lord will not turn away from the road before Him. Because of Jesus’ faithful obedience His Father in His life, death, and resurrection, we are saved from all sins, from death, and from the devil’s power.

          The Servant of the Lord was prepared for the journey and the task He was to carry out in winning salvation for the world. Isaiah records that the Servant of the Lord has been given “the tongue of those being taught, to know how to help the weary with a word. He awakens morning by morning; he awakens my ear to hear as those being taught.” Jesus has a ready, expert tongue. This means the words that He proclaims are faithful and true words of God Himself. Jesus, according to His flesh, listened to God the Father’s Word and after listening, spoke this Word that truly helps the weary ones.

Isaiah tells us that the Messiah would speak with the mouth of God the very Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. We read about the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 61 when He says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” (Isaiah 61:1a). Jesus quoted this text at the synagogue in Nazareth and proclaimed, “‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth” (Luke 4:21-22 ESV). Jesus was fulfilling His prophetic ministry in which He taught the very Word of God to sustain those who are weary from sin and its consequences and effects. Jesus’ Word is a Word that blesses and helps the suffering and the afflicted. It’s a Word that sends the devil fleeing, a Word that destroys death, and a Word that forgives sin.

          God the Father equipped His Servant-Son for His task. In Jesus, God had come into the world to save sinners. Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Jesus, the perfect Son of God made flesh, came that that He might sustain us with His Word of hope, peace, forgiveness, and life.

          The Servant of the Lord continues to speak in our text, saying, “The Lord Yahweh opened my ear and I myself was not rebellious; I did not turn back.” The Servant would not approach His ministry with an inner attitude of rebellion. He would move forward in it, even knowing full well that His preaching and teaching ministry would end so that He would make the final sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. Three times Jesus predicted His Passion to His disciples saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise” (Luke 18:31-33 ESV).

As promised here in Isaiah, Jesus’ instructed tongue that spoke the Word of God would ultimately fall silent before His enemies. Jesus fully and completely obeyed the divine place of salvation. He yielded Himself to flogging, giving His back to those who strike. Silently, He suffered the disgrace of mocking and spitting, even to the point of giving His cheeks “to those who pull out the beard.” In the ancient world, to pluck the hair off someone’s beard was to show utter contempt and disrespect. The Servant of the Lord—Jesus our Savior—willingly endured the deliberately heinous and degrading insults of the religious leaders and the soldiers—the purple robe, the crown of thorns, the mockery, the hitting and spitting.

          Jesus endured all of this so that He might sustain us who are wearied by sin, death, and the devil with the forgiveness of sins and the defeat of death and the devil. And Jesus set His face like flint to accomplish our salvation. He would not be turned back from this task. Luke tells us, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51 ESV).

          From eternity, Jesus’ mind was made up to save humanity even though He knew the difficulties of that task. He would “[empty] himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:7-8 ESV). The apostle Peter, not having in mind these things of God, once tried to deter our Lord. We read in Mark 8, “And [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man’” (Mark 8:31-33 ESV).

          Jesus knew full well the suffering and death He would face into Jerusalem as He rode into the city that first Palm Sunday. He had set His face to go to Jerusalem and do everything necessary to save all people from sin and death. Through it all, the Servant of the Lord, our Savior, trusted in His heavenly Father’s will and His help. In the Garden of Gethsemane, “[Jesus] knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.’ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:41-44 ESV).

          Knowing what lay before Him, Jesus willingly drank the cup of God’s wrath against sin, went to the cross, and gave up His life for us. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11 ESV). And the Shepherd became like a lamb led to the slaughter. Isaiah 53 tells us exactly what the Servant of the Lord endured in order to save us. “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:3-5 ESV).

          We are healed from our sins; we are forgiven. It is this Word of forgiveness that sustains us weary sinners. The certainty of faith trusts that Jesus accomplished our salvation by winning our forgiveness through His death on a cross. And this faith gives us joy and peace. Jesus knew that His suffering and death would make us right before God. Jesus knew all that He had to accomplished, and when it was done, our Lord declared, “It is finished.” We are saved from our sin. We are rescued from death and the devil. The work of the Servant of the Lord is finished forevermore. Your salvation is secure. Jesus took care of it all for you.

          On Palm Sunday, at the beginning of this Holy Week, we take great comfort in knowing where Jesus’ journey took Him—all the way to the cross and the grave—in order that we would have forgiveness, life, and salvation. We praise our great God and Savior that He set His face like flint to finish the task of saving us in body and soul. We are thankful that Jesus did not hide His face from disgrace and spitting but humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on Calvary’s cross. As you and I contemplate again the saving work of Jesus this week, we can be certain that our Lord was faithful in His work for us and our salvation. Hosanna to the Son of David. Truly blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Amen.