church

INI
The First Sunday in Advent
December 2, 2009
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

The Name Which is Above Every Name
"THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS"
Jeremiah 23:5-6
* * Rev. Caleb Schaller, Guest Speaker * *

May God’s love for you rest on your hearts. And may the undeserved mercy of
Christ fill you with peace. Amen.

The reading for tonight’s message comes from Jeremiah chapter 23. The name
for Jesus found there is “The LORD our Righteousness”. But before we read
that part of the Bible, let’s take a moment to understand the time and place in
which it was written.

It was a hard time to live as a prophet of Jehovah. The northern Kingdom of
Israel had been destroyed over a hundred years previous. They had forsaken
God and turned to worship idols. Though He appealed to them, they refused to
return to Him. Eventually, the Assyrian Empire swept through the land like
wolves, and Israel was gone.

Now, only the Kingdom of Judah remained. Set in the south, with Jerusalem as
it’s crown. But Judah’s people were not faithful to Jehovah either. They worship
in God’s Temple, but also at the high places dedicated to pagan gods.

The rulers of Judah were no better than its people. From time to time a godly
king would ascend the throne. But out of the last 19 kings, only 8 had been
faithful to God.

Jeremiah the prophet had lived during the reign of Judah’s last faithful king,
Josiah. But from that time on, he had watched a parade of wicked kings take
David’s throne. King Jehoahaz. King Jehoiakim. King Jehoiachin. All of these
kings rejected the messages that God’s prophets brought to them. The Bible
summarizes the reigns of these three kings with he same phrase,

“…and he did evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father(s) had done” (2
Kings 23:32, 23:37, 24:9).

These kings did not simply speak out against God’s truth.

Uriah the prophet was hunted down and murdered in the name of king
Jehoiakim. His assassins had to travel all the way to Egypt to find Uriah. They
brought him back to king Jehoiakim, who had him killed with a sword in his
own presence (Jeremiah 26:20-23).

Jehoiakim had no love for Jeremiah either. On one occasion, the king was
brought a book containing Jeremiah’s words. Words that God had instructed
Jeremiah to write down. The king tore the book up and burned it. Then he sent
men to throw Jeremiah in prison (Jeremiah 36:21-26).

The problem with Israel had been that they had abandoned Jehovah God. And
the problem with Judah was the same. Their wicked actions were merely
symptoms of a godless heart.

Listen to Jeremiah 22, verse 6.

“6For this is what the LORD says about the palace of the king of Judah:
“Though you are like Gilead to me,
like the summit of Lebanon,
I will surely make you like a desert,
like towns not inhabited.
7 I will send destroyers against you,
each man with his weapons,
and they will cut up your fine cedar beams
and throw them into the fire.
8“People from many nations will pass by this city and will ask one another,
‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this great city?’ 9And the answer will
be: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God and have
worshiped and served other gods’”” (Jeremiah 22:6-9 NIV).

And yet there were still some followers of Jehovah in the land of Judah. And life
must have been just as hard for the people of God as it was for His prophets.

Day after day, they had to see their neighbors going off to worship at pagan
altars. On some of these altars children were offered by fire to Baal or Molech.

Day after day, the faithful heard the true prophets of Jehovah proclaiming that
Jerusalem would soon be destroyed.

Day after day, they saw the wickedness of their own kings displayed in policy
and action.

It was a terrible time for God’s people to live in. But God had not forgotten His
people. And He sent them a note of comfort and encouragement to remind
them of His promises. That note of encouragement is our reading for tonight.

Listen to Jeremiah 23, verse 5-6.

“5"Behold, the days are coming," declares the LORD,
"When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch;
And He will reign as king and act wisely
And do justice and righteousness in the land.
6"In His days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will dwell securely;
And this is His name by which He will be called,
The LORD our righteousness'” (Jeremiah 23:5-6 NASB).

Long ago, God had promised king David that a special King would one day
come from his family. This king would build the Temple of God and would
reign over an eternal Kingdom (2 Samuel 7:11-16).

With this note from Jeremiah, God was saying to the faithful who were left in
Judah, Remember the promise! These kings who sit on the throne now are
relatives of David, but they are not the Branch of his family tree that I spoke of.
That righteous Branch is yet to come!

And He WILL come. And when He does His reign will not be marred with
murder and faithlessness. He will not hunt down the true prophets, He’ll call
out the false ones and hold them accountable for their lies. He will serve the
people with wisdom and justice.

ys, the people of God will live securely. Knowing that they are safe under the
wings of this Mighty King.
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And then God gave them a name to hold onto. A name for this King:

“The LORD our righteousness.”

Talk about a name above every name. I think this is my new favorite name for
Jesus. Let me explain it.

The first part is “The LORD”. This “LORD” doesn’t mean master. It’s in all
capital letters to indicate that at this point in the Hebrew, the proper name for
God is found. “Yahweh”, or “Jehovah”. Those are two different ways of
pronouncing the Hebrew name. This isn’t like the word “god” either. It was
ONLY used of the TRUE God, never of a false one. It was God’s proper name.

The second part of this name for Jesus is “our righteousness”. And this hints at
the fact that this King isn’t going to be about maintaining civic order and peace
in Palestine. There were other clues about this in earlier prophesies. The fact
that His Kingdom would be an eternal Kingdom was one of them. Here’s
another, His name is “the LORD our righteousness.”

He’s not going to be all about maintaining civic peace and extending the
borders of geographical Judah. He’s going to be all about giving people peace
with God.

Without this King sinners can have NO peace with God because as Isaiah said
in Isaiah 64, verse 6…

“6 All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
7 No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and made us waste away because of our sins” (Isaiah 64:6-7 NIV).

But the King Jeremiah speaks of is “The LORD our righteousness”. How
righteous is the True God? How sinless and perfect is He? One hundred
percent! There is no darkness in Him at all. He is pure goodness and love and
peace and justice.

And He took His flawless rightness and switched it with our un-rightness. He
made that switch on the cross of Calvary. There Jesus ripped our sins out of our
hands and put them on His own back. There Jesus spread out the righteousness
of the eternal God over sinners like a warm, silken blanket.
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That’s what’s so special about this name, “The LORD our Righteousness”.
That name was the greatest note of comfort that the faithful followers of
Jehovah could have received. Don’t worry, it said. The times are wicked. Our
own hearts are evil. But the LORD is our righteousness.

And that same message lifts up our hearts tonight. Our times are wicked. Our
own hearts evil. But the LORD is our righteousness.

When your conscience stings you because of your sin. Don’t deny it. Just speak
this name, The LORD our righteousness. For this name summarizes the Gospel
of forgiveness.

And when you want to share the peace that you have with a friend, don’t stress
about it, just remember this name. For this name encapsulates the Good News
we wish to share. The LORD our righteousness!

Prayer: Father in heaven, thank you for taking all our shame away. Thank you
for sending Jesus to be our righteousness. Prepare each of our hearts to receive
Jesus again this Christmas. And bring this name to mind in our dark and
troubled days, like a banner held high before us. The LORD our righteousness.

Amen.