150 years before his birth, the prophet Isaiah foretold of him, told us his name, and the tasks that God had chosen for him to do. His name was Cyrus. Cyrus was the only Gentile whom God spoke of as “His anointed.” Using a Hebraic expression, “the right hand,” God said that He had grasped Cyrus’ right hand, that is, gave him power. Why? God “anointed him … to subdue nations before him” (Isaiah 45:1).
But why would God anoint Cyrus to “to subdue nations before him”? God was saying that, in the future, His people would return home from a captivity that had not yet begun. God prophesied that He would free His people through a man called Cyrus.
When Isaiah wrote about Cyrus, Cyrus wasn’t even alive, not even a gleam in his father’s eyes. But this Cyrus turned out to be a real person, who ruled an empire a couple of centuries after Isaiah wrote of him. In 539 BC, Cyrus defeated the Babylonian Empire, the empire that overpowered Israel for 70 years. Cyrus would allow the Jews to go home after being in captivity for so many years.
That wasn’t by accident. God was working through world events, through Cyrus, whom God “anointed” to save His people. By saving Israel, God was making sure that, through them, the real anointed One, His Son, the Messiah, would be born centuries later. God was working through world events for the long haul–even for eternity!
But what a way for God to show that He was still in charge! After all, it looked to be just the opposite! During Israel’s captivity, it would’ve been so easy to think that the Babylonian gods were more powerful than Yahweh, the one, true God. That’s how people often thought in the ancient world. And if God was all-powerful, then what were the Israelites doing, living as a defeated people far from their home?
But don’t we also think that way? When our sinful nature controls our minds, we think: “If God IS all-powerful, then why does He allow terrorists to kill, maim, and oppress others in this world. If God IS all powerful, then why does He let a gruesome disease like Ebola inflict death in this world?”
The one, true God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–is not the author of sin. Sin is the cause of the evil we experience in this world, which we brought on ourselves. We make this huge mess, and then we want to blame God. Isn’t that so like us, wanting to blame others for our problems? And who better to blame than God?
Although God is not the author of sin, He does work in and through the lives of sinful people. And because our knowledge is still incomplete, and sin still corrupts us, we, usually, don’t know what God is doing through the events in our lives. But we do know this: Isaiah, chapter 45, also tells us that God is “a God who hides himself” (Isaiah 45:15). If we don’t get that point, then we misunderstand so much else about God. God chooses to hide Himself to work His will in our lives.
That means we can’t see God’s normal way of working in this world; it’s hidden behind something else. But we do know this: He is working in and through world events for the eternal good of His people.
From the New Testament, we learn: “Everything is yours … the world, life or death, the present or the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23). The New Testament also tells us: “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those whom he has called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
We’re not able to figure out how that can be true, that “all things work together for the good of those who love God.” But this we do know: We know IN WHOM “all things work together for the good”–it’s in the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ. God has put “everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the good of the Church” (Ephesians 1:22).
So, what does all that mean? It means this: Even in the worst of circumstances, Christ is ruling over everything for the good of His Church, those whom He has brought into His Church. That means Christ is ruling over everything for your good, for the long haul, for eternity. Indeed, God is still God, and He is still in control. But most of that remains hidden from our eyes.
Within the fallen ways of the world that are taking place, God hides Himself, as Isaiah puts it, to work your eternal good. God toppled one world empire and raised another, to make sure the Messiah would be born in the proper way and time for your salvation. What then is He doing behind the scenes to get those in His Church to live in His eternal presence, full of joy, as children of light? He will stop short of nothing, even creating a new heaven and a new earth to make it so (Isaiah 65:17, Revelation 21:1-5).
After all, God isn’t just the Creator; He’s also the Savior. And there’s even more good stuff for us in Isaiah, chapter 45: “There is no other God except me, a righteous God and Savior…. Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth” (Isaiah 45:21-22). The Lord says He is the only God, who can save, for He alone is God.
God did the work needed to save you. He sent His only Son into this world to take into Himself the human nature that is common to us all. The God of the entire universe humbled Himself for us, for you.
Although he existed in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God as something to exploit. Instead, he emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant … He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death–even death on a cross! That is why God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bend … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. [Philippians 2:7-11]
That’s what God did to be your Savior. Jesus let the world crush Him, only to take the world into His hands when God the Father exalted Him.
In Isaiah, chapter 45, the Lord had said, “To me every knee will bend and every tongue will confess” (Isaiah 45:23). As the New Testament clearly shows, this Lord, this God, before whom all will kneel on the Last Day, is none other than Jesus Christ.
From the beginning, God’s plan all along was to bring His salvation to all, not just to His Old-Covenant people. Now, in the Old Covenant, God did keep His people as separate and holy, for they were the people through whom the Messiah, the Savior, of the world would come. But God’s plan was always to bust open salvation to all people. Listen to what God said through the Prophet Malachi, in the Old Testament:
“From where the sun rises to where it sets, my name will be great among the Gentiles. In every place, incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the Gentiles,” says the Lord Almighty. [Malachi 1:11]
Through Malachi, God prophesied, in part, about New-Covenant worship. We know it’s about New-Covenant worship because it would take place beyond the people of Israel, throughout the world, and include Gentiles. It would also have in it the response of praise back to God through pure offerings and the burning of incense.
And so, today, the Church declares God’s glory to all, His glory in the crucified and risen Christ. The Church is why God works behind the scenes as “a God who hides himself,” putting “everything under his feet … for the good of the Church.” Why? So the Church can be the place where Jesus comes to grant us and strengthen faith.
In the Old Covenant, God worked through peoples and empires for the benefit of the faithful. In our Old-Testament reading, we learned that God even predicted, through the prophet Isaiah, what He was going to do even before He did it.
We don’t know much about Cyrus, especially in matters of faith. Nonetheless, God hid Himself behind that world leader to make sure that you would be saved for eternal life. Today, we don’t know how the Lord is working through various events in this world for the benefit of His Church. After all, as Isaiah said, God is “a God who hides himself” (Isaiah 45:15). So, how He, usually, works is unknown to us–unless He tells us.
But since God is “a God who hides himself,” it shouldn’t surprise us that He hides Himself, not just through world events, but even in His Church. That’s why Jesus commanded baptism (Matthew 28:19-20) as a way to bring us into His Church (Colossians 2:11-13) and save us (1 Peter 3:21). That’s why Jesus wants His pastors to preach “repentance into the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47), so all may be brought into the forgiveness that only He brings. That’s why Jesus told the Church’s first pastors, His Apostles, to forgive (and if needed, to retain) sins (John 20:23). And that’s also why Jesus gives His Supper, “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:26-28). Jesus hides Himself in these ways to give us Himself and His salvation.
But this “God who hides himself” doesn’t stop at God working through world events. Neither does this God hiding himself stop with God hiding Himself in Word and Sacrament for your salvation. No; this hiddenness of God continues through you after you leave the Divine Service. How so? In the ways that you faithfully serve others in your daily lives, God is at work in you and through you, working His will and meeting the needs of others. That means your everyday tasks have now become sacred.
Cooking for your husband or wife, comforting a friend who is grieving, taking out the trash–they are all now sacred tasks. For God is at work in them and through them, for you are His hands and feet at work in this world. Go then, and let your light shine! Amen.
