Our Savior Lutheran Church
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod

Announcements

            Lent Supper Schedule: Wednesdays starting March 12th Dinner 6pm, Service 7pm

            Time Change: Daylight Savings Time begins on Sunday March 9th, don’t forget to set the clocks ahead 1 hour for church!

Isaiah 5:1-7

The Song of the Lord’s Vineyard

Let me sing for my loved one a song about my loved one’s vineyard.My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile ridge. 2 He dug it up and gathered the stones out of it.He planted it with the best vines.He built a tower in the middle of it.He also cut a winepress into it.He expected it to produce clusters of sweet grapes,but it produced only sour grapes.

3 So now, you residents of Jerusalem and you men of Judah,judge between me and my vineyard.4 What more could have been done for my vineyardthat I have not already done for it?When I expected it to produce clusters of sweet grapes,why did it produce sour grapes?5 Now, let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard.I will take away its hedge, and it will become a pasture.I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down.6 I will make it a wasteland.It will not be pruned or hoed.So briers and thorns will shoot up.I will also command the clouds not to pour rain on it.

7 Yes, the vineyard of the Lord of Armies is the house of Israel,and the men of Judah are the planting that was pleasing to him.He expected justice, but instead there was oppression.He expected righteousness, but there was an outcry.

Pastor’s Comments

God has done so much for his people. He provides everything for our life and our salvation. Yet so often we forget and are not thankful and faithful to God alone. Good fruit is absent. There is no flaw in God’s works but in ourselves. God issues through the prophet Isaiah in these verses a powerful call to repentance. Alone, we have no hope, but God wants us to be and remain his beloved vineyard producing good fruit.

            Jesus seems to borrow imagery from these verses in some of his parables, such as in Mark 12:1-12.

Luther’s Comments

            Where the Law is not truly preached, unrecognized sins cannot be reproved. Because of the force of the Law, sins are of necessity disregarded, and whatever is thorns and hides sins is of necessity overlooked; thus the cure cannot be applied, and grace cannot be preached. If one preaches man’s own merits, when will he preach repentance and grace? What is not evil does not need the Gospel and therefore neither the revealing of sin nor the revealing of the cure. Therefore the thorns are certain excellent men and such as reason calls saints, yet they are without the Spirit and faith, they know neither works nor the goal of faith, and they vex wretched souls. Thereafter they will be deprived not only of prophets and priests of their own nation but also of apostles and their successors, who are the clouds sailing around the world. Paul says, “Behold, we turn to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46).