A Sermon Reflecting on Isaiah 1:3
By Russ Hjelm
Open your Bibles with me to Isaiah chapter 1, and let verse 3 settle into your soul the way a quiet morning mist settles over a field. The Lord is speaking through the prophet, and the words are sharp, almost shocking in their simplicity: The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand. This is not a gentle devotional thought for a quiet time. This is courtroom language. God is bringing a lawsuit against his own people, calling heaven and earth as witnesses, and in the middle of the charges he pauses to let the animals speak. The ox and the donkey, those ordinary, stubborn, unglamorous creatures that every farmer in ancient Judah saw every single day, become the star witnesses against the people who were supposed to be the wisest, the most privileged, the most loved on the face of the earth.
Think about what the ox and donkey actually do. The ox does not attend seminary. It has never read a single verse of Scripture. It cannot quote the Shema or recite the Ten Commandments. Yet every evening, without fail, it turns its massive head toward home. It knows the voice that calls it. It knows the hand that loosens the yoke and fills the trough. It knows the stall where rest is waiting. The donkey is even more ordinary, often mocked for its slowness and stubbornness, yet it too makes its way back to the master’s crib. That crib is not just a feeding trough; it is the daily proof that the owner is faithful. Grain appears. Water is fresh. The donkey does not question the source. It simply comes, lowers its head, and receives what has been provided. Instinct, habit, dependence – call it whatever you like, but the animals live in constant, unthinking recognition of the one who owns them and feeds them.
Now contrast that with Israel. These are not outsiders. These are the children God raised from infancy. He delivered them from Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. He fed them manna in the wilderness when there was no grocery store in sight. He gave them water from a rock that followed them like a divine caterer. He planted them in a land flowing with milk and honey. He gave them his own law, his own presence in the tabernacle, his own promises through the prophets. And yet the verdict is devastating: they do not know. They do not understand. The Hebrew word for know here is yada – the same word used for the intimate knowing between husband and wife, the covenant knowing between God and his people. This is not about missing a few facts on a theology quiz. This is relational failure at the deepest level. God’s own family has become strangers to him while the farm animals remain loyal.
This is where the theology cuts deep. Sin, at its root, is not primarily rule-breaking; it is relationship-rejecting. The animals fulfill the purpose of their creation without effort. They live as creatures who depend on their creator. But human beings, made in the image of God with minds that can reason and hearts that can love, have used those gifts to invent ways to live as if the Creator does not exist. We call it functional atheism. We go to work, pay the bills, scroll through our phones, plan our weekends, and somehow manage to do it all without a conscious, grateful awareness that every breath, every heartbeat, every opportunity, every meal is a gift from the hand of the One who owns us. The ox does not forget who fills the trough. We do. And the tragedy is compounded because we are not ignorant by limitation; we are ignorant by choice. We have the Scriptures open before us, the cross behind us, the Spirit within us, and still we can live days, weeks, even years without truly knowing the God who has never stopped providing for us.
Look closer at that crib. In the ancient world the master’s crib was the center of provision, the place where life was sustained day after day. For Israel, that crib was the promised land, the temple, the sacrifices, the feasts, the daily mercies that never ran out. God kept filling it, and they kept walking past it. They chased after other lovers – idols, foreign alliances, political power, personal comfort – while the faithful Provider stood waiting. This same pattern repeats in every generation. We fill our own cribs with career success, financial security, social media validation, and endless entertainment, then wonder why our souls feel empty. The donkey is wiser. It goes back to the only place where real nourishment is found.
But here is where the gospel breaks in with breathtaking beauty. The same God who brought this indictment did not leave us in our ignorance. He came down into the very scene the animals understood better than we did. In the fullness of time, the divine Owner entered his own creation not as a distant master but as a helpless baby. And where was he laid? In a manger. A feeding trough. A crib. The animals that had been used as witnesses against us centuries earlier now stand silently around the newborn King, their breath warming the air where the unrecognized Master sleeps. The irony is divine poetry. The one Israel did not know is placed exactly where the ox and donkey instinctively return. The rejected crib becomes the cradle of redemption. The Owner becomes the owned. The Provider becomes the provided for. In Jesus Christ, God makes himself knowable in the most tangible way possible. He takes on flesh so that our forgetful hearts can see and touch and know the love that has been pursuing us all along.
The cross takes this even deeper. On Calvary the Master stretches out his arms and says in effect, “This is how far I will go to be known by you.” He dies the death we deserved so that the relational breach can be healed. He rises so that the knowledge we lost in the garden can be restored forever. And now, through the Holy Spirit, the same God who once said “Israel does not know” offers to write his law on our hearts and give us the spirit of adoption so that we cry out, “Abba, Father.” This is not dry doctrine; this is the heartbeat of Christianity. Eternal life, Jesus said, is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. The animals know their owner by instinct. We are invited to know ours by grace.
So what does this mean for us right here, right now, in the ordinary grind of twenty-first-century life? It means we must repent of our functional ignorance. Start the day by consciously acknowledging the Master before you check your email. When you sit down to a meal, let the first thought be gratitude to the One who filled the crib, not just thanks for the food itself. When anxiety rises because the bank account is low or the diagnosis is scary, remember that the donkey does not worry about tomorrow’s hay; it trusts the hand that has never failed. When success comes and pride whispers that you built this life yourself, stop and say out loud, “The ox knows its owner; help me remember I am not self-made.” When failure or grief hits and you feel abandoned, return to the crib of God’s promises; every page of Scripture is grain for your soul.
For those of us who lead in the church, this verse is a constant warning against professional religion. We can preach, teach, counsel, and organize ministries while our own hearts drift into the same forgetfulness that plagued Israel. The antidote is not more activity but more knowing – more time in the Word where God reveals himself, more time in prayer where we speak and listen to the One who owns us, more time in worship where we lower our heads like the animals and simply receive. For parents, teach your children that every good thing comes from the Master’s hand, not from Amazon or their own effort. For students, let every lecture and every late-night study session be offered back to the God who gave you your mind. For workers, do your job as unto the Lord, knowing that the ultimate Boss is the one who provides the strength to do it.
And for anyone here who has never truly known this God, hear the invitation in the indictment. The same voice that says “you do not know” is the voice that says “come and know.” Jesus stands at the door of your life today and knocks. He offers not a distant religion but a living relationship. He offers to forgive every act of forgetting, every time you chose independence over dependence, every moment you treated the Creator like an optional accessory. All he asks is that you come to the crib – the place where he laid down his life for you – and receive the grace he has been providing all along.
Church, the animals are still teaching us. Every time you see a dog run to its owner with pure joy, every time a cat curls up in the lap of the one who feeds it, every time livestock return to the barn at dusk, let it remind you: the ox knows its owner. The donkey knows the crib. Do you know yours? The God who spoke through Isaiah still speaks through his Word and through his Son. He has never stopped filling the trough. He has never stopped calling his people home. Today is the day to stop living like strangers and start living like the beloved children we are. Return to the Master. Know him. Love him. Trust him. The animals have been doing it for centuries. By the grace of God, may we finally learn the lesson they never forgot. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment