Isaiah 42:2-3: When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

As Pastor Sumpter has emphasized, life is deadly serious. At the end, we will all stand before God’s throne of judgment to give account for “every careless word” we have spoken. Books will be opened and we will all be judged according to the deeds that are written there. People we know will end up in eternal torment, in the hell of unquenchable fire. What we do now makes an eternal difference.

We know we have sinned, and we deserve to be thrown into the lake of fire along with death and Hades and the beast. Knowing that, how can we live with any kind of confidence? How can we know this without cowering before God and life? Isaiah tells us.

In the verses I read, Isaiah alludes to the exodus and conquest. Pharaoh was about to crush Israel, but the Lord led them through the waters. Yahweh was Immanuel, God with them, in the fiery furnace of exile in Egypt and Babylon.

Jesus, Yahweh Incarnate, fulfills this and every promise. He passes through the raging waters for us, endures the fire of death and wrath on the cross. And He promises to be with us until the end of the age. We can face life with hope and confident faith because whatever threat comes our way, Jesus has already been there, and He will be there again. He has been through water, and will be with us as we go. Because He endured the fire, He will finally rescue us from the fires of hell.

This is the promise made to Penelope today. She passes through this water, and comes out the other side marked as a child of God, Jesus’ little sister. Whatever floods threaten her later, she can know that she has already passed through the waters with Jesus, and that He remains with her. Whatever fiery trial she faces, she can trust Jesus claimed her in baptism and has gone before, and that He remains forever Immanuel.

Teach her to cling to Jesus who sealed her in baptism, who loves her with a fire that many waters cannot quench, whose love is stronger than hell, whose fiery jealousy is fiercer than Sheol.