Sermon for December 10th, 2023
Readings:
The Prophet Isaiah is preaching to some tired and hopeless people.
By the time you get to the 40th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, the cities of Judah, including Jerusalem and the surrounding area, all of that had long ago been laid to waste and destroyed. The temple, the ultimate symbol of God’s presence, that had long ago been destroyed. The Judean people, many of them at least, have been living in exile in Babylon for ages. As a matter of fact, this part of the Book of Isaiah isn’t even addressing the same people that the beginning of the book addressed. Those people are dead. This is written to their children and descendants. This is a message to people with very little hope. Their ancestors made bad choices and they are suffering for them.
You see, the first part of the Book of Isaiah, is one warning after another from the prophet to the leaders of the Kingdom of Judah. It is one warning after another about how all their schemes and plans to save themselves and save their kingdom from invasion are going to fail. Isaiah calls them out for not putting their trust in God, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Corruption is rampant. Leaders are incompetent. Everyone is just looking out for themselves. No one cares for one another. People are worshipping foreign Gods. There is no cohesion to the society and the nation has become terribly weak. Isaiah warned them. Over and over he warned them. Put your faith in God. Don’t trust in your own strength. Listen to God. But the people didn’t listen. Not to God and not to Isaiah. And all their schemes failed. Politics and foreign alliances and material wealth didn’t save the Kingdom of Judah. The temple was destroyed and the people were hauled into exile. The kingdom was no more.
But by the time we get to this point in the Book of Isaiah, that was a long time ago. People have given up hope. Our leaders failed us, we couldn’t save ourselves, and we are starting to wonder if God even exists at all, and if he does, if he even cares. To these tired, hopeless children of a failed state, this is what the prophet has to say:
All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.
That is a message of hope. It is a message of hope to people that may not know what to hope for. Isaiah tells these people where their true hope really lies. People are not constant. All people are grass the prophet says. They come and they go. Their words are not always trustworthy, but the word of God, that stands forever. The word of God will stand forever, Isaiah says, and he says it to people that may be wondering if God even exists.
God is coming Isaiah says, get ready. Be comforted in this news, but also be prepared. He is coming both as a mighty ruler and as a gentle shepherd. With the same arm he can knock down the mighty and lift up the lowly. He can be just and merciful at the same time. Your God is not dead. Your God has not forgotten. Your God is coming to you. And soon all of Jerusalem is going to proclaim, God is here! God is here and that is good news. What a message.
To people who are tired. To people who are hopeless. To people who have grown cynical with the world. To people who have been betrayed or oppressed. To people who have tried to save themselves over and over and over and just can’t get out of their own way. To people that don’t know who or what to trust. To all of these people, this is good news. Human failures come and go but the word of God lasts forever. That is good news. God has not cast off his children or forgotten them. He’s just waiting for them to get tired of trying to do everything for themselves and to turn to him for help. God is making a way for his children to return to him. That is good news. That is also repentance. The ability to go back.
It’s good news. You know we often think of repentance like it is a bad thing. I mean, it’s good when other people do it, it’s just bad when we have to do it. Repentance sounds like bad news, like giving up something you love, or getting caught doing something colossally stupid. But how many of us have wanted to go back and do something differently when we have seen the consequences of a bad choice or a wrong action? Sadly, in life, time only flows in one direction. We don’t usually get the chance to go back and start over. We don’t get to be born again and start life anew, or at least we might think that we can’t. But the scriptures sometimes tell us a different story. We may not think that the future holds much hope, but the scriptures frequently remind us that God has bigger plans. God hasn’t given up on us and there is a way for us to return to him when all our hopes in humanity and our own strength have proven to be misplaced. That is good news. But Isaiah’s message to people living in exile was just a foretaste of the good news that was really coming. There was more.
When Mark wants to tell his story about the good news of Jesus Christ, the messiah, the son of God, he goes back to Isaiah and he makes a direct link between Isaiah’s good news to the people living in exile, and to John the Baptist’s message to the people at the Jordan river. John’s message is a message of good news. Repentance is good news. Repentance is good news, because it means we can always turn back to God. We can be born again; we can start over. Our story isn’t over yet. God isn’t dead and God isn’t done with us. That is good news. It was good news to the people living in exile; it was good news to people looking for hope down by the Jordan river; and it is good news for us today.
The story we tell here, isn’t just about something that God did once. It is about something that God does over and over again. God saves us. When humans prove to be as constant as grass, God is dependable and unchanging. God is not dead and God is not done with his children. That is the message of Advent, that is the message of Christmas…it is the message of Easter as well. Throughout the year and throughout the ages, that is the good news that the church has been entrusted, like Isaiah, to share. When the world seems to be at its darkest and all seems lost; when we are confronted with our own failures and limitations; when we are tired and hopeless, we are reminded that God has not forgotten or abandoned us. God is always about to break into our world and into our lives and he has made a way for us to enter back into his loving arms. It is called repentance, and it is good news.
Inwardly Digest 