Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. Amen
How can we sing
the Lord’s song, while we are captive in a foreign land?
How can we leap
for joy, while our legs are still in shackles?
And what good
news is there that could lighten the load of our suffering and oppression.
Two weeks ago
Isaiah sang a song of peace.
Last week it was
of righteousness that Isaiah wrote, of reconciling all creation.
And today Isaiah’s
vision is of rejoicing and healing.
Isaiah goes back
and forth.
Much of his
message is one of judgment and stern warning about the disaster that was
looming on the horizon.
The earliest
writings of Isaiah come from about the year 600 BC, just prior to the
destruction of the Kingdom of Judah and the deportation of the people into
exile in Babylon.
But remarkably,
even while the impending disaster is still on the horizon, he sings these songs
of hope and rejoicing.
5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6 then the lame shall leap like a deer, and
the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
. .
10And the ransomed of the LORD shall return,
and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
It’s a mixed
message that Isaiah brings.
Imagine, for
example, that Isaiah is speaking to a group of young recruits prior to being
sent off to war.
As these soldiers
hear the words, “Then the eyes of the
blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall
leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” there are
two messages:
1.
They will be blinded, lose their hearing, be
wounded and lame, and be left speechless for the ordeal; and
2.
There will be an end to their suffering, and at
that time, in spite of being blind, deaf, lame, and speechless they shall
rejoice.
Or to put it
differently, it’s like promising a young soldier heading off to Iraq or
Afghanistan that they need not worry because the Veteran’s Administration runs
hospitals all across the country they can be fitted with prosthesis when they
get home.
In the years that
followed, Judah was conquered and its people taken into captivity in Babylon
for a generation.
Then Persia conquered
Babylon, and allowed the people to return to Israel to rebuild the nation.
In Ezra we hear
the story of the return from Exile and the mixed emotions surrounding that:
And all the people responded with a great
shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the
Lord was laid. 12 But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families,
old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud
voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, 13 so that
the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound
of the people's weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard
far away.
Ezra 3:11b-13
They could not
distinguish between the laughter and the weeping.
Again, it’s this
mixed message that runs throughout Isaiah.
It’s like hearing
that we will be healed, prior to knowing that we were even sick.
Our response is “Wait,
what?”
To celebrate the
coming of a Savior, is also to admit the reality that we need saving.
We live in
interesting, troubling times. Much like
Judah during the time of Isaiah. Or at
least it seems like it.
On the one hand,
we are enjoying a long period of economic growth and prosperity. This began following the “Great Recession” of
2008 and continues to this day.
And yet even in
the midst of our prosperity there are those who are sounding warnings, who
speak like Amos did when he said “Alas, for those who are at ease in Zion. . .”
Some of those
warnings come regarding the environment.
Greta Thunberg,
the sixteen year old environmentalist activist, was named Time Magazine’s “person
of the year”.
The message that
we hear from climatologists around the globe is that if we don’t act now, and
decisively, there will be hell to pay in the future.
In the political
arena, we hear voices of warning coming from all sides.
Trump’s campaign
slogan “Make America Great Again” resonated with those people who were deeply
concerned that our country had gone astray and was not so great anymore.
On the other side
of the aisle, the Democratic candidates are working diligently at casting a
vision for our country, their own version of what it would be to “make America
greater than it’s ever been.”
The common thread
weaved through the messages of both the right and the left, is that “all is not
well”. That in spite of the prosperity,
all is not well.
Economically
there is a disconnect. On the one hand,
the stock market is at an all time high.
On the other hand, wages of many Americans, especially in the lower
economic brackets, are stagnant or even declining.
Others would warn
us about the sustainability of our healthcare system. We have an incredible health care system, but
the cost is an ever increasing issue.
Others would warn
us about the overreach of government into our lives.
Still others would
warn us about our country losing its status as the leader of the free world.
And all these
warnings, warnings from every end of the social/political spectrum, come at a
time of prosperity.
For all the
warnings, life is good. Or to put it in
a Norwegian sort of way, it could be a whole lot worse.
But going back to
the promises of Isaiah, that eventually there will be a time of great
rejoicing, and the words of Jesus answering John the Baptist’s question, there
is reason to hope and rejoice, but that will come to us after a period of great
suffering.
During Advent,
the whole point is that we look forward in anticipation of the birth of our
Savior, and his coming again – but it is always with an acknowledgment that we
NEED a savior.
On a personal
level, we believe that the Savior has come and is coming to forgive our sins.
Good news. Our sins are forgiven. Rejoice.
Dance. Leap for joy.
But to get to
that point of rejoicing, we must first deal with the reality of our sin and
repent.
There is no point
in celebrating the birth of a savior if we do not acknowledge our need of a
savior.
That’s the two
edge sword of the Gospel.
Likewise, when
Jesus comes to us proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is at hand, we rejoice,
but, only in as much as we also confess that the Kingdom in which we live is
NOT the Kingdom of God.
In the Lord’s
prayer we pray: “Your kingdom come, your
will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Every time we
pray that prayer we implicitly admit, confess, that the Kingdom has not yet
come and God’s will is not being done.
And so we wait
for a savior.
We long for
Jesus.
And we wonder when,
and how this world will be redeemed as has been promised.
The message of
the Gospel is that it will be redeemed, and it will get better, much better,
but that there will be times of suffering and great ordeals before that
happens.
What we hope for
is that we will be sustained by the love of God through those difficult times
and be able to wake one day to the redemption that is coming.
And so we light
the candle of hope.
And we look
forward to the day of rejoicing.
And we trust
Jesus.
Amen
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