Grace to you and peace…
Friends in Christ, sometimes my 14-almost-15-year-old M and I get into it. Sometimes M acts up, does something wrong, and I get angry. And I give a consequence, a punishment. And sometimes that consequence is twice as bad as M’s acting up. I love my son, but I get mad. I lose my temper as I dole out punishment. And sometimes, the punishment can go beyond the crime. And sometimes, it’s H, after the dust from the dust-up has settled, who comes along side us both individually, privately, and helps us work out a consequence that fits and brings us back together...
I’m going to preach on the First Lesson from Isaiah today.
We have to spend some time with Isaiah during Advent. H is very Isaiah-like in my little real-life illustration...entering the scene, post-dust-up to bring us back together.
—
I know I’ve talked a bit about not sentimentalizing (or sanitizing) the nativity — porcelain figures, frozen in perfection on our Christmas shelves and mantles (I read about that in our Advent devotion “Low” on Wednesday evening...) Maybe a similar thing can happen here with Isaiah’s famous text, because of Handel’s Messiah. (How many got that in your head, when it was read? ...which I love as much as anyone, btw!) But let’s not miss Isaiah’s grit and context, for the glorious, holiday, royal chorus. There’s even more to it!...
Isaiah is a prophet of hope in a time of complete chaos and uncertainty, in a time of debilitating trauma, unspeakable loss, total despair...and in an era where God is imagined to have stepped away entirely. The people have lost their faith: if they know God at all, they have only known and experienced God as an angry judge...doling out punishment. (Dangerous intro illustration — the only thing I’ve got in common with God, in that case is doling out big consequences.)
You see, Isaiah was written at a time when the exile and captivity was well underway. Jerusalem has been destroyed. The entire nation was in the hands of a foreign power, Babylonians then Persians. Why? According to the 1st & 2nd Kings (which, btw, we’re studying right now in our Tuesday Bible Study 7p), because the kings of Israel and Judah and all the people of the monarchy have turned away from worshiping God alone. They’ve adorned the temple with extravagance — called it “God’s house” (in effect, it’s an attempt to domesticate God) — but spent twice as much on their own palaces and homes! In other words, they’ve built many other temples, and priorities had gotten grossly out of wack. It’s the successful broker who gives $30,000 at his local place of worship each year (and gets all kinds of accolades for his generosity), but meanwhile is raking in millions in the spiking economic climate, has several homes, vehicles, riches galore. That’s where the monarchy was had gotten.
The kings and their people have again gone after other gods — stockpiles of money, military conquest, material desires...with massive corruption, political division, violence, slavery, adultery, fraud, etc. Idol worship. The people had curved inward, as Luther would say, only gazing at, only looking out for themselves...
Remember the OT loop? God blesses. People mess up. God gets angry... God’s people done messed up.
And so YHWH has crashed down total calamity — “a double portion,” Isaiah says — on the people. Not only consequences raining down on them as individuals, but on them as an entire nation! The Babylonian captivity is a worse punishment for their actions than they ever could have imagined.
They once had everything, now they have nothing…but to make it even worse, now they’re in exile! It’s as if God’s punishment is twice as intense as the crime. God acknowledges that. And they are feeling so abandoned by God.
Enter Isaiah. [I love when the prophets get called: “Uhh...what? You want me to say something in the middle of this cosmic dust-up?]
Can you imagine Isaiah’s fear and trepidation in all this? “I’m supposed to step in and speak for this God? And to a people that are this lost, this out of touch?!”
I mean — let me talk to you, church! — you and I (church people [because you’re here]) we can be on the rocks with God, but still part of the church family, still connected, still praying and singing, and involved...working through our stuff.
But how many of us have ever been in a time in our lives...or know countless people who are in fact currently...so far out of touch with the church, with God, with the community of the faithful — in a certain Babylonian exile. Not angry at God: Completely unaware! Indifferent, out of touch with the idea of a divine savior...not just an brokenness in the church family, a total separation from God. So far away. A “double portion” far away!
That’s tapping into the kind of people Isaiah was called to preach to. (We made a movie in Confirmation about the OT prophets, and S had the description about Isaiah: “Isaiah was someone who was totally normal and boring and broken, but open to God’s call. He was totally imperfect, but willing to go.”)
And when Isaiah starts this passage today by proclaiming “comfort” — TWICE — Comfort, O comfort my people.” That is powerful response to this double distance away from God. It is an undoing of the double divide between God and God’s people. Isaiah’s song is reconciling. It’s healing...after the dust-up. It’s more than that it’s bringing back to life what was dead. This is Gospel business. This is Jesus stuff!
Isaiah is crying out, “Look! People! Your God is here! I know you feel far away, or maybe God’s not even in your consciousness! But God is here. And even more than that, your God is good! Your God makes the crooked places accessible for everyone. Your God lifts up the downtrodden, welcomes the estranged, forgives the sinner, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, clothes those who are not covered by any blankets of security. HERE IS YOUR GOD! Even as the seasons change, even as the cold winter blows in and takes so much away, God doesn’t blow away. God’s word stands forever!
“Sometimes we have to climb up to a new place to remember this God. Yes, we have stop our daily hurriedness and frenzy to notice, to see. But this God is all around you. This God is with you always. This God is deeply imbedded in the stuff of our world, in every breath! And this God loves you. This God picks you up and carries you…”
That’s Isaiah. That’s our Advent prophet today. John the Baptist goes on to proclaim Isaiah’s song many years later, practically word for word, because it happened again — the people messed up. The distance, the separation grew. The people lost God, going after other things. Yep. We too.
And this God is here for us as well. Even now. 2020, cover of Time: “worst year ever”. Feel like you’ve gotten a double portion of anguish lately? A double dose of sorrow, fear, loss? Isaiah, John the Baptist, Peter, friends, reconnect us to, point us to — not just the God of the Old Testament — but to God’s son Jesus, who is the true bridge across the chasm of our sin and all our mess ups. They point their bony, old fingers toward the dimly lit stable, where in a manger is shining the hope of the world. The forgiveness of all our mess ups, hiccups, dust ups. They point us to Christ — whose arrival we prepare for and celebrate again, whose drawing near is now. Rest in the assurance of that presence and love.
Here is your God. Here is love. Here is peace at last. This day and always. AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment