Your God is Here!
Isaiah 40:1-11
Isaiah
is given access to the heavenly council. He
is allowed to overhear a conversation between the heavenly beings. He
doesn’t hear God speak directly, but what he does hear comes with
the authority of God. After
they have spoken one of the Heavenly beings turns to him and
commands:
“Cry
out!”
Isaiah
is told by one of those who exist in the presence of God to preach. Isaiah’s
response is one that is probably recognised and even uttered by every
preacher faced with making an announcement to God’s people, as they
must:
“What
shall I cry out?”
Very
few
people
have had the privileged access to the heavenly places that Isaiah
receives. Even
those of us who are required on a regular basis to speak about and
for God can’t know God and God’s intention to the degree that
Isaiah does. At
some point all of us, the whole people
of God, will have to speak of what we know of God, share our
experience of the divine. For
every believer there will come a point where we must say: “What
shall I cry out?” It
is a matter always of having some experience of what God is like,
what God has done, is doing or will do, and speaking of that. Whether
we are preaching, interpreting
the scriptures
from a pulpit Sunday by Sunday, or sharing something of our testimony
intimately
with trusted loved ones, the challenge is the same, what must we say
about and for God?
Fortunately
Isaiah records the answer he receives to that question, and it is
answer which might apply as the underlying foundation for all our
conversation about God:
“All
people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. .
. but the word of our God will stand forever.”
Perhaps
one thing that is most consistent of our experience is that of
constant change. What
it has been like for us to live through the modern era has been an
experience of constant and accelerating change. Nothing
stays the same. We
for the most part experience this negatively. Nothing
can be relied upon, often people least of all. There
is, as the heavenly being points out to Isaiah, something transitory,
passing about human existence. One
minute we are here, flourishing and glorious like a beautiful flower,
and the next we are gone. But,
there is more to this than just angst and our fear of loss.
There
is a Persian adage: “this too shall pass” The
legend that goes with the saying suggests that there once was a
Sultan who asked his wise men to come up with a saying which would be
true and appropriate at all times and every situation. His
wise men came up with: “And this too shall pass away.” The
Sultan had the words inscribed on a ring so that he could always look
at it, and in moments of triumph and pride be returned to humility
and reality. But
the words also apply in times of loss and sorrow, for these too will
pass. The
wise men arrived at essentially the same insight as the one given to
Isaiah by the heavenly being. The
changeableness of our existence is not entirely negative. Even
the bad things will pass away too.
Advent
is a time in which we look forward, and look forward to change,
something new that is about to happen. In
an Advent which comes at then end of year in which we have had so
much difficult, and we have been trapped in a seemingly endlessly
locked-down state of existence, it is important for us to hear, that
this too will pass. God
is about to do something new!
But
this
is because behind
the transience, the impermanence of the human condition lies the
constancy of God. Isaiah
is given more than the Sultan’s wise men discovered:
“The
word of our God will stand forever.”
The
situation in which we as human beings have
to express our faith is constantly changing. But
one thing never changes, the constancy of God. So
whilst Isaiah is given an insight into the changeableness of what it
is to be human, he is also given an insight into what it is to preach
or to share our faith. That
is to set against the changeableness of the human condition the
constancy of God. How
the news of God sounds depends on where we find ourselves in those
cycles of change. I
said last week that some years in Advent we have to hear the
sharpness of John the Baptists demand to repent and turn
back to God. In
other years we need to hear the comforting words of Isaiah, and this
is one of those years.
The
conversation which Isaiah has overheard in the heavenly court gives
precisely that message:
“Comfort,
O comfort my people says your God."
One
of the heavenly beings is telling others that God has announced that
it is time for them to comfort his people. Another
moment of change has arrived. The
situation of God’s people is about to pass into a new phase. For
decades the people of Israel have been stuck in exile in Babylon. They
were taken there after Jerusalem was conquered and Israel’s
independence came to an end. During
those decades they had grasped that this was a consequence of their
failure to remain faithful to God. They
were victims of their inconstancy, their inability to remain true and
consistently
committed
to the covenant they had with God. But
the announcement in the heavenly council makes it clear, that
time of exile has come to its end. For
all their unfaithfulness God still says of them “my people”. In
the past they may have broken with God, but God has never broken with
them. And
now their time of suffering is ending. The
consequences of their actions have fully played out. Indeed
the pendulum has already swung too far the other way. But
this too shall pass.
A
second voice in the heavenly council speaks. It
tells the others we needs to be done now:
“In
the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord make straight in the
desert a highway for our God.”
The
traditional focus of the second Sunday in Advent is John the Baptist. And
this reading from Isaiah is particularly associated with him. It
is because, in
a creative partial misquote of these words, the first Christians
recognised that John obeys this commandment made in the heavenly
council. Mark
beginning his gospel declares
that John is:
“The
voice of one crying out in the wilderness. . .” (Mark
1:3)
Everybody
knows that John’s voice spoke, out in the wilderness, beside the
river Jordan. He
seems to
fit
Isaiah’s prophecy
perfectly. And
with the addition of an ingeniously implied comma between
“wilderness” and “prepare” he does. Mark
is not wrong to do this. Since
John does clearly
prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. Which
is why of course he comes to our minds in the run up to Christmas. But
at the moment these words word spoken something else was in mind as
well.
The
usual route from Babylon back to Jerusalem was around not through the
wilderness. It
involved a journey that started out travelling north-west which
gradually turned left, bending first west and eventually south. God
has something else in mind for his people. He
will come and retrieve them by the most direct route possible. Not
just straight there, but every obstacle in the path will be levelled
out too. The
change which God promises his people is dramatic. Their
circumstances will be utterly transformed, and in the most
astonishing fashion. What
God does for his people makes everyone else sit up and pay attention. God
makes himself known in
the
transformations he brings about in the lives of those who trust him.
“The
word of our God will stand forever.”
And
this is the moment
at
which Isaiah the prophet begins the second phase of his ministry. He
gives comfort to the exiles who are about to find out that their
suffering is ending. Having
overheard the conversation in the heavenly court Isaiah goes to his
people and announces:
“Here
is your God!”
Perhaps
what is striking is that despite the uniqueness of the moment the
message which is spoken remains the same. Whatever
circumstances God’s people find themselves in, good or bad, in
faithful suffering or forgetful complacency, the same word is spoken. What
the heavenly being declare is true:
“The
word of our God will stand forever.”
Not
only is this the announcement which Isaiah makes, it is also
essentially the same announcement which John the Baptist makes:
“Repent
for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
(Matthew 3:2)
Which
in the context of John’s speaking sounds like a sharp rebuke. In
the context of complacency and unfaithfulness the idea the God is
near does sound quite threatening. But
it is also essentially the same message which Jesus himself
announces:
“The
time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.” (Mark 1:15)
Perhaps
we hear his words more as a comfort. But
there is a constant and it is God’s word about himself. God
is very near to us. Which
is especially the point as we are beginning to think about the way
God comes to us in Christmas. The
message of Christmas is “God
is with us”, too! And
the assurance that God’s presence is there
to
deliver us from the difficulties that surround us, even now, and
to take care of us and protect us.
Perhaps
if the wise men in the story about the Sultan had been a little more
wise, or if they had had the access to heaven which Isaiah had, they
would have come up with a different saying
which would be true and appropriate at all times and every situation. Something
that is sharp challenge in times of satisfaction and complacency, and
a comfort in times of sorrow and suffering. That
saying is what we hear and what we still proclaim. When
we ask hat we can and must say about God the answer is always
essentially the same:
“Your
God is here!”
Amen.
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