Back to the Future

Back to the Future

Reflections on Isaiah

 

RCL Advent 3B

13 December 2020

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

            More than twenty-five hundred years ago a destitute, deprived and dispirited community of exiles received an unexpected message.  Their lengthy exile in a foreign land might just be coming to an end.

            Just as their nation had been dismembered and conquered by the Babylonians, now the Babylonians themselves had been overthrown by a new imperial power further to the east, the Persians.  Unlike the Babylonians who preferred keeping many of the leading figures of Israel under close watch far away from their homeland, the Persians preferred to let local folks run their own day-to-day affairs, especially religious matters, so long as they paid their taxes and did not forget who was in overall charge.

            To these exiles God sent a prophet who carried on the work of Isaiah, the great priestly prophet who had spoken God’s word to the people of Israel in the years before the catastrophic Babylonian invasion some three generation earlier.  This successor to Isaiah gave the people the hope that a new day was dawning on the horizon.

 

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion — to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.  They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.  They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.  (Isaiah 61.1-4 New Revised Standard Version)

 

            If we move forward five hundred years or so, then we will encounter another community equally destitute, deprived and dispirited, living in a region broken up into small fiefdoms under the control of the Roman empire, but pressed on the east  by various kingdoms and empires.  They were divided further into various religions factions, some favouring the wealthy, some the middle-class, some the radical political and spiritual fringes, but none the ‘people of the land’, the poor.  To these people the evangelist Luke tells us that in a synagogue in Capernaum, a fishing village on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus read the same words spoken by the prophet centuries before.  Once again hope was kindled that a new day was coming.

            To the small Christian community in Thessalonica, the apostle Paul writes in a similar vein.  God’s Spirit is at work, he assures them.  Be confident.  Be hopeful.  Be thankful.  The present moment will pass.  Just hold fast to what is good.  The promised day of the Lord is coming.

            My friends, I dare to say that right now there are quite a few of us who are destitute, deprived and dispirited.  This pandemic has exacted a heavy cost, whether physically, emotionally, spiritually.  Jobs have been lost.  Incomes have been reduced.  The bonds of friendship and family have been strained.  Loved ones have died and loves put at risk in the service of others.  Some groups contribute to the stress and danger of the times by acting carelessly and even claiming that the pandemic is a fraud.

            Throughout this time God has continued to send prophets to speak words of comfort, encouragement and hope.  Many of these prophets fall under the heading of ‘not your usual suspects’:  physicians, scientists, healthcare leaders and workers, politicians, teachers, provincial and municipal employees, first-responders, the list goes on and on.  Through them God speaks and bids us to be kind, to be calm, to be safe, to be brave and, perhaps most importantly, to be patient.  This pandemic will pass and, God willing, we shall become ‘oaks of righteousness . . . (who) shall build up the . . . ruins, . . . shall raise up the . . . devastations; . . . repair the . . . cities’ (Isaiah 61.3c. 4)  Perhaps we shall find our communities stronger and more aware of those who are isolated and in need of support.

            And, my friends, the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, we who continue to gather on-site and on-line to proclaim the Word, to offer up our intercessions, petitions and thanksgivings, to break the bread and to pour the wine, all of this to bring good news to the oppressed, the broken-hearted, the confined, the isolated.

            We still have a way to go, but the day is dawning on the horizon.  We still have work to do, but the Spirit will guide and strengthen our hands, our hearts and our minds.  For the day we hope for is surely coming, for this is what the Spirit of the Lord is saying to us and through us to all who are truly listening.