Today is the Feast Day of the Baptism of our Lord. In the Church calendar, it’s one of the five traditional days for baptisms and a day for us to renew our Baptismal Vows. However, today we don’t have a baptism, and we will wait and renew our vows next week at the Annual Meeting.
So today I’d like us to focus on the beautiful, comforting passage we read from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. Maybe not this one especially, but many passages from Isaiah are quite familiar to us because they are quoted in the New Testament. Perhaps we know Isaiah best from the passages in the King James Bible that Handel set in “The Messiah.”
Isaiah is a book written over several centuries, probably from the 8th Century Before the Common Era (BCE) until perhaps the 2nd Century BCE. Obviously, the entire book is not written by the same writer, and it is addressed to three very distinct historical situations. We call these three divisions “First,” “Second” and “Third” Isaiah.
Although there are three distinct times, historical situations, and writers, there are two major themes that knit together the centuries, authors, and situations of this entire book. One theme is that God is behind all historical events. The other is that Jerusalem, its king, and the proper worship of God are of central importance to God’s People.
Now today’s passage comes from Second Isaiah. It was written in the mid 6th Century BCE during the time in Israel’s history we call “the Babylonian Exile.” In 586 BCE, forty or so years before, the Babylonians had sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and scattered God’s Chosen People, sending many into exile in Babylon. Now to try to understand the depth of this tragedy for Israel, we’ve got to realize how central Jerusalem and the Temple were to their religion. In a sense, the City and the Temple was the place where God resided. So that’s the only place where people went to worship. There were no local synagogues yet, so the centrality and holiness of that One place for the people cannot be over estimated.
This is the period of time when the Book of Lamentations was written, and it gives voice to the deep grief the exiled people were experiencing away from their home.
This is also the time for which PS 137 is written:
“By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
When we remembered you, O Zion (Jerusalem).
“As for our harps, we hung them up
On the trees in the midst of that land….
“How shall we sing the Lord’s song
Upon an alien soil?
“If I forget you, O Jerusalem,…”
The depth of their grief is profound. And so after close to 50 years of exile, comes a word of hope and comfort from Second Isaiah.
“Thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you…
“You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you…Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; . . bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth—everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
This promise of redemption is probably made shortly before Persia conquers Babylon, and Persia’s benevolent King Cyrus, invites God’s people to return and rebuild Jerusalem. There will be an end to their being scattered and separated from each other. There will be an end to their exile. They will go home.
Can you imagine what balm the prophet’s words were to the ears of the exiles? “You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” God called them by name and will protect them!
Now, I wanted us to focus on this today because we at St. James are also in exile. We are away from our “sacred space” and many of our “holy things.” We know the pain and grief of this. But, unlike those in the Babylonian Exile, we have not been scattered and dispersed from our city or from each other. We are still together and learning this truth, “The church is not the building but the people (But people who need some kind of sacred space).” We’re also unlike those in the Babylonian Exile, because we haven’t “hung up our harps!” We seem to do a fairly great job of “singing the Lord’s song on an alien soil.” Maybe “alien” is a bit extreme for our circumstances, but we certainly can make music to the glory of God, on the “different” soil at Crissey Farm, Gideon’s Garden, and at our neighboring churches when we join with them.
We’re in the middle of the hard work of discernment. By the world’s standards, we just don’t have enough time; but in some mysterious way, I believe we are doing this discernment work in God’s Time…Kyros Time, that functions in a time and space beyond the clock. I believe in fact the time restraints we’ve been given by the insurance company are somehow part of the way God’s Spirit is working with us. In quoting a book title from C. S. Lewis, Bishop Scruton said, “Perhaps the deadline the insurance company is imposing is a ‘Severe Mercy’ for St. James.”
Yes, we’re in a tough time, and it will no doubt get harder before it gets easier. So I hope we can let the words of the ancient prophet minister to us in our exile, as they did to the Israelites in Babylon.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”
As we move more deeply in our discernment of where God is calling St. James, be assured, this God of the Prophets loves us. We are precious in God’s sight. We are honored. This great God has called us by name, and God’s Spirit will be with us every step of the way. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment