Comfort, Comfort My
People
Isaiah 40:1-11
December
4, 2005
By
Litton
Logan
I find Christmas a very disconcerting time of the
year. In fact, the Christmas season
causes some people to be come very foolish.
One
of my favorite Christmas stories is about a big, burly man who visited the
pastor's home one Christmas Eve and asked to see the minister's wife, a woman
well known for her charitable impulses.
"Madam,"
the big man said in a broken voice, "I wish to draw your attention to the
terrible plight of a poor family in this district. The father is dead, the mother is too ill to work, and the
nine children are starving. It is
Christmas time, they have no food, no money for gifts, and they are about to be
turned out into the cold, empty streets unless someone pays their rent, which
amounts to $400."
"How
terrible!" exclaimed the preacher's wife.
"May I ask who you are?"
The
sympathetic visitor applied his handkerchief to his eyes, blew his nose, and
explained. "I'm the
landlord,” he sobbed.
Today’s
Advent scriptures would have seemed to some Jews in exile like foolishness also.
Who would believe that a conquering ruler would set people free and let
them go home?
Our scriptures today
come from that portion of the book of Isaiah that is often called Second Isaiah.
This writer is a master poet and prophet.
We know little to nothing about this author other than he stands in the
lineage of the pre-exile prophet Isaiah, whose name is given to a larger
collection of writings concerning the pre-Babylonian exile and exile of the
Jews.
As the writings of Second Isaiah open, the Babylonian Empire that had
conquered Israel and carried her leaders and influential people in to exile
through several deportations has itself fallen to a stronger Persian force lead
by an Elamite named Cyrus. Cyrus
was not your run-of-the-mill Oriental leader.
He employed mercy and diplomacy in his rule.
He eventually allowed those Jewish exiles who wanted to, to return to
their home land, rebuild their culture, and worship their God.
Cyrus becomes the “Person of the Moment” for the Jews in exile.
I hasten to add that the Jewish exiles were not a large number of people,
probably around 10,000 people total in the three deportations.
Most of the Exiles were Israel’s elite, ruling, and priestly class.
There may have been a few prominent artisans and merchants of various
ranks and skill who were also exiled. For
the most part, the Jews fared well in exile.
Many came to own land, businesses, and to hold prominent places in
society. Yet, fair well as they may, for some of the Jewish exiles
they could be truly Jewish only on their own land while worshipping in the
Temple in Jerusalem. Thus, we hear
today’s prophetic-poem address a people who had endured the exile and their
loss of a true sense of themselves as God’s people on their God given land.
History teaches us that in humanity’s darkest hours God raises up the
right person, with the right insights and strengths to lead humanity into the
ways of life and hope.
Some of the first people that come to my mind are George Washington,
Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. These people were the “Person of the Moment”.
They were the right people in the right place for the right reason with
the right stuff. This phenomenon of the right “Person of the Moment”
occurs globally, internationally, nationally, and locally. I think this phenomenon gives credence to Matthew Fox’s
statement that, “Supply and demand are one and the same thing in the Divine
Mind.” Where there is need, God
will provide.
When
one of these “Persons of the Moment” appears they bare a quality that often
causes us to describe them as God sent. These
people and their influences live on long after they have passed off the scene.
They personify the ideals around which people draw inspiration, strength,
courage, and guidance for their lives.
As I said earlier, the Jewish exiles saw Cyrus as God’s “Person of
the Moment”. It mattered little
that Cyrus was not a Jew, because something strange and wonderful had happened
in Jewish theology during the exile. No
longer was Yahweh, just the Jews’ god, a god among the other gods of other
people. Yahweh was now the one and
only true God of all existence. Yahweh
alone controlled the destiny and fate of the universe and all that was in it.
The Jews in exile understood that the gods of the Babylonians had not
defeated their god Yahweh; rather, Yahweh had used the Babylonians as
instruments to punish the Jews for the breach of their covenant with God. And, now God was using Cyrus, whom some called “an anointed
one of God,” ”a messiah,” to free God’s people and allow them
to return to their home land, to rebuild, and redefine themselves as
God’s people again.
It is to this anticipation and hope, the poet-prophet speaks. His message unlike his predecessor has no words of doom or
gloom. He sees God’s hand at work
leading the affairs of human governments toward God’s ends and Israel’s
blessing.
He tells Israel that her punishment is over.
Israel has paid the double portion required by law.
Israel is pardoned. Israel’s
sentence or tour of duty is over the Jews are going home.
The poet speaks to all who may hear—prepare the way; sweep the way
clean; remove all obstacles; level out the hills and valleys en route to home;
straighten the road that lengthens and impedes the journey of God’s people.
All you of transitory, mortal flesh stand ready to see God’s glory and
might manifest in God’s people as they march homeward.
Israel’s God is God Almighty who’s will and word will never pass a
way. Israel’s God will gather the
people; tenderly care for them now and into their future.
Tell the people that a new era is dawning; see the processional lead by
the exiles returning home with God enthroned upon their hearts and lives.
At various times through out scripture as the Jewish people compromise
their relationship with God and suffer the consequences of their actions, God
sends a “Person of the Moment”, to call the people back to God’s ways and
to lead them into the paths of righteousness.
This up-again-and-down-again, on-again-off again, and failure-and-rescue
theme punctuates the life of Israel. It
is in this hopelessness of ever achieving a lasting relationship to God through
the ways and means of human religion and legal compliance that God finally calls
forth the Person of the Eternal Moment--the
Alpha and Omega, the latest, the greatest, and the only Eternal Person of the
Moment , who brings the message that will save humankind from its futile,
foolish, and floundering efforts to have the good life and eternal relationship
with God through human understanding and religious compliance.
We stand here today recalling and celebrating the coming of that Person
of the Eternal Moment of God—Jesus of Nazareth—the Christ.
We have come to understand the poet’s words as a Christian injunction
to comfort God’s people, speak tenderly to all of God’s people and to tell
them that their long exile from a true and holy relationship with God is ended. Jesus, God’s “Person of the Eternal Moment”, the one
who makes manifest God’s love from the beginning to the end has come in truth
and love to redeem all humankind.
Jesus the Christ has come in a love that empowers us to responsible
living, covenant keeping, and even to love our enemies.
The Christ speaks words of comfort like Second Isaiah:
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Jesus is the “Person of the Eternal Moment” who brings God’s words
of unconditional love, acceptance, and salvation to those souls wandering around
in their own hopeless efforts to find true joy, peace, and meaning in life. He is the one that tells us that God desires a relationship
with us, accepts us, and there is no penalty to be paid to God for our sins,
shortcomings, and failures. Simply
repent, turn around, and embrace the ways of God in the teachings and witness of
Jesus.
People of God, “Comfort, comfort God’s people.
Speak tenderly to them about God’s love, forgiveness, and living
presence in the Christ. Tell them
they may have to pay the consequences of their actions in the courts and prisons
of humankind, but they do not have to suffer one moment’s absence of God’s
love for their sins or crimes. They
may have to suffer the consequences of unhealthy life styles, but they don’t
have to sacrifice one millisecond of God’s eternal comforting presence in
their life. Tell them, tell them,
tell then! Comfort, comfort God’s
people with the good news of the Christ.
Second Isaiah tells us in light of the coming of the Christ to comfort
God’s people with the message of salvation and the presence of God’s grace,
love, power, and majesty.
However, before we can speak to and comfort others, we must first prepare
our own hearts and lives for the coming of the Christ.
We have to sweep clean the detritus of our sins.
We have to remove the obstacles, straighten out our minds, and crawl up
out of our valleys of lower ordered living.
We’ve go to come down from our lofty mountains of pious pride and
arrogance. We have to straighten
out our lives by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.
We have to prepare our hearts and minds to see the mighty work that God
will do if we prepare the ways of our hearts for the wonderful things God will
do through God’s people.
Comfort, comfort God’s people. God’s
people, take comfort in the power and presence of the living Christ.