“Arise, Shine”
December 29, 2013
Isaiah 60:1-3, 19-22
It’s hard
to begin a new year without some sense of anticipation or curiosity about what
it will bring. If last year was tough
you hope this year will be better. If
everything went pretty well you may knock on wood and pray some great wave
won’t roll in without warning and crash onto your shores. Whatever this year holds one thing is sure,
it will be better to face it with God than without.
In our
scripture the prophet calls to his people, “Arise, shine; for your light has
come, for the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”[1] Can there be a better verse to help us get up
and face this New Year? Can there be a
more hopeful wake-up call? Before we look to what comes next, let us prepare to
receive God’s Word. Let us pray:
Lord, you
have called us to arise and shine and promised that your glory will rise. When we are discouraged by the words we read
in the morning paper, return us to your Word and the Word made flesh in Jesus
Christ. Lift up our eyes and open our
ears so that we might receive all you have to give. Amen.
Another
year has come and gone and the people of Israel are not optimistic that the
next will be any better. They are
captives in Babylon after all and far from home. They are confined by
circumstances beyond their control and they can’t seem to get out and get away.
Maybe you’ve had the same feeling because what they called Babylon, we call
Iraq. It is the same place.
Isaiah’s
congregation looked back with nostalgia across the desert to their distant
homes and they wonder, “How did we ever end up here? Will we ever get back?”
Isaiah
answered the first question in the previous chapter. “Your iniquities have been barriers between
you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you.”[2] They are where they are because they turned
from God. Actions have consequences.
Causes have effects. What you give will determine what you get.
Relationships are made or broken by words and attitudes. They are tender plants that grow or die by
nurture or neglect.
Go back through your old address
book and you will find names and numbers of people who were once close to you,
but are now far distant. Maybe it was
you or maybe it was he or she; but somebody moved, something changed. You don’t keep in contact anymore.
Our
relationship with God is the same – somebody changed so contact was lost.
Somebody moved away – and I can tell you from experience – it wasn’t God. The
Lord does not abandon people so quickly as people cast off God.
If you feel
distant from God it was not God who moved.
In chapters 58 and 59 the prophet spelled out in no uncertain terms what
the people of Israel did and did not do which led to neglect in their
relationship with God. Latter
theologians call these sins of commission and sins of omission.
For
example, he points to the spiritual discipline of fasting, which is usually a
good thing – especially after the Christmas holiday. But anything good can go bad when motive is
divorced from practice. People were
going through the motions and performing their religious duties, but their
hearts were far from God. Isaiah
observed, “Behold, you fast only to quarrel and fight.”[3]
Their hunger made them irritable so nothing good came from it, but they did it
anyway because they thought that would earn points from God.
The prophet
reflected the will of God when he said, “Is not this the fast that I choose; to
loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, and to let the
oppressed go free?”[4] In other
words they were doing some things they shouldn’t and not doing some things they
should. “Their iniquity became a barrier
between them and God.” They lost
contact. The relationship was
broken. That’s all they ended up so far
from home.
So, they are
stuck in Babylon and they’re feeling pretty bad about it, but they don’t know
what to do. Isaiah is talking to a
depressed people of God, to a people who wonder how they ended up where they
ended up - so that means he’s talking to us today. What does he say? “Arise, shine, for your light has come and
the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Even though darkness has covered the earth, and thick darkness the
peoples; the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.”[5]
Isn’t that
the Christmas message after all? Isn’t
that what this story is all about? Those
whom we call wise thought so. The Magi
came from different nations and traveled great distances to see the newborn
king and give him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh because they
believed in this child the glory of the Lord was revealed.[6]
Isaiah may
have seen this as well when he said, “Nations shall come to your light, and
kings to the brightness of your dawn.”[7] The next fifteen verses describe a worldwide
march to Jerusalem. He said, “Nations shall bring their wealth and their kings
will lead the procession.”[8]
They won’t bring just any old offering. They will bring the best they have to
offer. Pennsylvania pine will not do for the construction of this new temple;
it must be the cedars of Lebanon because that is their glory.[9]
People will bring their glory, the best of themselves to God.
God
responds in kind. He will offer
homecoming gifts to a people who have lived too long in darkness, and these
aren’t just any gifts either. He
upgrades them at every turn, “Instead of bronze I will bring gold, instead of
iron, I will bring silver. I will
appoint Peace as your overseer and Righteousness as your taskmaster.”[10]
Therein
lays the rub. Peace and justice seem no
closer now, than they did at the time Isaiah spoke. This is especially true in the region he was
describing. Iraq and Israel continue to
be flashpoints and it’s hard to see even the hint of a possibility for peace.
Presbyterians
in particular focus on this goal of peace.
We have a peacemaking office in Louisville. Every time General Assembly
meets they try to hash out solutions that make for peace. Half of these folks came from the pews and
half from the pulpits and when they look at look at Israel some say we should
not support Israel unless and until they treat the Palestinian people with
justice and compassion and tear down the wall. They recommended the
denomination sell all stock that it holds in any company that enables Israel to
build its wall of separation.
These folks were just trying to
figure out what makes for peace and righteousness in this troubled part of the
world and that’s a noble cause; but many believe they came up short and didn’t
really understand the situation and lacked the experience and knowledge to
figure out such complex matters. Some expressed their displeasure in no
uncertain terms, including those from the Jewish community who saw this as
being anti-Semitic.
I was also troubled by these
statements. Although I believe Israel is guilty of oppressive actions against
the Palestinian people, I recognize it is not a one-way street and security
will always be the primary concern of a people threatened by suicide bombers
who walk onto public buses and into sidewalk cafes. There are no simple
solutions that will bring peace to this part of the world.
So, some say it’s best to just avoid such
subjects and not talk about them at all. But if we do that, if we stick our
heads in the sand, how can we “loose the bonds of injustice and undo the thongs
of the yoke, and let the oppressed go free”? If we don’t make the effort to try
and understand the things that make for peace and righteousness how can we even
begin to reach for them?
Some think that’s how it will
always be because that’s all they’ve all they’ve always seen. It’s hard to
argue with that because the headlines would seem to confirm the inevitability
of that cycle. But, people of faith
don’t just read the newspapers. There
are other words we turn to.
In the last book of Bible, the
Apostle John has a vision of a New Jerusalem where “the glory of the Lord is
its light.”[11] What is the glory of the Lord? What is God known for?
One
pastor, Douglas Nelson, once told of attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah
in Edinburgh. It was December and darkness covered the earth as it does
there at that time of year. But the musicians kindled the light of God’s
grace that shines from just about every page of Handel’s score.
Particularly moving was the bass soloist, whose singing that night seemed to
come up from a well of love and sorrow that was desperately deep. In the
newspaper the next day there was a story about him. It said that a few
hours before the performance of the previous night, the bass soloist had gotten
news that his son in England had been killed in a crash. And yet the
singer had decided to go ahead with his part in the music.
So
the bereaved father walked out onto the stage, and some of you know the
recitative he needed to sing. These are the words:
“For
behold, darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the peoples, but the
Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.”
My
son is dead, but the Lord shall arise. My heart is broken, but the Lord
shall arise. Everybody in the Middle East has somebody to hate, but the
Lord shall arise. Half the children in an African village have AIDS, but
the Lord shall arise. The Church of Jesus Christ is in Babylonian
captivity, depressed by her sexual abuse scandals, depressed by her schisms,
depressed by the terrible irony that her people glare at each other over the
question of how to worship God.
Isaiah
is talking to depressed people of God, and that means he’s talking to us
today. He says that dawn is coming. God is going to rise like the sun, and
God’s glory is going to shine on us.
And
what is this glory? What is it that God is known for? What’s God’s
specialty? Brothers and sisters, God is always out to save. God is an
Exodus God, a wilderness God, a God of manger and cross and resurrection and
Pentecost. God’s saving goodness is like Lebanese lumber. It’s
God’s specialty and God glories in it.
One preacher put it this way, “God
always looks to save. God is an Exodus
God, a wilderness God, a God of manger and cross and resurrection and Pentecost. God’s saving goodness is like Lebanese
lumber. It’s God’s specialty and God
glories in it. So Israel’s sin becomes a means of grace because God is faithful
to her, and saves. Israel’s “No” becomes
God’s “Yes”.
God’s glory is hope. It is hope for people stuck in a war torn
land far from home. It is hope for those
who are afraid to get on a bus or have a cup of coffee in a sidewalk café. It is hope for those who are trapped by walls
that keep them from their fields and families.
It is hope even for those who have seen lives and families and homes
carried away by the sea.
In this vision of the New
Jerusalem, notice the city of God comes down from heaven so that God may dwell
with us here. We don’t go to heaven;
heaven comes to us. After centuries of
tribal feuds and racial arrogance, after centuries of militant nationalism,
after we have done about everything we can think of to hurt one another – after
all that, God will descend to us, and dwell with us. That is the Bethlehem
story.
We get a taste of that in the bread
and the cup. In this sacred moment we
believe Jesus stands with us in a way that is mysterious and powerful. Through it faith is nurtured and a doorway is
created that breaks down the barriers that separate us from God. This is the “new covenant in the blood of
Jesus.”[12] When we do this in remembrance of him, we are
to remember that “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ and
through him reconcile to himself all things by making peace through his blood,
shed on the cross.”[13] We believe through Christ, “love and
faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace shall kiss.”[14]
So, we begin this New Year with
prayers for a better year where righteousness and peace shall kiss. Whatever
this year holds one thing is sure, it will be better to face it with God than
without.
Let us pray:
God of
glory: for some of us last year was tough we just hope that this year will be
better. For others it was really pretty
good and we knock on wood and we hope this year some tidal wave won’t come
without warning and crash onto our shores.
Whatever our future holds, we pray you continue to hold it in the palm
of your hand. Amen.
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