Isaiah 51:

2017 08.27 Isaiah 51:1-6 1 Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. 2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many. 3 For the Lord will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song. 4 Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples. 5 I will bring near my deliverance swiftly, my salvation has gone out and my arms will rule the peoples; the coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope. 6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats; but my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended. 1

Foundation of Hope Last week in a conversation with someone we got to talking about the New York City skyline. He had recently visited New York for the first time, and he was amazed at the sheer scale of the City. Both the height of the buildings and the vast number of them overwhelmed him. I remember feeling the same way the first time that I visited New York when I was in middle school. When you enter New York City by train, you cross over the Harlem River at the northeastern edge of the City. At about 100 th Street you enter a long tunnel that ends only at the final stop, Grand Central Terminal. No matter how many times I took the train, I always felt a rush of anticipation when I emerged from the train tunnel and walked through the platform into the beehive of activity that is Grand Central [SLIDE]. It s one of the most beautiful spaces in New York [SLIDE]. But it s once you leave the sanctum of Grand Central and step out on to 42nd Street that your senses really buzz with excitement [SLIDE]. People are walking busily in every direction, except the tourists who are walking far too slowly. Taxis queue along the street, waiting for passengers. Traffic is stuck in a permanent crawl as car horns blare angrily and to no avail. All the human activity taking place on the street could distract you from what s looming above far above your head. Starting at street level and rising story after story with no discernible peak are massive walls of concrete, glass, and steel. The corner of Park Avenue and Forty-second Street, where Grand Central Terminal is located, is smack in the middle of Midtown Manhattan [SLIDE]. The Midtown skyline features one skyscraper after another whose peaks, yes, scrape the sky [SLIDE]. The Chrysler Building is just a block away [SLIDE]. The Empire State Building less than ten blocks. Those are just the two most famous peaks in the mountain range that is Midtown. 2

When I lived in New York, I was fortunate to live for a few years within a stone s throw of the Empire State Building. From my window on the twelfth floor I could look up and see its peak, which was lit up every night in a different color. I later moved from Midtown to Downtown [SLIDE], which meant trading in a view of the Empire State Building for a view of the World Trade Center. Not bad at all. What makes New York fertile ground for the growth of such mammoth skyscrapers is the ground itself [SLIDE]. New York is built upon a foundation of bedrock that in most areas begins close to the surface and extends far down underground. Buildings in Manhattan can rise so high because their foundations can be dug so deep. The Manhattan bedrock provides a firm foundation from which buildings can rise high into the sky. Foundations are what concern the prophet Isaiah in today s reading not the foundation of a building, but the foundation of a people. The voice of the Lord speaks through Isaiah with a message for the people of Israel [SLIDE]: Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug (Isa. 51:1). The rock from which Israel was hewn, or dug, was of course not literal rock. The foundation of Israel is not made of brick and stone but flesh and blood. Isaiah is using the rock as a metaphor for Israel s first ancestors, Abraham and Sarah. They are the rock, the foundation upon which Israel was built [SLIDE]. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many (Isa. 51:2). 3

The identity of Israel as God s people began with the calling of one man. From that one man and his wife God promised to build a nation. God promised to make Abraham s descendants more numerous than the stars. God promised to make Abraham a blessing to all the nations of the earth. The foundation of the nation of Israel with all its kings and its prophets lay in this one couple Abraham and Sarah. But in fact, it lay even deeper than that. Israel s foundation lay in the God who called Abraham and Sarah, the God who freely chose to enter into relationship with this people who were slaves in a foreign land. And through this people who were slaves in a foreign land God chose to enter into relationship with the entire world. When we first encounter the Israelites in the Bible (in the book of Exodus), they are a people in captivity. They are slaves in Egypt. They have no land of their own. They don t work for themselves but for their taskmasters. The bricks they make are used to build houses that they will not live in. They are a people worthy of pity. In today s reading from Isaiah 51, hundreds of years have passed since the time of slavery in Egypt kings and prophets have come and gone but Israel is back where it began, a captive people living in exile in a foreign land. Their captors have changed rather than Egyptian, their current captors are Babylonian. But captivity is captivity. They once again live in a land that is not their own. Once again their labor is not by choice but is forced upon them. Once again they are not free to worship their God. The book of Isaiah is the longest of the prophetic books sixty-six chapters in all [SLIDE]. Although the book bears the name Isaiah, most scholars believe that only a portion of the book was written by the prophet that being most of chapters one through thirty-nine. Chapters one to thirty-nine are written as a warning to the 4

leaders of a nation who do not see that its doom is approaching. Time is running out. A foreign army to the east is gathering strength. In chapters forty to fifty-five, it s clear that the fate prophesied earlier has come to pass. Jerusalem has been conquered. The line of kings has been broken. The temple has been destroyed. The people now live in exile in a foreign land. Chapters forty to fifty-five are written to a community in exile. Chapters fifty-six to sixty-six fall beyond today s reading, but they reflect yet another historical context. They are written to a people who have endured exile and have returned to their homeland. But we focus today on chapter 51, where the people of Israel live as exiles in Babylon. To earlier generations this was unimaginable. Israel s very identity as a people was tied to the land of Israel. God had freed them from captivity in Egypt and brought them to their own land, the Promised Land. To no longer live in the Promised Land called into question the promise itself the promise of the land and the promise that they were and would always be God s people. The people are aware of the sins of their ancestors sins that they believe God has punished with exile. But generations have now been born in exile, and generations have died in exile. The people are feeling abandoned by God, the God who had given them not only the land, but also their identity. They now ask themselves, Who are we that God could do this to us? They had thought they were God s chosen, but it now seems that God has chosen to abandon them. I don t know if it s a stretch for you to think the same of how God has been present, or absent, in your own life. But I imagine that we ve all experienced what we perceive as God s yawning indifference. Those times when the cries of our prayers are met with God s silence. Like the Israelites in exile, we may question whether God cares. We may wonder whether God has turned his face from us forever. 5

In the face of God s silence, we all too easily hear the other voices that compete for our attention. These voices talk of fear, disillusionment, and cynicism. Sometimes the voices come from outside us from friends, family, or co-workers. The voices are critical and cynical. They seek company in complaining about the way things are, but they don t want to do anything that would demand that they change [SLIDE]. They may not even realize what they re doing. Often they re just projecting their own fears and insecurities on to us. Or the voices may come from the public square, from public figures in entertainment or politics, or from the media, or from advertisers. They want to keep us in a perpetual state of anxiety so that we will buy whatever they re selling or so that we ll stay tuned in. Sometimes the voice comes from within us. The voice whispers, If God really loved me, God wouldn t have allowed this to happen to me. This stress at work. This constant fighting at home. This persistent health problem that won t go away. When we re feeling disillusioned and fearful, we must be careful whom we listen to. In exile the Israelites were surrounded by the voices of their captors who told them that their God had failed them, or worse yet, had given up on them. The book of Lamentations, which was written around the same time as chapter 51 of Isaiah, provides a case in point. In the second of his five laments, the author cries to God on behalf of the people whose Babylonian captors torment them with mockery [SLIDE]: All your enemies open their mouths against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: We have devoured her! Ah, this is the day we longed for; at last we have seen it! (Lam. 2:16). 6

But even in the midst of exile, God is not silent. God still has a word for his people who languish in captivity. But for the people to hear that word, they must first stop paying attention to the voices that seek to distract them. They must be able to hear what God has to say. They must be ready to listen. And so God s word to the people begins with the words Listen to me [SLIDE] Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug (Isa. 51:1). Listen to me. In other words, stop listening to the voices that distract you the voices of fear, disillusionment, and cynicism. Listen to the voice of the Lord who speaks even in the midst of exile. The Lord has not forgotten you. The Lord speaks, but in order to hear what the Lord has to say you must be ready to listen. Listen and look. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, the quarry from which you were dug. Remember Abraham and Sarah and the promises that God made to them. Yes, the temple may lie in ruins, one stone not left upon another, but the foundation of Israel is not in the stone of the temple. It never was. Israel s foundation is the Lord, the rock. We heard this in the call to worship, which quoted Psalm 18 [SLIDE]: The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge (Ps. 18:2). The exile separated the people of Israel from the Promised Land, but it did not separate them from the promise of relationship with the Lord. They were still God s 7

people. Exile did not change that. God had called them into relationship, and God maintained that relationship even in exile. Israel needed to hear this. Listen to me, God says again in verse 4 [SLIDE]. Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples (Isa. 51:4). My people. My nation. Israel are God s people, and nothing is going to change that, not even exile. We too are God s people, not because of anything we ve done, but because as God has done with Israel, God has chosen to be in relationship with us. Regardless of our circumstances, God is for us. God has chosen us in and for love. If we would only listen. Listen and look. There again is that wording, now in verse 6 [SLIDE]. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats (Isa. 51:6). Don t get distracted by the line about everyone dying like gnats. I know that sounds depressing, but we need to hear it in context. This is a remarkably hopeful verse, among the most hopeful in all of scripture. God invites us to look up into the sky. Take in the full panorama of the moon and the stars that light the night. See the sun, the clouds, and the endless expanse of blue that envelops the day. It will all vanish [puff] like smoke. 8

Look below. Look at the earth. See the many mountains that cover this land from north to south, the seas that surround this peninsula, the green fields filled with rice that stretch through the center of the country. If I sound like someone who s just seen a lot of Korea, that s because I have. During my vacation last week, Sandy and I drove from Seoul all the way to Tongyeong. We saw all the natural beauty with which God has blessed Korea the mountains, the seas, the plains. Yet even these, like all the earth, will one day wear out like a garment. What s more, everyone on it will one day die. Wait! Pastor John, I thought you said this verse was hopeful? Be patient! Wait for it! Listen! [SLIDE]: [B]ut my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended (Isa. 51:6). God s salvation is forever. God s deliverance will never end. So not even exile, not even death, will separate us from the love of God, the God who has chosen to be for us. When it feels as though we live utterly exiled from God s care, God reminds us to listen and look. Listen to the God who speaks to his people in exile. Look to the God whose enduring and endless love is the foundation of our hope. God s love is the foundation of our hope, a hope that would not be stronger were it carved in concrete and set in steel. Speaking of which, I want to end by going back to the beginning the skyline of Manhattan these mountains of concrete and steel. I ve mentioned before that at the time of 9/11 I lived in the shadow of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Sandy and I lived close enough that for two weeks after the events of that day we had to vacate our apartment. We stayed with a friend in another part of town. The night of 9/11 I went back to our neighborhood. I wanted to see up close, not on a TV screen, what had become of it. It wasn t morbid curiosity that motivated me, 9

like passing a car wreck on the highway. This was my home, my neighborhood. This was personal. The National Guard had cordoned off the area, so I couldn t get to our apartment. But I was able to get as close as a few blocks away. From my vantage point I could see the twisted metal of the South Tower s frame. Smoke was rising from the pit of the tower s foundation from the fires that still raged within. The scene was devastating. Just massive death and destruction. I couldn t imagine life ever returning to that site. Then two years ago when I returned to New York for vacation, I went to the site of the new World Trade Center. There I snapped this photo [SLIDE]. I thought of the words of the poem I ll Rise by the American poet Maya Angelou. The poem was written from the perspective of an African-American slave, someone who would have understood all too well what it meant to be captive and exiled in a foreign land. But the words seemed fitting as well for this new tower that rose into the heavens not far from where the previous towers stood [SLIDE]. You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I ll rise. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that s wondrously clear I rise On the strength of our foundation in the Lord, we rise. We rise above all the fears, all the anxieties, all the pains, all the doubts that would keep us down. 10