Isaiah's Good News

Imagine with me for a moment

You spend your childhood in slavery

always doing what someone else tells you to do

always being put down

always hungry

hungry for food

hungry for more in life

and then in a swirl of events

you and your family run away from everything you've grown up knowing

you walk through a sea

seeing sights you'd never imagine

surrounded by fearful, confused, excited people

hoping desperately for freedom.

Imagine growing up wandering with those people

living in tents in the desert

searching for water, for food, for shelter.

Being told you're now free

but still only barely managing to live.

Imagine everyday getting closer to good land

where there is plenty of water and food

wood to build shelters.

Imagine fighting with everything you have to be able to live in that good land

moving around to find the space to settle down.

Imagine finally being able to live freely

to be able to have your own house

to have a family

to spend your days in fulfilling work.

Imagine teaching your children what it means to be free

what it means to live in relationship with a God who gives you all this good land

Imagine growing old, seeing your children teaching their children about what it means to be free

to be in relationship with the land and with God.

For generations

protecting the good land

trusting in the God who gave it to you.

And then imagine being invaded.

All the good land being set ablaze.

Being pushed out of your home

where generations of your family has lived.

Imagine having to walk hundreds of miles to a different country

being told to live in a different way

missing your home

unsure about your relationship with the land or with God.

These are the people Isaiah is talking to.

The Israelites in the time of the Babylonian exile.

People who couldn't believe what had happened to them.

People whose lives had become so wrapped up in the land

that their very spirituality was tied to living in one place.

So much so that they were struggling in their relationship with God

because now they weren't living in that same land.

Isaiah was speaking to the people of Israel

who were struggling with their relationship with God.

It hits the spot sometimes in our own lives,

we all struggle with God at times.

We struggle with what other people say about God

we struggle with our own feelings with things going on in the world

we struggle to believe that our God truly cares about us.

God is so big

so unknowable

so mysterious

it is mind-boggling that God would care for us.

Isaiah tries to remind the people 

about God.

The people hadn't always lived in that land.

God hadn't always been associated with Israel

they were God's people way before that

when they still lived in Egypt

or before that when Abraham lived in Ur.

Isaiah asks the people these great rhetorical questions.

Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

Has it not been told to you from the beginning?

Isaiah knows the people know.

He knows the people have heard.

He knows they have been told over and over again.

Isaiah knew these things because he had told them.

Isaiah had participated in sharing the story in the temple

in the streets, in the market places

in the synagogues.

He knew that they knew.

The people had heard,

perhaps they had not listened.

Isaiah is attempting to answer the crisis of faith

brought on by the political disasters of the day

Which

considering that most of the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon

certainly was considered a disaster.

Can you imagine if the United States was invaded and millions of people were forced into exile

had to become refugees and live in other countries?

Isaiah is definitely in the midst of political disaster.

Political disaster always seems to trigger people

into having crises of faith.

Its not really that surprising.

If we have a good God who loves us and takes care of us,

then why in the world did this bad thing happen to us???

Isaiah speaks this message

trying to remind the people

that God is not overly concerned with national politics.

God is not simply a God of Israel,

God is not tied to one nation or political agenda,

not even the United States.

No, God is much

much

much

much

bigger than that.

God is the God of creation.

God is beyond all time.

God is so awesome and incomprehensible

our language

completely fails at trying to describe God.

This is why the ancient Israelites

never spoke the name of God,

though it is written in the Scriptures.

God's name is but a breath

beyond which we can utter.

Isaiah points out to the people,

points out to us

when we look around us and despair of our political situations

look deeper,

look closer.

Where are we?

We are surrounded by God's creation.

Working for God's purposes in the world.

Here in Franklin, we are quite literally surrounded by God's creation,

surrounded by hills on all sides,

woods, trees, animals,

the creeks and rivers.

God created all of what is around us

and cares about all of it.

Isaiah has seen the actions and deeds of the people of Israel in exile

he knows they have fallen apart

he knows they have stopped following the Jewish traditions and customs

being in exile is not easy.

He reminds the people

God still cares.

God still hears your cry

God still knows your name.

Do you think you can hide from God?

Do you think God would approve of what you are doing?

I know there are some of us who have the hardest time getting out of bed on certain days, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

I know there are some of us who don't know how they are going to continue on each day. 

Trying to make making through each day a good thing.

We have a God who knows everything

in unsearchable ways.

God cares.

As Isaiah says,

God cares

about the youth

about the young

about the powerless

about all those who are struggling

and then of course,

when God came to earth as a human being

in the person of Jesus

he continued God's mission of caring in the world.

Jesus healed people.

All the people.

As we hear in the gospel passage for this morning

Jesus healed people all over.

Women.

Children.

Men.

Blind.

Lame.

Skin hanging off

bandaged all over

laying down

screaming out loud

All the people.

Jesus cared.

How could we forget this?

Have we not known? Have we not heard?

Some days I wish I could gather all the people in the world in a big

big

big

big

room

with all the appropriate translators

and say

God loves you.

Over and over and over again.

Until maybe it sunk in.

Do we not know the overwhelming power of his love?

Isaiah asks so that the people answer the question for themselves.

Imagine Isaiah, speaking next to the water fountain in the marketplace

in Babylon

speaking to the exiled people of Israel

Don't you know how much God cares?

And the quiet murmurs...

here and there throughout the crowd

people shopping

people getting water

people shaking their heads

Yes

Yes, we know

Yes, God cares.

Amen.