Prophets in the bible
serve many purposes. They can, like last week with Amos, be called by God to
call people back to God and God’s ways. Other times, the words of the prophets
needed when things are bleak. That is certainly the case with Isaiah. Things are
looking pretty bad for the people of Israel both because intern problems with
injustice and external problems because they are under siege. The Assyrian
armies are attacking the land. The northern kingdom is taken. Judah is on the
verge of being taken. Isaiah says this, “the yoke of their burden, and the bar
across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor …. For all the boots of the
tramping wars and all the garments rolled in blood.” (Isaiah 9:4 – 5) You can almost
hear the drumbeat of war and the hardship
With
war comes all sorts of other problems. The land is dry and water is scarce –
having a water supply that can be safely guarded is a matter of life and death.
Then there is the matter of defending the land which means injuries and deaths.
Shortage of food and social unrest are part of the challenges faced by the
people Isaiah was speaking.
It
is easy to dismiss the problem saying that was then and this is now. In many
ways it made me think of the devastation that is happening in the Philippines.
Aid is simple not arriving fast enough and people are starving. Part of the
problem is logistics – roads were and still are in some places impassable.
Which means that help can’t get to where it is needed. This is like a bar across
the shoulders. There are other places in the world that are living with such
hardship – people in our community who do not have enough food or proper
shelter, people who in countries around the world who live in garbage dumps,
people who live in constant fear because of war or corrupt or oppressive
governments. The yoke of their burden and the bar across their shoulder was not
just in Isaiah’s time.
We
do not only struggle with social injustices but there are things that challenge
us in our personal lives. Cancer, relationship struggles, caring for aging
parents, the challenges of being parents. Sometimes these and other things can
be like that yoke of burden and the bar across their shoulders that Isaiah
spoke of.
It may
seem to people both today and in the time of Isaiah that there is no reason to
hope. Sometimes prophets speak a word of challenge and sometimes they speak a
word of comfort and hope. In the midst of a difficult present Isaiah says, “The
people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; … you have multiplied
the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at
the harvest, … for the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders
you have broken as on the day of Midian)” (Isiah 9: 3 - 4)
Isaiah
is reminding people that even in the midst of trouble God can and does do
amazing things. The day of Midian is likely a reference to an event it in the
book of Judges with Gideon. The people of God were trying to escape from the
rule of the Midianites. God heard their cry and Gideon was commissioned to
deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. So Gideon assembled an army but the
army was too big. The Lord tell Gideon with such a large army they would surely
win and then the people would get the credit and not God. So Gideon sent home
anyone who was afraid. Still there were ten thousand and still too many. So God
tells Gideon to take the army down to the water and divide the troops between
those who lap water like dogs and those who put their hands in the water and
drink from their hands.
There were 300 hundred
who lapped the water like dogs and they became the army. Not because they were
the brightest or the best but because they would remind people of God’s power
to act. So Gideon and the three hundred lead them into battle. The Israelites
were free and God led the way. The promise of Isaiah is that God can and does
do amazing and unexpected things. The God who freed them from oppression once
can do it again.
Listen
to Isaiah’s words: “For a child has been born for us; authority rests upon his
shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually and there shall be
endless peace for the Throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and
uphold it with righteousness form this time on and forever more. The zeal of
the Lord of hosts will do this.” (Isiah 96 – 7)
Now
that is a promise! Most of the time we hear this passage at Christmas or Easter
because for Christians that promise of the child born for us becomes real in
the person of Jesus. For the people hearing in the time of Isaiah it was a
promise of a future made in God’s image. It is a promise of peace, justice and
righteousness.
Isaiah
speaks a word of hope in the midst of a difficult present. It would be easy to
dismiss Isaiah’s words saying things like, “Oh, he’s looking at the world
through rose coloured glasses.” Or we
can dismiss the promise by saying, “He’s pretending like everything is going to
be okay when it is not.” We he know too much of living in the world today to
believe that everything is going to be hunky dory because we have faith because
we’ve heard the promise from God. Life can be hard and challenging with faith
and without it.
Here
is what God does. God offers us a vision, a dream, a hope for a new kind of
future. One where all God’s children have abundant life. Hope is the light shining in the darkness. Years
ago I found this illustration of hope. A reminder that hope is a way of seeing
the world “Two
oncologists, cancer doctors, were overheard conversing about treatments in a
hospital cafeteria. One complained bitterly, "You know, Bob, I just don’t
understand it. We used the same drugs, the same dosage, the same schedule and
the same entry criteria. Yet I got a 22% positive response rate and you got a
74% one. That’s unheard of for cancer that has spread from the original site to
other organs. How do you do it?" His colleague replied, "We’re
both using the drugs Etoposide, Platinum, Oncovin and Hydroxyurea. You call
yours E-P-O-H. I tell my patients I’m giving them H-O-P-E. HOPE. As dismal as
the statistics are, I emphasize that we do have a chance."
All of us long
for a chance – something to hope for. When life is hard sometimes hope that
tomorrow will be better and that is enough to get us through today. Sometimes,
hope is found in unexpected places. Hope is the first time you can laugh over a
memory without crying. Hope is the person who hold us up in when the world is
turned upside down and we do not know where to turn. Hope is the person who
gives their lives to make the world better for others. The motto for Stella’s
Circle is “Hope lives Here.” And it is true because though their work people
get second, third, fourth, or all the chances they need to make a new life.
Hope is something that gets us through the hard times.
Karl Rahner
reminds his readers of this: "And now God says to us what he has already
said to the world as a whole in his grace filled birth: "I am there. I am
with you. I am your life. I am the gloom of your daily routine. … I am the
blind alleys of your paths, for when you no longer know how to go any farther,
then you have reached me. This reality — incomprehensible wonder of my almighty
love… I am there. I no longer go away from this world, even if you do not see
me there... I am there." (O Holy Night ed. A. Jean Lesher page. 135)
God calls each
of us to be hope bearers to our friends, to our neighbours, to strangers and as
we do this the promise of God’s future foretold by Isaiah so long ago becomes a
reality. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who
lived in a land of deep darkness—on them a light has shinned.” (Isaiah 9:2)Thanks be to God. Amen.
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