Sermon

Prophets of Hope: Third Isaiah

Isaiah 61:1-62:3

December 29, 2002

A sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

It’s the Sunday after Christmas and all through the cities, people are saturated with little Christmas ditties. Someone told me this is the lowest attendance Sunday of the year. I remember once in San Francisco, having only three people in church the Sunday after Christmas. Many of us are away with family or are taking advantage of the extra days off these weeks to catch up on some sleep and indulge once more before those pesky New Year’s resolutions rear their ugly heads.

But here we are. We know that Christmas does not end on Christmas day. It ought to extend beyond one day and into our lives. Howard Thurmond penned the following words a few decades back:

When the song of the angels is stilled
When the star in the sky is gone
When the kings and the princes are home
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas has begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among all,
To make music in the heart.

A fine sentiment and a good reminder of our work as Christians who do more than pay lip-service to our faith, but try to live it out. Almost all of this poem is taken from third Isaiah, today’s prophet of hope.

During the Season of Advent we have looked at Jeremiah, First Isaiah, Mary, Hannah, Second Isaiah and even Jesus. Today we conclude the series with a brief reflection on Third Isaiah.

We remember that Isaiah was written at three different points in history. The first 39 chapters were written to the idolatrous people of Judah who refused to turn from their wicked ways. Their refusal to heed God’s words through First Isaiah, brought the downfall of Jerusalem and their eventual exile. Toward the end of the exile another prophet, from the Isaiah school wrote chapters 40-55, also known as the book of comfort. Second Isaiah, or Isaiah of the exile brought comfort to the remnant people who longed for the day when they could walk in their own land once again. The last 11 chapters of Isaiah were written after the exile, when the people returned to the land which was holy to them and began to build a new life.

Many of us can relate to having been in exile. We need to look at the signs of hope that are out there on the other side of the exile. That’s what Third Isaiah offers. In this day and age when hope seems far off, we need the words of Third Isaiah to grant us courage for the living of these days.

Here’s how third Isaiah begins his prophecy: “Thus says YHWH: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come and my deliverance shall be revealed.”(Isaiah 56:1) That’s a pretty straight-forward prescription for our world.

“Maintain justice and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come and my deliverance be revealed.” What if we took those words seriously, as a people of faith, as a state, as a nation, as a world? If we did, then many of the problems we face would be eliminated. Think about it. If we all maintained justice and did what is right, might we experience a kind of salvation and deliverance?

It makes sense to me, and it made sense to Jesus, too. He took words from Third Isaiah to use in his first sermon as recorded in Luke 4. The actual reading went like this:

“The Spirit of YHWH is upon me, because YHWH has anointed me;

God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and release to the prisoners;

to proclaim the year of God’s favor,

and the day of vengeance for our God;

to comfort those who mourn in Zion—

to give them a garland instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

They shall be called oaks of justice,

the planting of YHWH, to display God’s glory.

They shall build up the ancient ruins,

they shall raise up the former devastations;

they shall repair the ruined cities.

The devastations of many nations. (Isaiah 61:1-4)

Don’t you just love it? The words of third Isaiah give us such hope for such a new beginning. In a world filled with cynicism, Isaiah’s words of hope sound almost too good to be true. Can you imagine what this means? It is God’s holy intention that the prisoners are set free. It is God’s holy intention that good news shall be brought to all those who are oppressed. Not just the good news that God loves you, but the good news that because God loves you and loves others, God’s children will create a world in which there will be no more hunger, no more homelessness, no more discrimination, no more alienation, no more joblessness, no more weapons and therefore no more bombs bursting in air and no more weapons inspectors. In short—no more business as usual.

God will comfort those who mourn and replace their mourning with gladness. The ashes that we used to wear on our heads will become a turban, a garland. And God’s people will have an attitude of praise in their hearts and in their souls, not an attitude of routine, and a subsequent faintness of spirit. When that happens, there is peace on earth, good will to all people. And why does God do all of this for us?

As it says in Isaiah 61:8:

“I, YHWH love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing…With you, I will make an everlasting covenant.” If you embrace justice, if you put an end to wrongdoing, then you will enjoy the fruits of this covenant. Surely this is the vision which we need today.

“Because I, YHWH, love justice and I hate robbery and wrongdoing.” Clearly, God punished Israel for their own robbery and wrongdoing, but that does not mean that God smiled upon their suffering. Quite the opposite. It grieves God’s heart of hearts when we engage in injustice, robbery and wrongdoing. It grieves God’s heart that we engage in wars, that we kill civilians in the name of some higher good, like the preservation of the empire or the whims of the emperor.

And yet, God is the one whom the psalmist says is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. God gives us another chance. God said in Isaiah 40, “Comfort ye, my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem that her warfare is ended and she has paid double for her sins.” I, YHWH, your God wipe your slate clean. All you have to do is do right, live up to your end of the covenant.

The people heeded the words of Third Isaiah for a while. The people rebuilt the temple and tried to make a go of it as a nation under God once again. But within a few hundred years they were again controlled by powers outside themselves and the once proud nation of Israel became a vassal state of the Roman Empire. The people tried to keep connection with God, but did so mostly by keeping the feasts and by having the form of religion. They followed all sorts of outdated restrictive rules and unfortunately ignored justice and justified their own wrongdoing and robbery. Does this sound familiar?

The people had all but lost their sense of hope once again. That is until a carpenter-turned-evangelist stood up in Nazareth and read the holy and hopeful words of Isaiah 61:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim the release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.”(Luke 4:18-19) When Jesus finished reading from the scroll, he sat down and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” You have another chance. You can start again. And for Jesus’ short life, many wonderful miracles occurred, the most important of which had to do with making religion once again relevant to people and encouraging people to once again do right by God.

Neither the empire nor the religious establishment liked the message. But the message still gives hope to those left out by the goings on in places like Washington or Baghdad, or North Korea, or Rwanda. The prophet’s words tell us that all we need to do is live up to our end of the covenant. “And lo, I will be with you always, even unto the end of time.”

We who read the prophets know the real story. The way out. And through all of the struggle we need to remember the good news that God has not left us; the good news that God has a better way out for us; the good news that God is coming once again into our lives during this Christmas season to give us another chance. God arrived on Christmas, to take on our form, to be with us in the struggles to be human and at the same time be called of the Divine.

You know, I preach these sermons, I put them out on the Internet but when I go home, I have tried to leave my prophetic self at the office. We’re on friendly terms with most of our neighbors, but we don’t talk about religion or politics much. But this series on Prophets of Hope has caused me to risk that calmness on our street by and putting my words into action in my neighborhood. This morning, I put up a “Say No To War With Iraq” sign on our lawn. I don’t know how that will affect my relationship with my neighbors, but it feels somehow right to do it anyway. It’s a way of our family living with integrity. I look forward to the new relationships I may develop with my neighbors and I hope that the two years of good will we have established will help to bridge the gaps of any disagreements.

I choose to see this Christmas as a wake-up call to remind us of the priority of God to grant hope to a people in need. To let the prisoners go free, to proclaim the year of jubilee. To say, the ways of this world are not my ways. I will not be defined by pundits on either side of the aisle, but by God. The God who hates robbery and wrongdoing and warfare and longs to make an everlasting covenant with all of us.

God, we need that message this Christmas.

The good news is that in Christmas, we can start anew. As we approach New Years, buoyed by Christmas hope, we can change our ways. We can mend a fence or two. We can proclaim good news to the oppressed. We can bind up the brokenhearted. We can proclaim release to the captives. We can proclaim recovery of sight to our own self-centered blindness. We can proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. We can proclaim that we follow a God who loves justice and who hated wrongdoing and robbery and therefore we will vow to do the same. We can do all of this because of the power of God who leads us, who supports us, who guides us and chastens us.

Let’s close by once again hearing the words of Third Isaiah and Jesus given to us with power and simplicity by Howard Thurman: