Difference between revisions of "Sermon for January 1st, 2023"

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Isaiah 63:7-9

7 I will recount the gracious deeds of the LORD,
         the praiseworthy acts of the LORD,
    because of all that the LORD has done for us,
         and the great favor to the house of Israel
    that he has shown them according to his mercy,
         according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
8 For he said, “Surely they are my people,
         children who will not deal falsely”;
    and he became their savior
9       in all their distress.
    It was no messenger or angel
         but his presence that saved them;
    in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
         he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

All the Days of Old

Imagine, if you will, New Year's Day, in the year 529 BC, in the desolate and ruined city of Jerusalem. Not quite our January 1st version of New Year's Day, but perhaps the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which occurs sometime in September. If you had been in Jerusalem on New Year's day in 529 BC, you would have been one of only a handful of people. 80 years prior to then, the city of Jerusalem had been sacked and burned to the ground by the Babylonian Imperial Army. Most of its inhabitants had been killed or carried off as slaves. For 70 years, Jerusalem was empty and abandoned (though not entirely forgotten).

And then ten years before our date of New Year's day 529 BC, that all changed. The Babylonians were defeated by the Persians, and their King, Cyrus the Great, issued a decree freeing the Jews from slavery and allowing them to return to their homeland. The vast majority of them chose to remain in Babylon. But a few, a handful, returned to to Jerusalem to rebuild and re-inhabit their holy city. So on New Year's Day, 529 BC, you might think they would have had a lot to be thankful for--their freedom (both religious and political), a place to call home, and a fresh start in the city of their ancestors. A bright future with a lot to look forward to.

And yet...based on a quick reading of their story in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, if the returned exiles in Jerusalem in the year 529 BC were in the habit of making New Year's Resolutions, I think their top three would go something like this:

1. Need to make more money in the new year. Cyrus gave us our freedom and our land, but now we have to pay taxes. Fortunately the tax is only 70%.
2. Need to finish building the city walls. Turns out the neighbors were not exactly happy to see us move in. They're still big. And their spears are still sharp.
3. Need to keep re-building the temple. When grandma saw the foundation for the new temple, she compared it in her head to the old one she remembered. And then she cried. Not in a good way.

With new freedoms and new opportunities come new threats and new challenges. They go hand in hand. We can make our own plans and resolutions, but even if we are able to keep them, they only govern what we say, think, or do. We cannot control or even predict what the people around us will do, what the world will do, or what effect those things will have on us, and our plans.

If this is beginning to sound like a rather depressing New Year's Day message, both for the people of 2023 and for the people of 529 BC, then bear with me for just a moment longer. Because that's where our scripture passage comes into the story. The people of Jerusalem in the 6th century BC were beginning to lose hope in their future. And as he often does in such cases, God spoke to them, through the words of the prophet Isaiah.

The book of Isaiah, in the Bible, focuses on the relationship between God and Jerusalem. It's usually divided into three sections: The first third is written for the people of Jerusalem before its destruction, the second third is written for the people of Jerusalem during their exile in Babylon, and the final third is written for the people who return to Jerusalem afterward--for our discouraged and disheartened observers of New Year's day in 529 BC.

For those who are having a difficult time looking forward to the future, Isaiah has some counter-intuitive advice. He says, effectively, "look back, instead." Make a list of all the gracious deeds, all the praiseworthy acts of the Lord.

You see, it's very easy for us to get caught up in all of our problems. Because of their very nature as unresolved, unpredictable, future-oriented things, problems take up an enormous amount of our head space. Past things, things that have already been solved or resolved in a positive way, we just file those things away in our stack of pleasant memories and move on--usually right back to our unsolvable problems.

But Isaiah reminds us that the very act of remembering those GOOD things, counting them, naming them--all the ways in which God WAS faithful and helpful to us in the past--that's what gives us the confidence to face the future, knowing that God is consistent. If God has brought us through the challenges and threats of the past, he will bring us, somehow, through the ones we face today.

Throughout the book, sometimes Isaiah speaks on behalf of God to the people of Jerusalem, and sometimes Isaiah speaks on behalf of the people of Jerusalem to God. We can see both of those approaches in today's reading.

Do you remember, God, when you claimed this people as your children? (v.8) Do you remember, Israel, when God lifted you and carried you around? (v.9) Barbara Brown Taylor