Sermon for January 1st, 2023

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.

That's what you'd think. But they also had a lot of challenges. Cyrus the Great gave the Jews their freedom and allowed them to return to Jerusalem, but that's because free people with land...can be taxed. The heavy burden of taxation made it hard to rebuild. We read in the book of Ezra that the returned exiles were in constant dread of the people of the surrounding lands--people who were openly hostile to the Jews. Finally, their own hopes and aspirations often fell short. When they rebuilt the foundations for the new temple, Ezra tells us that the older people who remembered the original (and much larger) temple "wept with a loud voice" upon seeing how "modest and humble" (to put it nicely) the new temple would be.

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