PROPERS: ADVENT
2, YEAR B
TEXT: ISAIAH 40:1-11; MARK 1:1-8
PREACHED AT ST.
PAUL’S, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2017.
ONE SENTENCE: As the Prophet Isaiah notes, God brings comfort to his
people – then and now.
The events of September 11, 2001,
were traumatic for all of us, wherever we were.
Nora and I were in Seattle,
Washington, while I attended a training conference. Since we were on Pacific time, I awoke late to
see the southern tip of Manhattan covered by a cloud of smoke, from the two
collapsed World Trade Center buildings.
I
also saw images of fire roaring on the side of the Pentagon. There were rumors
of a fourth commandeered plane, too, which soon was found to be true.
It was a bad day – a terrible
day. It will be remembered like December
7, 1941 – “a date which will live in
infamy.”
But, imagine if it had been much
worse.
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Imagine if Washington had been
invaded by a foreign army. Imagine if
the Capitol, the White House, the Supreme Court, and the various monuments had
been laid waste.
And go a step farther – imagine the
President had been tortured, his sons killed in front of him, and the residents
of the city were captured and taken into forced exile in a foreign country.
How would we remember that day? How bitter would we be? What would be our understanding of God and
his hand in the world?
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That is the world of our first
lesson today: Isaiah, Chapter 40.
The Book of the Prophet Isaiah is
one of the longest books in the Bible:
66 chapters.
Biblical scholars believe that the
first 39 chapters were composed by the prophet himself – Isaiah ben Amoz.
The prophet spoke in his day – and
in those first 39 chapters – about the arrogance of the wealthy and the powerful,
the abuse and mistreatment of the poor and unfortunate, and called for holiness
that came from God’s own holiness, and not from the people’s lineage.
He warned a day of reckoning would
come for Judah – the southern portion of the land we call Israel, and the home
to Jerusalem. He warned of the various
places the people put their trust, instead of with God the creator.
The day of reckoning did come – and
it was worse than anything we have experienced.
In 589 B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar of
Babylon, laid siege to Jerusalem. It had
been a vassal state for nine years, but the people had rebelled against the
foreign king. So, he placed the city
under siege. Nothing in. Nothing out.
Two years later, in 587 B.C.,
Nebuchadnezzar’s armies breached the walls of the ancient holy city. He leveled the city – killing or capturing
its inhabitants, flattening homes, burning Solomon’s temple, and capturing the
royal family. His commanders killed the
king’s family in front of him and then blinded him.
They led him and his people into
exile in Babylon – modern-day Iraq.
The forced captivity led to Psalm
137: “By the waters of Babylon, we lay
down and wept…”
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The meaning of the tragic events was
unmistakable to the people of Judah and Jerusalem. They had turned against God and so his harsh
judgment had crushed them – in the form of Nebuchadnezzar’s army.
It was into that world that an
unknown writer penned the passage we read today as he first lesson. You see, it is believed by Biblical scholars
that additional writers – living long after Isaiah, but contemporary with the
events – wrote chapters 40 through 66 of Isaiah. We call such writers Deutero-Isaiah.
Whoever the writer was, he brought
words of comfort and hope to the Jewish people living in captivity in
Babylon. Hear them again:
Comfort, O comfort
my people,
says your God.
says your God.
Speak
tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
and cry to her
that she
has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that her penalty is paid,
that she
has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins.
double for all her sins.
In the view of the prophet, God’s
judgment had been exhausted. He was
ready to accept the people of Judah back into the covenant relationship. The blessed and holy covenant in which he
would be their God, and they would be his people.
It was only a few years later when
deliverance came to be – from the unlikeliest of places. Cyrus, king of Persia, conquered Babylon, and
allowed the people of Judah and Jerusalem to return to their homeland.
Cyrus, king of Persia – modern day
Iran -- is referred to as the messiah,
God’s anointed one in Isaiah 45. The
people returned to Judah and Jerusalem.
And they began to build the Temple in which Jesus would ultimately
teach.
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Five hundred years later, a wild ass
of a man, John the Baptist, would walk in the Jordan Valley. He was a loner, a
vagabond, an itinerant preacher. The early verses of Mark’s gospel – in referring
to him – include some resonant verses from Isaiah:
John announced God’s movement in the
world and in history. Not God’s
judgment, but words of good news.
Someone is coming. And I am not worthy to
untie the thong of his sandals.
He will come, and he will comfort
his people.
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