By the rivers of Babylon ... what did God Say?

A Sermon based on Isaiah 43:14-44:4 preached on Sunday 5th September at St. Columba's Evening Prayer service

Let Us pray

Living God, we pray that these ancient words would be for us, words of truth, words of hope and words of sustenience for us this day. In Jesus name we pray Amen.

One of the challenges of preaching through the Lectionary, the set readings of the day is that sometimes we pick up the story in the Middle of what is happening - It would not make sense to pick up any novel, pick a page at random and start from there - we would not know the back story, the plot line and the characters.

This evening’s Old Testament reading is from the Middle of the Book of Isaiah - it comes at a time for the Israelite nation which was so unbelievably sad, when they were down cast- Psalm 137 (made famous of course by Boney M) describes this

“By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion” -

They had been in the promised land but that was all taken away from them

It is at a time of change, a time of uncertainty, a time when the nations Identity is lost because they have been taken into exile by Babylon.

During the last week of the Summer Holidays, Bishop Harold held a Bible week and invited Dr Christian Baxter over to speak about another prophet - Habakuk. She explained the political situation of the day very well.

Two big empires wanted to get the land which Israel inhabitted. Egypt from the south and Babylon from the north - causing a squeeze. Eventually babylon succeeded and they were very brutal - they captured all the leaders, officials and carted them off to what is now Iraq - this was the exile.

In this vision which is part of the over all vision of Isaiah -Babylon as an empire will be broken, and Israel will be restored. Take a look at what the passage says:

At the beginning we are reminded who God actually is:

I am the Lord, your Holy One,
 the Creator of Israel, your King.

This is written in the midst of hopeless despair - the fact that these people are in service to another king - the Babylonian empire but they are reminded that their citizenship is with teh Creator God, their King.

We see in this how full of Grace God is - he is not going to treat them according to their sins, nor according to the acceptability of their sacrafices but rather he is going to look upon them in his multitude of love and care.

The vision in this passage is one of this passage is one of reminding the israelites of who God is, giving Isaiah’s hearers a Glimpse of what God is doing in the background and giving them a future vision of what God will be doing.

The prophet’s role was one of speaking hope into despair, speaking God’s word, God’s perspective into situations where it was recieved.

Let us look at these verses under 3 headings

• Remembering who God is
• Catching a glimpse of what is happening at the present
• Looking forward to a hopeful future

Remembering who God is

Within this passage we see God doing what he has done time after time

Lord who made you,
 who formed you in the womb

I, I am He
 who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
 and I will not remember your sins.

Catching a glimpse of what he is doing

In this passage we hear Echoes of the exodus when God led moses out of captivity - Pharaoh’s army defeated - He did it once he can do it again.

Looking forward to a bright future

Something new is happening in line with the way God has acted in the past but new for this generation, they are new circumstances, new problems but similar to what has happened in the past.

19 I am about to do a new thing;
 now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness
 and rivers in the desert. 

for I give water in the wilderness,
 rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people, 
21 the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.

This captivity which they are in is going to be destroyed - it is promised, God will eventually work his plans out for the salvation of his people.

In history this will be in terms of Cyrus from Persia who will overthrow Babylon and who will bring the exile to and end and restore the fortunes of the people of Israel. However as we look at this passage we also know that this is pointing forward towards God releasing his people from captivity of sin into the freedom of Christ.

Application

As we attempt to apply this passage to our lives we need to remember who God is, catch a glimpse of what he is doing in this generation and looking forward to a future rooted with him.

Firstly Remembering who God is, and remembering we have a much clearer vision of God compared to Isaiah as we have the full revelation of God in Jesus and also we are living in the age of the Holy Spirit which has indeed been poured out.

What is God doing in this generation? - we are living at an amazing time, a generation which has seen unprecendented change, communication and technical development, development of new drugs which cure more diseases than we could have imagined, knowledge of the human dna makes all sorts of things possible, transport links right across the globe, reaching further and futher into space.Great things happening here. On the flip side we still have those living on the streets, we have famine, war, persecution like never before, families are being enslaved into debt, into working harder and harder in a 24 hour economy. Family break-up is at an all time high. Lots of people today are struggling to find out who they are, searching for their identity and purpose to life.

Perhaps this is where this prophecy comes into its own, perhaps we have a memory of what life should be like, perhaps we should be listening to the things which God is saying to us.

Very Very briefly, God is saying to us

Remember Me - I haven’t left you, I haven’t forsaken you

You are looking for purpose - well I have plans for you, plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans for a hope and a future

Jesus says to you ... you can have life in all its fullness.

There are a huge number of promises in the Bible which God has promised us. In our day, in our generation we may look round on dark days and think - God where are you, we may think in the circumstance I witness where are you ... I wish I was somewhere else.

It is in those dark days, in those difficult days when we need to grab hold, to cling to the promises in Scripture. Which is one of the benefits of the age old learning verses of the bible by rote - so that they are ingrained in the memory.

Let us take Scripture, the word of God and let us remember that the God of creation, the God who led the israelite people, who stepped down as a babe in the bethlehem stable is the same God who lived, who died and who will return again, who sustains us.

Remembering who God is

Catching a glimpse of what is happening at the present

Looking forward to a hopeful future

We have a God of Hope ... there is never any situation too hopeless

ahhh.... for those who remember this in college!...:-)

All Saints Day ... Perseverance & Joy

A Sermon Preach in St. Columba's Knock on Sunday 1st November 2009 at 7pm Choral Evensong. Readings from Isaiah 40 & Hebrews 11/12

Perseverance

With all the advertising, fireworks,trick-or-treaters away, pumpkins all eaten we are here to celebrate All Saints, a day in the churches calendar when we remember all those who have gone before, those whose lives are examples to us on how to live out Christian life, those who have denied themselves and followed the Word of God.

If we were to name Saints we might get be able to rhyme of some names, however we must realise that they were / are normal everyday people who live lives that are devoted to God and his purposes. They are people who had a Normal up-bringing but were called to do some extraordinary things. They probably did not see themselves as anything but normal during their lifetime. They had our weaknesses, they had the same Bible as we have, they knew what we know about church, about Jesus.

We do have in Scripture many examples of people who were able to live out their faith in difficult situations. Hebrews 11, the last part of which we heard this evening lists lots of people who did and experienced extraordinary things for God- Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses and then the passing references to the others from the Old Testament.

Chapter 12 begins with the words … THEREFORE, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.

We have these heroes of the faith, these people who have their story told, these people who have lived their lives in the power of God. We need to learn about them, read their story, we need to figure out what they had, what truths we can learn from them. This is where Bible study, prayer and teaching comes in.

The image used here by the writer of the Hebrews is a stadium with all the Heroes of the faith in the audience, they have ran their race but they are spurring us on, they are saying come on helen, keep 'er lit peter – I've got through that … you can do it too. It is an active picture we are called not to be an observer but a runner in the race and as a runner we got to know various things.

Firstly we need to strip off excess stuff – if I was running in a race, chances are I probably wouldn't wear layers and layers of clothing like I a wearing now – I would be down to shorts and a teeshirt

An alternative reading of the first verse of chapter 12 … Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily distracts. We are called to strip of the weight that holds us back, sin distracts us from keeping on going. We do need to identify those things that are slowing us down, those things that we keep doing or saying that distract us from running to our full potential.

Then we need to set our focus on where we are heading. We need to fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. How do we do that if we can't see Him physically? Well what we do need to do is to focus our minds on him – his word, his deeds what he is doing in the world today. He still guides, he is still ahead of us.

There is one word in this passage which seems to be misplaced … take a look at it … who for the Joy set before him endured the cross. He endured the cross for the Joy that was set before him … why would anyone endure the cross for Joy … death for Joy? It doesn't seem right does it. Over the last few weeks I have been thinking quite a bit it my own reading about the Joy … Joy in my own life and ministry, the joy that we are all called as Christians to have.


So often Christians are portrayed by the media and critics as extremely dull,
serious people who cannot have any fun or joy in their life ... Kill-joys maybe. They have to read dull dusty books. We are not stereo-typical people we are called to be the most joyous people. We are called to be people who are following Jesus, yes, we are called to be joyful, we are called to enjoy life. Someone once said

"We are called to be joyfully serious and also seriously joyful."

Our Old Testament reading testifies that things will not always go right, actually things can go terribly wrong sometimes, if you look at the context into which the prophet Isaiah was writing things were going terribly wrong for the israelite nation. Things were terribly wrong. But we can have hope, we can find our joy even in the most difficult of circumstances … why?, how?

Simply by remembering that God is in control. If we look at the the gospel of Luke, we read after the 72 who were sent out to do all kinds of things they come back full of Joy that they were able to see people healed, people set free but Jesus reminds them that their Joy comes not from what they have done but because their names are written in Heaven.

As disciples, as followers of Jesus we are called to be joyful, we are called to root that joy, not in earthly pleasures, not in the latest BMW whose latest adverts tell us Joy is what you make it and then goes on to tell us that Joy is the new BMW X1 …


Well actually NO! BMW's may well be nice cars but actually Christians have JOY … why because our names are written in heaven … that is the root of our Joy. We do not have to settle for man made things which may well bring pleasure for a little while … If we anchor ourselves on the word of God then it is It is possible to find the Joy, the strength which God supplies will be sufficent for us wherever we are and whatever we are doing.


We are In a race, those who have gone before are spurring us on, we need to keep going, we are called to turn to God, to strip off the sin and the other stuff weighing us down and run the race.

It is not a sprint, it is a marathon. But above all, we need to remember the source of Joy, that with Jesus as our Guide, and him directing us, eternity is sorted and we can get on living, daily coming before him in prayer and Bible study as our trainning regime. We can keep going together, yes we will stumble and fall but if we wait upon God he will renew our strength.