Promises Made, Promises Kept: Joy and Sorrow

In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom, and also in a written edict declared:

“Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of those among you who are of his people—may their God be with them!—are now permitted to go up to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem; and let all survivors, in whatever place they reside, be assisted by the people of their place with silver and gold, with goods and with animals, besides freewill offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem.”

When the seventh month came, and the Israelites were in the towns, the people gathered together in Jerusalem. Then Jeshua son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel with his kin set out to build the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as prescribed in the law of Moses the man of God. They set up the altar on its foundation, because they were in dread of the neighboring peoples, and they offered burnt offerings upon it to the Lord, morning and evening. And they kept the festival of booths, as prescribed, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the ordinance, as required for each day.

When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments were stationed to praise the Lord with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, according to the directions of King David of Israel; and they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord,

“For he is good,

for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.”

And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away.  --Ezra 1:1-4; 3:1-4, 10-13 (NRSV)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

As most of you know, I spent Thanksgiving week with my son and daughter-in-law in St. Paul, Minnesota. Although I was with my family and we had a wonderful time together, I still wasn’t completely home. Home for me, even after all these years of being away - home for me is Timber Lake, South Dakota.

How many of you are going home this Christmas? What are some of the things that you look forward to when you go home? 

Today’s story is a story of going home. Since September, we’ve been following the stories of the people of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures. At times, these stories have been difficult. We heard of separation and division. Of battle and loss. Of good kings and evil leaders. And, then, last week, we heard of the story of the exile of God’s people. Carried away from home by their Babylonian captors. Scattered across the empire. All of God’s people taken away from home. From the place they love, the place promised to their enslaved ancestors, the place given to Israel after the exodus. The people of God exiled.

But, today’s story is one of going home. We heard this possibility promised last week in Isaiah - that God would raise up a Messiah to return Israel to their land out of exile. We know that, from the theological perspective of Israel, this Messiah was Cyrus the Great, emperor of Persia. We heard, in our opening verses, the official proclamation of Cyrus, issued throughout the empire to all of the diasporan Jews: Go home! Go back to the land of Judah, your home. To Jerusalem. And rebuild the house of God. 

But this wasn’t all that Cyrus commanded. He also commanded those living among the dispersed Jews to send them off with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with other gifts for God’s house in Jerusalem. Everything they would need to return home, to restore their lives, and to begin to rebuild the temple. Our reading tells us that the whole assembly together totaled 42,360, not including the 7,337 male and female servants, the 200 male and female singers, the 736 horses, the 245 mules, the 435 camels, and the 6,720 donkeys - a total of 57,373 men, women, and beasts. What a procession this must have been as Israel went home!

It was in the seventh month after their return, that all of them gathered in Jerusalem at the temple - or what was left of the temple - this place had been the center of their religious life, where they had experienced the presence of God. They gathered around the ruins of the temple as one. Then, they rebuilt the altar on the very spot where the original had been built. And then, as one people, they worshiped God. Home. Together. Giving thanks to God for their return.

The next step for them was to rebuild the temple. They hired masons and carpenters. They bartered with neighboring people to bring cedar wood by sea. All of this had been authorized by Cyrus - this promised Hebrew Messiah. In two years time, they were ready to build. Once again, all of Israel gathered in Jerusalem to mark this new beginning. When the builders laid the foundation stone of God’s new temple, our story tells us that the priests, clothed in their vestments and carrying trumpets, and the Levites with their cymbals - all of them rose up to praise the Lord, using the very words or words similar to the psalm we spoke earlier. “God is good. God’s graciousness for Israel lasts forever.”

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience. But, I know that when I went home for the first time after having moved and lived away for a few years in a very different place, things were not the same. Even though they may have looked the same and the people were the same, for me, things felt different. Perhaps it was because I had changed. Perhaps it was because I had experienced so much in those few short years. Isn’t that often what it’s like? That as time passes and our life happens, we change. Maybe what we remember from the past isn’t quite what it was. Maybe we’ve learned to think in a different way as a result of new experiences. Maybe we’ve gained a new understanding about life. Maybe we’ve lost things or loved ones. Or shed old ideas. For whatever reason, when we’ve returned home, thinking we would get it back, that things would be the same, it’s not. So much so that coming home doesn’t feel like coming home.

This is what was happening to many of the Israelites in our story, particularly, those who were older. Who had experienced loss and sadness. Who had felt the pain of exile. Who had known the grandeur of the previous temple and could easily see that this new temple was not like the old. That it was much less. That is wasn’t the same, but that it was very different.

And so, as the others shout with joy and thanksgiving, they weep with sadness and other bittersweet emotion. The sounds of joy and sadness intermingled. So much so that they could not be distinguished from each other. Heard at a great distance. With shouts and weeping mixed all together.

For many of us, Advent can be a very similar time of mixed emotion. As we anticipate Christmas, it’s hard not to feel somewhat bittersweet. To feel as though joy and sorrow are wrapped together. Intermingled. Almost hard to separate. Because life now is not what it was. What or whom we’ve lost will not return. What we remember in our pasts are no longer how things are. 

Nevertheless, like Israel, we are invited into this place - into worship with all of our emotion, with our joy and laughter and with our sadness and tears. That we might experience the presence of God. That we might remember God’s faithfulness. And that we might trust that God is working to make all things new.

Because this was God’s promise for Israel. This is God’s promise for us. Amen.

Preached Sunday, December 15, 2019, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Advent 3
Readings: Ezra 1:1-4; 3:1-4, 10-13; Luke 2:25-32; Psalm 102:12-22.

Promises Made, Promises Kept: Comfort, Comfort!

Comfort, O comfort my people,
    says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that she has served her term,
    that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
    and all people shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

A voice says, “Cry out!”
    And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All people are grass,
    their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
    when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
    surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
    but the word of our God will stand forever.
Get you up to a high mountain,
    O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
    O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
    lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
    “Here is your God!”
See, the Lord God comes with might,
    and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
    and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
    he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
    and gently lead the mother sheep. --Isaiah 40:1-11 (NRSV)


Grace, mercy, and peace from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

After the orchestral overture, every performance of the Messiah begins with this Tenor solo. “Comfort ye. Comfort ye my people.” 

This past week, along with a couple of our members, I attended a Messiah sing-along at Our Savior’s Lutheran. If you’ve never participated in one, I encourage you to go.  I’ve both heard and sung the Messiah a lot. In high school, our choir performed parts of it. In college, I sang in several performances of it. And, since then, I’ve listened to it numerous times, as well as participated in sing-alongs in California, Texas, and, now, here. One could say that I know this piece of music well.

There was one thing I forgot, though. While I know the words well and know that the entire work is based on scripture, I’d forgotten that the first third of it is based on Isaiah 40, which is our text today. It’s a text written from a place of exile. Or at least this part is. Because Isaiah is believed to have been written in two, perhaps even three different parts at different times. The first part, ending with chapter 39, was written before the destruction of Jerusalem. Before the defeat and exile of Judah by the Babylonians. There is a marked difference, though, between chapter 39 and chapter 40 - chapter 40 identified as the beginning of Second Isaiah. This difference was first identified by careful readers of scripture in the 12th century, who noticed that it came from a person and a time quite different from that of First Isaiah, chapters 1-39. 

Today’s text is set about 50 years after the remainder of the Jewish people have been dispersed throughout the empire. The empire itself has now been defeated by Cyrus the Great of Persia. The one whom the Hebrew scriptures call the Messiah. Not Jesus - who we, with our New Testament lenses - identify as the Messiah, but Cyrus the Great. Because it is this Persian - this Messiah - who will restore remnants of the Jewish people to their homeland.  It is this good news of a coming second exodus to the promised land that begins with Isaiah 40, our reading for this morning.

“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” The reading opens in the divine court. God Almighty is imagined seated on a throne, surrounded by many courtiers. Some of these are the former gods of the Canaanites. Others are specific Israelite figure who will attend the divine king. Admission to this court, to this divine council, can make one a prophet in Israel. It is to this divine council that God speaks these opening words of consolation. In the Hebrew, they are an imperative plural. A command directed to many. “Comfort my people,” God the Almighty God commands God’s court. “Jerusalem has served her term. Her penalty has been paid. Speak tenderly to her.”

One rabbi in Jewish thought argues that it was God who needed to be comforted rather than the people. He argued that, if someone owns a vineyard and thieves enter it and destroy it, who is it who needs the comfort - the vineyard, or its owner? Or, if someone burns down a house, who needs comforting, the owners of the house or the structure that burned? This rabbinic midrash argues that it is God’s house (the temple) that has been burned, and God’s vineyard (the people) who have been destroyed. We should be comforting God, not expecting God to comfort us, writes this wise Jewish rabbi.

The reading continues with a command in verse 3, from one of the members of the divine court. To prepare a way. We, in the 21st century, should easily understand what it might take to build this highway back. To knock down the mountains, to level out the valleys, to make the ground even so that the route will be smooth and even. So that it will be easy to traverse. But the meaning here in Hebrew is not entirely clear. It can be interpreted in two ways: that the way is being made for God to return to God’s people, or that the way is being made for God’s people to return to God. However one might interpret this, the meaning is clear: God and God’s people are no longer to be apart. The exodus that follows this new and level highway will once again bring them in grand procession back to Jerusalem. In a procession so grand that, in fact, “all flesh” will see it.

It is God who has engineered this return. Not human beings, whose qualities wither and face. But, God, with the power and steadfastness of God’s Word. God has made this happen. God, who is strong and mighty, who protects God’s people. God, who is also gentle and tender, caring for God’s flock as a shepherd cares for her sheep. God comes with a reward, not as God had once come with punishment. This coming will bring freedom and happiness. This coming will bring joy to the people at last.

It’s so tempting for us to interpret this text with our New Testament lenses as a prophetic text, announcing the eventual birth of John the Baptist - that messenger bringing the good news of Jesus. But, what if we were to simply let this text from Second Isaiah stand on its own? What meaning might it have for us, as God’s people in our context?

Perhaps it's a recognition that all of us, in some form, in some way in our lives, like Israel, have experienced trauma. Now we have not experienced displacement, unlike many others in our world today. But trauma still exists in our lives, however it may manifest itself. Perhaps, it's the loss of a spouse. Or a child. A health diagnosis, or an unexpected hospitalization. Perhaps it’s the loss of a job, or a house, or a way of life. Perhaps, it’s the loss of our youth, or our independence. I dare say that each one of us has experienced trauma at some point, or at many points, in our lives.

And, for a time, we may walk away from God. And from church, from the community of God’s people as we try to make sense of our hurt and our loss. Yet, eventually, God works in our hearts to bring us back. Not only to God, but, to each other. Because it is here, in this place, among God’s people, where we who need comfort receive it. Where we give it to those who need it. The command to comfort in Isaiah 40 is an imperative plural. We are to comfort. We are to receive comfort. Here. With God, among God’s people, in God’s church. It is why God is always working to bring us back.

Earlier this year, an important, contemporary theologian died. His name was Eugene Peterson. You might know him best as the author of “The Message Bible,” an influential paraphrase of scripture intended to make its message understandable for us in this time and place. At his funeral, his son Leif eulogized him, revealing that he used to joke with his father and tell him that he really “only had one sermon, one message” even though he had spent decades in creatively sharing the Bible with people in new ways. “It’s almost laughable how you fooled them,” his son wrote. “How for 30 years every week you made them think you were saying something new. They thought you were a magician in your long black robe hiding so much in your ample sleeves, always pulling out something fresh and making them think it was just for them.”

“But they didn’t know how simple it all was. They were blind to your secret,” Leif Peterson said. It was a secret he knew, though, because it was what his father had been telling him every night for 50 years. It’s a secret we know, because it’s the same message we hear in our Isaiah text today and in every part of scripture we read and listen to Sunday after Sunday after Sunday and in between.

What is this secret that Eugene Peterson whispered nightly to his son? This good news for the people of Isaiah’s day? This message for us?

God loves you.
God forgives you.
God is coming after you.
God is relentless.

Amen.

Preached Sunday, December 8, 2019, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Advent 2
Readings: Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85, Mark 1:1-4