Sermon 12.01.2024: Messengers of Peace

Scripture

Isaiah 52:1-10

Awake, awake, 

put on your strength, O Zion!


Put on your beautiful garments, 

O Jerusalem, the holy city;
for the uncircumcised and the unclean 

shall enter you no more.

2 Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem;


loose the bonds from your neck, 

O captive daughter Zion!

3 For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.

4 For thus says the Lord God: Long ago, my people went down into Egypt to reside there as aliens; the Assyrian, too, has oppressed them without cause.

5 Now therefore, what am I doing here, says the Lord, seeing that my people are taken away without cause? Their rulers howl, says the Lord, and continually, all day long, my name is despised.

6 Therefore my people shall know my name; therefore on that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I.

7 How beautiful upon the mountains 

are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news, 

who announces salvation, 

who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’

8 Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices,
together they sing for joy;
for in plain sight they see 

the return of the Lord to Zion.


9 Break forth together into singing, 

you ruins of Jerusalem;
for the Lord has comforted his people, 

God has redeemed Jerusalem.


10 The Lord has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations;
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

Sermon

This year we’ll be reading passages from the Book of Isaiah during Advent. Some of them may be familiar to you. Others may be new. 

I invite you to hear them all with new ears, because they may not say what we have always heard them to say. 

Handel used much of Isaiah for the libretto to his famous Messiah. Hope you can come to the Messiah singalong on Saturday! And the church, from the beginning of the church, has used Isaiah to make sense of who Jesus is. We hear Isaiah’s language of Messiah, or anointed one sent from God to save the people, and it makes sense that we think of Jesus as the Messiah. Because that is how the first followers of Jesus made sense of Jesus too. They read their holy scriptures and saw Jesus as the promised one from Isaiah. They incorporated Isaiah’s writings into their own, so it resonates there for the people who knew Isaiah’s writings. 

That still happens today. When the musician Prince died, I wrote a sermon that had maybe 10 different quotes from Prince’s songs. The people my age who knew Prince’s music got the references. Most of the congregation did not, but the resonance to Prince’s music was in that sermon either way. 

Likewise with Isaiah. It didn’t matter if all of the early followers of Jesus could quote or recognize Isaiah’s writings when they were incorporated into the gospels. It became a reference point for those who knew the words of the prophet. 

And it is appropriate for us to do that, as long as we remember that Isaiah didn’t know about Jesus. Isaiah wasn’t Nostradamus, or a circus psychic, predicting future events with certainty. He was writing to his own people, speaking to their experience in their own time and context. 

So we hear scripture and think about our context today, and we remember the context in which it was written and we trust the work of the Holy Spirit to bring the two together. 

The nations of Israel and Judah in biblical times were never global powerhouses. They were, at best, small nation states with good relationships with their bigger neighbors. At worst, they were small nation states at war with each other, and at the mercy of bigger political battles, ever located right in the path of those bigger powers. 

Isaiah lived in and wrote from Jerusalem in the 8th century BCE. Most scholars agree that most of the first 39 chapters were written by him. The latter part of the book has a different writing style and vocabulary and appears to be describing a different political reality. 

When Isaiah was active, Assyria was the world power. Expanding westward from what we would today call Iraq, Assyria was disruptive, and subjugated Israel and Judah, but it was not terribly long lasting, as far as evil empires go. 

They were quickly supplanted by Babylon. And Babylon caused real trouble. They destroyed temples and houses of worship in the lands they conquered. They took governmental and community leaders, poets, musicians, and artists, into exile in 586 BCE, so that the people who were left behind couldn’t rise up in rebellion. The language in Isaiah about exile is describing life under Babylon. 

The third global power to dominate Israel and Judah in the time of Isaiah’s writings was Persia, and Persia treated the lands it subjugated differently from Babylon or Assyria. They allowed the exiles to return in 515 BCE, they allowed a modicum of self-rule, and they allowed the Temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Their ruler, Cyrus, is actually who Isaiah was writing about when he wrote about the Messiah. Cyrus was the person who was God’s servant, delivering the people. 

In Isaiah 44, this is written about Cyrus: 

I am the Lord, who made all things, 

who alone stretched out the heavens, 

who by myself spread out the earth… 

who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, 

and he shall carry out all my purpose’ 

and who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be rebuilt’, 

and of the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’ 

For the author of Isaiah, Cyrus was a lower-case m messiah. He was seen as a servant of God, one who carried out God’s purpose, pivotal in returning people to their home and the one who allowed Jerusalem and the Temple to be rebuilt. 

It is important to remember that the writers of scripture recognized that people from other countries could be God’s servants, that God’s designs can be carried out by people from other lands. Where we try to draw lines and build borders to separate us from each other, our ancestors in faith recognized that God’s deliverance erased those divisions, and that God will use unlikely people to save God’s people, so we ought to be careful about building barriers that could keep people out. Yes, I’m thinking of the border wall, and national politics, because scripture very clear that welcoming the foreigner is the call of God’s people, but I’m also thinking closer to home. How often do we decide someone is beyond our care and concern because our differences are more important than our similarities? 

One of the messages in Isaiah is that God will use literally anyone to bring about God’s purposes. The rulers of Assyria and Babylon were God’s agents of judgment, and Cyrus of Persia was God’s agent of deliverance. In both the judgment and in the deliverance, God is at work. God will not be limited by our tribalism or borders. So we hold lightly to our prejudice and we try to recognize God’s work in the world, even when it is carried out by foreigners, by people of the political party you didn’t vote for, or by people whose lived experience in the world is unrecognizable to you. 

And we’ve talked about this before, but the Old Testament prophets often seem harsh to our ears, knowing that they are calling judgment on people who have already been defeated and demoralized. Much of the first half of the Book of Isaiah is an oracle of judgment, laying the responsibility for their troubles right at the feet of the people of God, who have not been faithful to God. But when you are in a place of defeat that is taking you towards despair, it can be helpful to take stock of your own actions, and to consider how you have contributed to the moment you are in. 

I talked a few weeks ago about how hope is a muscle to develop more than a feeling. So is peace. One of the ways to develop that muscle is to decide you want to change your behavior so that you can change the world you’re in. 

Today’s passage is from the book of comfort, written later than the first parts of Isaiah, and likely not be Isaiah himself, unless he was still writing 100 + years later, when the exiles came home. 

Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive Jerusalem;

loose the bonds from your neck,

O captive daughter Zion! 

He calls the people to rise up, to see themselves as free people, and not people who are weighed down in bondage. We have not been in exile as Israel was, but when the weight of the world gets heavy on our shoulders, we, too, look down. Our attention can be fixed just on the ground right in front of our feet and need Isaiah's reminder to shake off the dust, to let go of the burdens that weigh us down and look up. 

How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,

who brings good news. 

The mountain of God is a recurring image in Isaiah, reminding the people to look up, to remember that God sees us and acts for us. And it is hard to look up when you are carrying heavy weight across your shoulders. 

And it is up on the mountains where the messenger and their beautiful feet are announcing God’s message of peace, bringing good news, and announcing liberation. 

This message of comfort from Isaiah is a physical movement from being burdened to being unburdened. I invite you to feel this in your own body now. Imagine you’ve got a very heavy pack on your back that does not have good lumbar support or comfort straps. Bring your shoulders forward and feel how that directs your head down as well. 

When you’re in this position, you can’t see the beauty around you, and you can’t really even see the people around you, other than their feet. 

Isaiah calls the people to put on their strength to shake themselves from the dust, and to rise up,

O captive Jerusalem; to loose the bonds from their neck. 

You can set down those burdens I asked you to imagine. And when you do that, you can look up and around, your spine straightens and you feel taller, and that’s when you look up and see on the mountain the beautiful feet of God’s messenger of peace. 

Isaiah tells us to look for the messenger on the mountain who announces peace. And to do that, we have to set down our burdens and look up. 

It doesn’t mean our struggles and burdens aren’t still with us, of course. There were still challenges and struggles for Israel, long after Cyrus let the people return to Jerusalem. There are still challenges and struggles for us today, even as we seek to not be burdened by them. It’s about a change of focus that comes with a change of posture. 

Once we look up, we see God’s mountain and God’s messenger with the beautiful feet. But maybe more importantly, we see each other. And I don’t know about you, but most everything I know about God’s care for us, God’s call to justice, and God’s fierce love, I’ve learned from people. Sometimes the people I know and see often, and other times from people I don’t know, acting as God’s messenger of peace in the world. 

We are all called to be God’s messengers of peace. Imagine the world we could create if we could help each other set down our burdens and be messengers of peace. I love this story from author Elizabeth Gilbert: 

“Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated with one another, with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here. 

But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom.”Folks,” he said, I know you have had a rough day and you are frustrated. I cant do anything about the weather or traffic, but here is what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Dont take your problems home to your families tonight, just leave them with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, I will open the window and throw your troubles in the water.” 

It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People who had been pretending for the past hour not to notice each others existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious? 

Oh, he was serious. 

At the next stop, just as promised, the driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared up but everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river. 

She continues, we live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes it is extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but dont know where to find it. 

But what if you are the light? What if you are the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for? Thats what this bus driver taught me, that anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasn’t some big power player. He wasn’t a spiritual leader. He wasn’t some media-savvy influencer. He was a bus driver, one of societys most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit. 

When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the worlds troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I cant personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely cant control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each others name. 

She ends with, ”No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminated, one bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.” ~~ 

Friends, as we long for light, let us be light for each other, proclaiming God’s message of peace to each other and to the world.