A New Beginning
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
I am a lousy typist. My keyboard skills are rudimentary and functional, at best. I blame it all on the fact that I grew up before the computer age and went to a small boarding school in Australia for my high school years, one that didn't offer a typing class to those students on the academic track. The end result is that I suffer from a lot of stray finger movements and poor positioning when I type, especially on the smaller keyboard of my laptop computer. That can be disastrous when an imprecise and inadvertent little finger movement brushes the insert or delete key right in the middle of the final editing of a sermon. One moment, I am blissfully -- if slowly -- inserting new insights and additions; the next, I discover -- when I finally look up at the screen -- that the three most important paragraphs of my message have just been delete/typed over. Thank God (and I mean that sincerely) for the Ctrl + Z "undo" command!
Using the metaphor of typing input, most of the messages of the prophet Isaiah could be understood as insertions that more or less flow on from what came before. However, on a few occasions, Isaiah seems to have purposefully hit the delete key. In chapters 42 and 43 of Isaiah, for example, God speaks through the prophet announcing a "new thing" God is about to do (Isaiah 42:9; 43:18 ff). That "new thing" then was the return of the people from exile in Babylon. The first reading for this Sunday is perhaps the most emphatic and dramatic announcement of all. God is planning an even newer "new thing," something so new that mere editing will no longer suffice. What God has in mind is not just a restoration or a return to the status quo before the exile; it is such a new thing that it demands the verb only used of God in the Hebrew scriptures. In fact, it is the very first verb of the Bible and describes the primary activity of God -- to create. This new creative act of God is so novel that the former things will no longer be remembered or come to mind.
What are those "former things"? Now it is possible that God is saying the new creative work about to be accomplished is so novel that the mighty acts of God from the past will be overshadowed by this new thing. Possible, but unlikely, I think. Given the context of this passage it is more probable the former things that will not be remembered are the "former troubles" -- that is, the defeat by Babylon, the exile and its aftermath, referred to in verse 16 immediately before our reading (Isaiah 65:16b; 64:20-22).
There have been times in the past when I was working on a sermon and it just simply wouldn't work out right. No matter how many times I manipulated the theme I was working with, moving words and phrases and even whole paragraphs or sections around, I couldn't get it right. My disappointment in the process would eventually lead me to begin to lose interest in the sermon and despair of ever getting it done in time for Sunday -- a pastor's nightmare! What I really needed was to start all over again from the foundation of the text. I needed fresh, new insights from God's word.
The people to whom Isaiah chapter 65 was originally addressed were living through a long nightmare. Though God's people had been allowed to return from exile in Babylon, few had actually chosen to do so after 538 BC. Twenty or more years later the returnees still faced nearly insurmountable economic and social obstacles that made survival a day-to-day struggle. As time went on with little or no improvement in conditions, the people were faced with a theological crisis. The prophets had all promised, hadn't they, a new day and a glorious future after exile? Where was the expected restored Davidic kingdom? The city of Jerusalem was still in ruins, the temple, if already rebuilt, was a pale shadow of its former glory, and the people were on the verge of despair. They were disappointed in their situation, in their ability to get beyond survival mode to reconstruction, and, most significant of all, there was disappointment with God.
To start talking about disappointment with God is problematic for us. It is a problem for us because so many of the most visible and apparently "successful" ministries in modern American religious life are intentionally and relentlessly upbeat and positive with a strong emphasis on the triumphs of Christian living. This popular version/corruption of the Christian faith is not helpful because, as Phillip Yancey points out in his book, Disappointment With God, when the promised and expected dramatic evidence of God working in our lives does not materialize, it inevitably leads to feelings of "disappointment, betrayal, and often guilt."1 When actual experiences do not live up to our expectations over a long period of time we start to give up on ourselves, others, and even God. Those feelings of disappointment with God probably occur far more frequently than we are willing to publicly -- or even privately -- admit.
The advice to "just try harder" simply won't do it for us. An edited, more upbeat version of our lives isn't what is needed. Since the disappointment is with God, only an act of God can remedy the situation. What is required is a new thing, and only God can do that for us because only God can create. Therefore, any genuine newness that could and would come for the returnees in Judah, would not be their own doing, no matter how righteous they might have tried to be. The evidence of their own history weighed heavily against their succeeding in that effort. It is the same for us. The evidence of history also weighs heavily against our efforts at self-editing. No, any newness that emerges in the community of faith's future will always be God's creation. It is a gift.
God announces just such a gift: A new heavens and a new earth in which the failures and punishments of the past will no longer be remembered, disaster will be replaced with realized potential, and joy, not disappointment, will mark the relationship between God and his people. All of the negative former things will be no more, as if they had been typed right over. The language and imagery used does not only address the situation of the exile and restoration, but also the curses of the fall and the blessings of the original creation. Verse 17 immediately calls to mind the first verse of Genesis, "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth ..." (Genesis 1:1). The curse of work and the struggle of agriculture will be reversed (vv. 21-23a), sickness and death will begin to be undone (vv. 19-20), and the first blessing of creation, to be fruitful and multiply, will be renewed for God's people (v. 23). This new thing God is about to do is almost a matter of going "back to the future."
In other words, this is not just hopeful, wishful thinking, pie-in-the-sky stuff. The Hebrew verb "create" in verses 17 and 18 is not a pure future tense. It can be translated as "I am beginning to create." Therefore, the new heavens and the earth, though not yet fully manifested, have already begun to appear. There is continuity and discontinuity with present reality; what God does always has an "already but not yet" quality to it from a human perspective locked in time. But the prophet is able to see time and space from God's perspective, which is not chronological and episodic. Past, present, and future are all held by God, and from God's perspective are not isolated events in time but are part of a whole with a plan and a purpose.
So, while the tone of the message is apocalyptic and futuristic, the promised future echoes the purity of God's beginning for the world, and the message is meant for the here and now, real-life situation of God's people in the present. God's new creation begins now and is expressed in down-to-earth images that are familiar: Jerusalem, agriculture, work, and birth.
The slate is wiped clean -- the former things will not be remembered -- and so God's people can move ahead into the future planned for them by going "back" to God's new beginning with a fresh start. This text is an appropriate one for us liturgically as we come to the end of the church year. It leads us to reflect upon God's fulfillment of his plan and purpose for all of creation in terms of realized potential. The whole disaster of the exile was proclaimed by the true prophets from the seventh through fifth centuries BC as being the direct result of the failure of God's people and its religious and political leaders to realize their full potential as the people of God. God's solution to humanity's self-inflicted wounds, however, is not to leave us to our own devices. A bit of self-editing will not do the job. God does not even wait for us to come to our senses and ask for help, but "before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear" (v. 24).
God takes full initiative. That is our only hope. Only God's initiative could redeem the mess God's people had made of their history and its effects on their present and future. God still takes full initiative. Only he can type over the mess we have made of our lives through disobedience and give us a fresh start through forgiveness. For Christians, we understand that a new beginning is made available and is realized in our lives through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his ministry of healing, freeing, and restoration we see the firstfruits of the new creation God has begun. His death for us "Xs" out or deletes all of those "former things" that leave us in bondage to fear and disappointment. In him we become God's new creation. In Christ, the firstborn of all creation, we have fullness of joy. In him we can again be a delight to God, living and working toward the full potential of God's future for this world God loves so much. Amen.
________________
1. Phillip Yancey, Disappointment With God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), p. 9.
Using the metaphor of typing input, most of the messages of the prophet Isaiah could be understood as insertions that more or less flow on from what came before. However, on a few occasions, Isaiah seems to have purposefully hit the delete key. In chapters 42 and 43 of Isaiah, for example, God speaks through the prophet announcing a "new thing" God is about to do (Isaiah 42:9; 43:18 ff). That "new thing" then was the return of the people from exile in Babylon. The first reading for this Sunday is perhaps the most emphatic and dramatic announcement of all. God is planning an even newer "new thing," something so new that mere editing will no longer suffice. What God has in mind is not just a restoration or a return to the status quo before the exile; it is such a new thing that it demands the verb only used of God in the Hebrew scriptures. In fact, it is the very first verb of the Bible and describes the primary activity of God -- to create. This new creative act of God is so novel that the former things will no longer be remembered or come to mind.
What are those "former things"? Now it is possible that God is saying the new creative work about to be accomplished is so novel that the mighty acts of God from the past will be overshadowed by this new thing. Possible, but unlikely, I think. Given the context of this passage it is more probable the former things that will not be remembered are the "former troubles" -- that is, the defeat by Babylon, the exile and its aftermath, referred to in verse 16 immediately before our reading (Isaiah 65:16b; 64:20-22).
There have been times in the past when I was working on a sermon and it just simply wouldn't work out right. No matter how many times I manipulated the theme I was working with, moving words and phrases and even whole paragraphs or sections around, I couldn't get it right. My disappointment in the process would eventually lead me to begin to lose interest in the sermon and despair of ever getting it done in time for Sunday -- a pastor's nightmare! What I really needed was to start all over again from the foundation of the text. I needed fresh, new insights from God's word.
The people to whom Isaiah chapter 65 was originally addressed were living through a long nightmare. Though God's people had been allowed to return from exile in Babylon, few had actually chosen to do so after 538 BC. Twenty or more years later the returnees still faced nearly insurmountable economic and social obstacles that made survival a day-to-day struggle. As time went on with little or no improvement in conditions, the people were faced with a theological crisis. The prophets had all promised, hadn't they, a new day and a glorious future after exile? Where was the expected restored Davidic kingdom? The city of Jerusalem was still in ruins, the temple, if already rebuilt, was a pale shadow of its former glory, and the people were on the verge of despair. They were disappointed in their situation, in their ability to get beyond survival mode to reconstruction, and, most significant of all, there was disappointment with God.
To start talking about disappointment with God is problematic for us. It is a problem for us because so many of the most visible and apparently "successful" ministries in modern American religious life are intentionally and relentlessly upbeat and positive with a strong emphasis on the triumphs of Christian living. This popular version/corruption of the Christian faith is not helpful because, as Phillip Yancey points out in his book, Disappointment With God, when the promised and expected dramatic evidence of God working in our lives does not materialize, it inevitably leads to feelings of "disappointment, betrayal, and often guilt."1 When actual experiences do not live up to our expectations over a long period of time we start to give up on ourselves, others, and even God. Those feelings of disappointment with God probably occur far more frequently than we are willing to publicly -- or even privately -- admit.
The advice to "just try harder" simply won't do it for us. An edited, more upbeat version of our lives isn't what is needed. Since the disappointment is with God, only an act of God can remedy the situation. What is required is a new thing, and only God can do that for us because only God can create. Therefore, any genuine newness that could and would come for the returnees in Judah, would not be their own doing, no matter how righteous they might have tried to be. The evidence of their own history weighed heavily against their succeeding in that effort. It is the same for us. The evidence of history also weighs heavily against our efforts at self-editing. No, any newness that emerges in the community of faith's future will always be God's creation. It is a gift.
God announces just such a gift: A new heavens and a new earth in which the failures and punishments of the past will no longer be remembered, disaster will be replaced with realized potential, and joy, not disappointment, will mark the relationship between God and his people. All of the negative former things will be no more, as if they had been typed right over. The language and imagery used does not only address the situation of the exile and restoration, but also the curses of the fall and the blessings of the original creation. Verse 17 immediately calls to mind the first verse of Genesis, "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth ..." (Genesis 1:1). The curse of work and the struggle of agriculture will be reversed (vv. 21-23a), sickness and death will begin to be undone (vv. 19-20), and the first blessing of creation, to be fruitful and multiply, will be renewed for God's people (v. 23). This new thing God is about to do is almost a matter of going "back to the future."
In other words, this is not just hopeful, wishful thinking, pie-in-the-sky stuff. The Hebrew verb "create" in verses 17 and 18 is not a pure future tense. It can be translated as "I am beginning to create." Therefore, the new heavens and the earth, though not yet fully manifested, have already begun to appear. There is continuity and discontinuity with present reality; what God does always has an "already but not yet" quality to it from a human perspective locked in time. But the prophet is able to see time and space from God's perspective, which is not chronological and episodic. Past, present, and future are all held by God, and from God's perspective are not isolated events in time but are part of a whole with a plan and a purpose.
So, while the tone of the message is apocalyptic and futuristic, the promised future echoes the purity of God's beginning for the world, and the message is meant for the here and now, real-life situation of God's people in the present. God's new creation begins now and is expressed in down-to-earth images that are familiar: Jerusalem, agriculture, work, and birth.
The slate is wiped clean -- the former things will not be remembered -- and so God's people can move ahead into the future planned for them by going "back" to God's new beginning with a fresh start. This text is an appropriate one for us liturgically as we come to the end of the church year. It leads us to reflect upon God's fulfillment of his plan and purpose for all of creation in terms of realized potential. The whole disaster of the exile was proclaimed by the true prophets from the seventh through fifth centuries BC as being the direct result of the failure of God's people and its religious and political leaders to realize their full potential as the people of God. God's solution to humanity's self-inflicted wounds, however, is not to leave us to our own devices. A bit of self-editing will not do the job. God does not even wait for us to come to our senses and ask for help, but "before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear" (v. 24).
God takes full initiative. That is our only hope. Only God's initiative could redeem the mess God's people had made of their history and its effects on their present and future. God still takes full initiative. Only he can type over the mess we have made of our lives through disobedience and give us a fresh start through forgiveness. For Christians, we understand that a new beginning is made available and is realized in our lives through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his ministry of healing, freeing, and restoration we see the firstfruits of the new creation God has begun. His death for us "Xs" out or deletes all of those "former things" that leave us in bondage to fear and disappointment. In him we become God's new creation. In Christ, the firstborn of all creation, we have fullness of joy. In him we can again be a delight to God, living and working toward the full potential of God's future for this world God loves so much. Amen.
________________
1. Phillip Yancey, Disappointment With God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), p. 9.
