I made a big decision this year, and that is that I am not going to make any New Year’s resolutions. The reason I have decided to do this is because of my past track record. My past track record is more of contravention than fulfillment, and if you are anything like me, your New Year’s resolutions last 12 to 48 hours! So, I am done with pretense. It is over! I am not even going to pretend to be better in 2013 than I was in 2012! One can only just hope!
What kind of a preacher would I be, and what kind of a spiritual leader would I be if I didn’t at least seek to improve myself in some way? Even a modicum of improvement would be a good thing. And so, to inspire me, I have turned to the sages over the years, those who have had a great effect and influence on people’s faith and life. This year, I decided to turn for my inspiration at the beginning of a new year to one of the greats: St. Augustine of Hippo.
St. Augustine, a great church leader, the father of many movements that brought The Bible into focus once again in the life of the church, had some words for preachers and for ministers and for teachers:
“Disturbers are to be rebuked, the low spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, litigants pacified, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne with, and all are to be loved.”
I thought, “What a wonderful testimony this is of what it is to be a pastor or a minister!” But, more than that, when you really look at it, to be the Church, to be witnesses to Christ. To do these things, is to carry out the very mission that Christ gave to his disciples at the end of his life.
Yet we see the same sentiment being echoed in our passage from Isaiah today. There is a sense in which the fullness of the message goes forward from the Prophet Isaiah to the people that the messengers that bring the Good News have beautiful feet: that they lift up and encourage and support the weak, that they make sure that people are corrected, but given joy and hope and fellowship. It is a wonderful testimony to what it is to bring the message of Christ and the message of the Good News of God.
As you look at this text from the Book of Isaiah carefully, it is fascinating because there is a picture that is painted. It is a picture of a messenger who comes into the City of Zion, into Jerusalem, bringing Good News. Messengers, as we know in olden times, would run between city and city delivering the news about battles that had been won or political decisions that had been made. Messengers ran on very rough roads and brought the news from other places. So a messenger runs into Jerusalem, and this time, is bringing good news – really good news!
The good news is that the foreign powers that had controlled Jerusalem are no more, and that they will not have the power to oppress the people of the city any longer. This was good news for the guards, who were supposed to stand and shout joy from the mountain tops and from the different porticos and different ramparts of the city and declare the good news. There was a message for those who were in the wasteland, the destroyed parts of the city, that they are to find comfort, and that everyone should know the good news of God’s salvation.
What we have then here is a picture of a messenger running into a city that has been under foreign control and declare good news: God has kept his promises; God has been faithful; God has done great things. Israel can now give thanks and shout for joy! This magnificent text is one of great encouragement and great hope. So, I am thinking to myself over my Christmas dinner, what would be the message that I would give on the first Sunday of the New Year? Would it be one that would say, “Oh, you must fulfill all these obligations to be a good person and to make sure that you follow all the great ideas that you have for your resolutions, or do I bring you the news that God is actually our Lord?
It is “God that is Lord” that is the message. It is the message that we find here in the Book of Isaiah, and it is a powerful one. Essentially, what he is saying is “The Lord has returned to the City of Zion.” He says, “For eye-to-eye, the nations will see the return of the Lord to Zion.” This is like the second Exodus. This is like the second Liberation. This is the return of those who had lived in exile, and had been spread all over the world under the power of the Babylonians, but now, they are coming home, because God is coming home, because God is coming to Jerusalem. God is coming to Zion!
It is encouraging, but they needed it because what they had experienced was the absence of God. The city had been desolate. The foreign powers had ruined the walls. It had been knocked down. It appeared that there was absolutely no hope for this city, and it was apparent to the people that God had left. In theology we call this deus absconditus, that God has left the scene, has absconded, had walked away and forgotten them, and the people were feeling that.
Now, the messenger comes in, and says, “No! No! No! God had never abandoned you. God had remained hidden, yes, and God does at times remain hidden, but not abandoning, not someone who leaves you desolate. You can rely on the fact that this God will come and save you.” How often in life do people look at the circumstances around them and feel like the Israelites that they have been abandoned, that there was no God, that there was no one to help them, and they become depressed?
I read, because the movie Lincoln has become so popular in certain circles at the moment, a piece about Abraham Lincoln. He once wrote these words: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel was equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be a cheerful face on earth! To remain as I am is impossible! I must die or be better!”
Abraham Lincoln wrote this at the very heart of the Civil War. He felt that everything was lost. He became depressed. He became full of grief and remorse. He felt inadequate. He felt that there was no good left in him at all, and if all humanity felt like he did, there would be no joy on any faces.
That was exactly what was going on the lives of those in Zion when the messenger came. They felt that everything had been lost, that there was no hope, that they would never be liberated. But then, the messenger comes in, and says, “You know, from eye-to-eye they will see the salvation of their God.” I love that phrase “eye-to-eye.” It implies a sense of intimacy exists when you look somebody eye-to-eye, there is no mediation, there is nothing in-between, and there is immediacy to it. When you see someone eye-to-eye, it is like a unity, an agreement that you have with someone. You literally say you see eye-to-eye on this matter. It is a moment of profound clarity, because again, there is nothing between you, and there is a sense that when you look somebody eye-to-eye you see something great. The writer of Isaiah is saying, “Look, you might feel that God has abandoned you, but the nations are going to be able to see that eye-to-eye you are connected, the intimacy is back. God is in Zion, and the people are being liberated. What was hidden has now been revealed, and you can see it.”
What an incredible message of hope this is! What an incredible sign of God’s great victory over that which was broken: the Good News of salvation! We as Christians, and this is Epiphany, and all that happens with Isaiah happened five hundred years before the birth of Jesus. We look at what Isaiah said, through the lens of the coming of Jesus or the Christ Child. The message that the Magi received to come and worship the King was a sense of God’s return, of God’s arrival in the land of Israel. When the shepherds heard the news from the angels, it was declared to them that there would be peace on earth and goodwill towards all people. There again, they heard the same sort of thing that the messenger brought into Zion five hundred years before. For Christians, we know and we believe that the arrival of Jesus, and the presence of Jesus, and the power of the Incarnation is the ultimate affirmation that we see God eye-to-eye. We see God in person.
For all God’s hidden-ness, for all the inability that we have not to see clearly what God is like, in Christ, the beautiful Christ, we see his face. This was the message that has sustained and empowered those who have read the Book of Isaiah for the two thousand years of the Christian Church: it is because it is not just about the return of God to Zion, it is not just about the return of God to Israel, it is also about the redemption of humankind. What they are writing about in Isaiah and what we celebrate at Epiphany is the redemption of humanity: not the rescue of people from bondage, but the redemption of people forevermore.
The Apostle Paul wrote the passage that I read from the Book of Romans and it is the only place in The New Testament where this passage from Isaiah is quoted. This is the moment, the Apostle Paul talks about Israel, “You know, Israel has heard the Good News. They have heard the Good News through Isaiah that the messenger has beautiful feet and brings good news.” They have heard! “But, now we apply this,” says Paul “to the very preaching of the Word of Christ.” It is now up to us to proclaim the Word of Christ as the fulfillment of what Isaiah had hoped for, what that messenger who came into Jerusalem twenty-five hundred years ago would be saying if he were here now: it is the Word of God and the Word of Christ.
Oh, how it is needed! This is because there are people in this city of Toronto, never mind Jerusalem twenty-five hundred years ago, who believe that God has absconded. They believe that God has abandoned them. There are people who genuinely believe that God is no longer a force in their lives or has any relevance in their lives, and they look upon faith with suspicion. They look upon the preachers of faith with suspicion, and they look upon the institutions of faith with suspicion, not because they simply doubt, but because they actually believe that God has abandoned them.
The news that the Church brings to the city, and what the Church offers the city is the opposite news: the Good News. We turn to twenty-five hundred years ago and we say, “See, when the people thought they were abandoned, eye-to-eye the nations will see the salvation of God.” When we look at the Christmas story, and the world lay in darkness, they hear the Good News that God had come and done something impressive, so often the broken-hearted feel that the Lord has absconded, but he hasn’t and he never will.
Every now and again I get letters from people who either worship here or listen on the radio. Many of them are very nice and complimentary, and the odd one isn’t, there are some letters that you get that just touch you deeply. There was one from Christmas Eve that really did:
“Thank you for a wonderful Christmas Eve service, which we enjoyed tremendously. The choir was spectacular! We liked your sermon, especially when you included the portion from the Rabbi at Holy Blossom. That was very special for us. You see, we are a Jewish family, and growing up in a part of England we always tagged along and joined our non-Jewish friends for Christmas carols and services, and with God’s grace we hope to be able to do this again. Fondly…”
I thought to myself, “This would make Isaiah jump for joy! This would make the Lord Jesus Christ jump for joy!” This is because there is an overwhelming sense, is there not, that the one thing that we can offer the city is the Good News of Isaiah and its fulfillment in Christ. Whoever hears it, or whatever belief systems they may have or whatever doctrines they may uphold, ours is to present the message, and to let the Spirit of God do the rest. The Church must present the message: it is one of the redemption of humanity by the grace of God.
Lastly, there is a sense in which there is also a need for revival. Oh, “revival” is a loaded word! It has gone through Christian history and has been used and abused to describe all manner of moments. I am not talking about a movement; I am talking about the recognition of what God has already done. A revival maybe of interest or passion or love for what God has already done.
The great Simone Weil, a philosopher in the twentieth century wrote: “To be relevant you have to say something eternal.” Isaiah said, “May the ends of the earth come to know the salvation of our God.” That is the eternal part of what Isaiah was getting at. Isaiah knew that the messenger with the beautiful feet that came into Jerusalem wasn’t just speaking to them: he was speaking for forevermore; he was speaking eternally. Even though at times we struggle as Christians with how to be relevant and what kind of things we can do to be more relevant, how can the manifestation of our ministries be relevant?
Is there not something in what Simone Weil says that is right? If you are going to be relevant, you have to say something that is eternal, something that lasts, beyond contexts and time, beyond nations and languages and religions, beyond traditions and forms, something that speaks powerfully to the eternal grace of God, that God is not always hidden, but God reveals, that God is not absent, God is present, God comes in his Son, and says, “I love you.” Is that not relevant? I think it is the most relevant thing that we can say and do.
When we talk in Toronto about the revival of this city that we love so much, when we want to revive it by wondering what to do with the Gardener, should it be up or down, should we rejuvenate the waterfront, should we put up higher buildings or narrower buildings or lower buildings, should we cut out cars, should have toll roads, should we have better education, should we have cleaner air, should we have help for the poorer parts of our city to relieve their violence, all of these things are important questions for the revival of any city. They are all critical questions to ask.
But, is there not something that we offer and something that we say that contributes to that? Something that is about the very spiritual nature of God: That God has not left the city that the Good News is that the guards rejoiced, the Good News that even in the wastelands there is hope and there is liberation. Is there not Good News for those who are messengers with beautiful feet to bring to the city something profound and eternal?
I think there is. One of the great blessings of the Church is that we have this privilege, and not just those who are appointed to be the messengers, not just those trained to be the messengers, but those who have the Spirit of Christ who become the messengers – and that is YOU! That is what we offer. That is the hope that we bring, for the messenger has beautiful feet and brings Good News. Amen.