The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel
Episcopal Diocese of Central NY (Retired)
One reason that so many people give up on reading the Old Testament,
especially the prophets, is that it's often hard to make sense out of the
Scripture passages. The big problem, I believe, is that we simply don't know the
background and the context for the things the prophets say. So quite often the
prophets' writings simply don't make sense to us.
Today's reading from Isaiah is a good example of this. The book of Isaiah is
really three separate books. First Isaiah is made up of the first 39 chapters,
and it is, we believe, the sayings and writings of the actual prophet Isaiah. In
First Isaiah, the prophet is warning the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah about
the fact that Babylon, a huge country with an enormous army, is planning to
invade Palestine and take over both Israel and Judah. The kings will be captured
or killed, many soldiers and citizens will be killed, the country will be
destroyed, and the Temple in Jerusalem will be torn down. Most of the citizens
that are left are going to be carried away to Babylon as slaves.
Second Isaiah was probably written partly by Isaiah and partly by one of his
followers, who may have taken over as prophet when Isaiah himself died. It's
really a letter to the Jewish people who were taken to Babylon as slaves.
Today's reading is from the beginning of this part of the book of Isaiah, and it
helps if we take a minute first to think about how we would feel if we were part
of the group that Isaiah was writing to.
You have been making a forced march from Palestine, carrying a small pack of
a few of your belongings. You've seen your home destroyed, your fields sown with
salt so that nothing would grow there for years, your farm animals slaughtered
or turned loose into the wild. You've seem some of your family and many of your
friends killed. You've heard that the king was killed, too, along with many of
the leaders, rabbis and priests whom you respected and depended on for advice.
You are dead tired, and your feet hurt from the long walk, and you are wondering
if you will have a kind or a mean master, and what kind of work you will have to
do, and how you will live in this new place. You are wondering why God let all
this happened, and probably you feel a bit guilty, remembering the times you
didn't bother to keep God's Law...is this partly YOUR fault? And perhaps you are
wondering if it's worthwhile to bother about God and his law any more. After
all, Babylon has other gods, and most people worshipped the god of whatever area
they lived in...they didn't have a permanent loyalty to just one god. And the
god of the Babylonians, called Marduk, must be much more powerful than the God
you grew up worshipping, if Babylon has defeated Israel and Judah. Right?
And then this letter comes from the prophet Isaiah back home. How he got the
letter to the groups of Jewish slaves, you don't know. But he did, and someone
who can read gets up and reads the letter out loud to your group, perhaps in the
evening after work. And what does Isaiah have to say?
Don't you know? Haven't you heard this before? Weren't you raised knowing and
believing this? Haven't you believed that from the time the earth was made, the
true God is the one who is above all? He looks down, and all the people look
like grasshoppers or ants...even the kings, even the great king of Babylon the
mighty! This God is all-powerful. He makes kings and unmakes them. The kings of
Israel and Judah didn't obey him, and look what it got them! You see, God is
watching over us. But you folks from Israel and Judah, why are you saying that
God doesn't know what's happening to you? Of course he knows. The Lord is the
eternal God, no beginning, no end. He never gets tired and he's always faithful.
He can share his power with people who obey him.
Yes, even strong young men get tired, as you've seen on the journey to
Babylon. Even they can fall by the wayside and die. But the folks who obey the
real God...he gives them strength to go on, no matter what. THAT'S why you need
to remember your own God, and keep following him, even in Babylon, even if
you're slaves now. Someday, he will see that you get home again.
That's basically what Isaiah wrote to the Jewish people exiled to Babylon.
The rest of Second Isaiah keeps reminding them of what their God, the real God,
has done for them in the past, and holds out hope for the future. Third Isaiah
is written to those who did eventually return to Palestine to rebuild the Temple
and the city of Jerusalem.
You know, we people have a lot in common with the Jewish exiles living in
Babylon. Many of us don't think God does much for us, so we don't bother much
about him, ourselves. We are not sure we really believe that he can help us out
of this mess that our world is in right now. We tend to put more trust in the
power we can see around us...government leaders, rich people, big industries,
stars of various entertainment industries. We have kind of given up having much
faith in God, his power, and his love and care for us, because, like them, we
feel that our ways are hidden from the Lord and he just plain can't be bothered
with us any more.
That's why it is important for us to read Second Isaiah, chapters 40-55. We
will find much good advice there, advice to help us keep our faith and keep on
obeying and trusting God. We may not be slaves in Babylon, but we are
surely slaves of sin, as St. Paul tells us all through his letters to
the churches. (If you really want to get into this, read the 5th chapter of his
letter to the Galatians.) Still...God loves us and cares for us, and yes, God's
power is far more than that of the President of the United States, the Bank of
America, and any other powerful forces we may think of. He still is all-knowing
and all-powerful. And, like the people of Israel and Judah, stuck waiting tables
and working farms in far-away Babylon, we can look forward to being helped by
God in his own good time. His time is not like our time, remember. But his
promises are sure and he is faithful. As the old hymn says, Trust and
obey...there is no other way. We need to call on God's strength to help
us trust and obey...and go on. Amen.
