Readings for today: Isaiah 23-26
Like most, I have good days and bad days. Days when I feel confident and my trust in the Lord seems strong. Days when I feel anxious and afraid and my trust in the Lord remains elusive. I have moments when I can see the silver lining in all we are going through and I have moments where all I see are dark, ominous clouds and I wonder how we’ll make it. My dark days tend to follow rough nights when I don’t sleep well for whatever reason. It could be my weariness over the COVID-19 virus. My worry for those impacted by the economic crash. Or the grief I feel over the divisions in our nation that have broken out into the streets. It could be my yearning for God’s justice and my deep disappointment - even disillusionment - in our country as we continue to refuse to make a full confession of our corporate sins. It could be my frustration and anger towards those who would take advantage of the pain of this cultural moment to press their agenda. It could be my sadness for the good men and women who serve in positions of authority in law enforcement and politics who are demonized on a daily basis. It could be the burdens I carry pastorally for people I love. It could be that I’ve become over-saturated with all the bad news that scrolls across my social media and news feeds. Or it could just be that I’m tired of sleeping on the couch as we make a second attempt to crate-train our new puppy. ;-) Whatever it is, I woke up this morning tired. Weary. Discouraged. And I found myself praying a very raw prayer…“Father, we are such foolish creatures. Blind to our own ambitions. Blind to our own insecurities. Blind to our own failings. We so easily fault those around us. Those who are different than us. Those who don’t look like us or think like us or act like us. We so easily criticize and hyperbolize and sensationalize what we see. Taking things to the extreme. We have become far too comfortable employing shame and fear to achieve our goals which is always power, power, and more power. We excuse the abuses of those on our side while we pretend to be shocked at the abuses of those on the other side. We are a nation of hypocrites. Father, bring us to our knees. Withdraw your hand that we may reap what we’ve sown. May the pandemic spread further and the economic pain last longer and the ethnic tensions burn hotter if that is what it will take to bring us back to you. We are so very proud. So very arrogant. Absolutely convinced of our own self-righteousness. Father, discipline us and then forgive us. Let us fall hard and then bind up our wounds. Break us and then mend us. This I pray in the name of Jesus.”
It’s a scary prayer. One vomited from the depths of my soul. After I wrote these words in my journal, I turned to our reading today and found similar sentiment in Isaiah. “Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor. The earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered; for the Lord has spoken this word.” (Isaiah 24:1-3) Turns out Isaiah also struggled at times to find hope. (Perhaps it had something to do with him walking around naked for three years?) He looked around at all the injustice. All the corruption. All the greed. All the selfishness. All the unrestrained violence and suffering and pain. And he cries out to God. Empty the earth! Make it desolate! Scatter her inhabitants! Plunder humanity! It’s what we deserve. It’s what we’ve rightly earned. It’s just. It’s righteous. All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. All like sheep have gone astray. Each of us have turned to our own way. The Lord would be utterly just in condemning us all and starting over.
And yet He is faithful. To Himself. To His own divine nature and character. God is merciful and gracious. He will never break His covenant with us. He is steadfast in love. He is trustworthy and true. He will never abandon us to our sin. So Isaiah continues…“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:6-9) In the midst of his discouragement, Isaiah finds hope and as I read these words this morning, I myself began to find hope. A glimmer of light pierced the darkness. My burdens lifted. My eyes looked up. Once again, I found my strength being renewed and soul revived.
How do we find hope in these dark days? How do we find encouragement in the midst of our despair? How do we cling to faith in the midst of our fear? Listen to how Isaiah concludes, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” (Isaiah 26:3-4) Put another way, we fix our eyes on Jesus. The author and perfecter of our faith. We look to Him and His example. We look to the cross where He bore the sins of the world on His shoulders…including the sins of the particular cultural moment we find ourselves in. Nothing we are going through is new to God. None of it is news to God. There is nothing about the human condition that surprises God. He’s been here before. He knows us deeply. Intimately. Inside and out. Backwards and forwards. And the great news is He loves us, warts and all. So keep your eyes on Him. Stay your mind on Him. Focus your thoughts and your energy on Him. Trust in Him. He is the everlasting rock who will never fail. Amen!
Readings for tomorrow: 2 Kings 18:1-18, 2 Chronicles 29-31, Psalms 48