Comfort and Peace

Our reading today from the prophet Isaiah is one of the most familiar passages from the ancient Hebrew prophets.  Here comfort is acclaimed for God’s people, every valley is lifted up and every mountain made low, so that we can be gathered and fed by God as his gentle lambs.  This poetic image offers gentle consolation to all of God’s people.  “Comfort, O comfort my people, says our God.”

Will you pray with me?  “Dear comforting God, gather us in and grant us peace.  Make our way steady by tearing down the high obstacles before us, and then guide us by building bridges across our low gulfs of differences.  Gather us as a gentle shepherd, feed us with grace, and comfort us in lush meadows of peace.  Amen.”

Here in the 40th chapter, there is an abrupt change in Isaiah.  Up through the 39th chapter, Isaiah was talking about King Hezekiah, the King of Southern Israel in the years before the Assyrians conquered all of Israel and took them captive into Babylon.  The first 39 chapters of Isaiah have been the deeply emotional story of Isaiah warning Israel that they have fallen away from God.  Isaiah prophecies the Jewish people will be conquered by Assyria if they do not change their wayward ways.

And then, suddenly, in chapter 40, everything changes.  The style of the text changes dramatically.  The plea of the prophet moves suddenly from warning of God’s forthcoming judgment to the saving power and God’s loving protection of Israel.  We move from warning and judgment to this passionate passage about God protecting Israel as beloved sheep.  What happened?

Well, actually, a whole lot happened in the space and time between chapter 39 and 40.  During the thirty years before the exile in Babylon, Isaiah had continually warned the Jews to clean up their act before God.  During this time, the prophets Hosea, Amos, Malachi and Nehemiah also warned the Jews of impending doom.  The northern part of Israel had already been conquered by the Assyrians.  King Hezekiah had removed many idol altars from the land, and he strained to change the hearts of the errant Jewish people.  He had tried to clean things up as Isaiah warned, but Hezekiah failed, and Jerusalem and the southern part of Israel were all also conquered by the Assyrians in 587 BCE.  The leaders of Israel were carried off to Babylon (the Assyrian capital), and only a small remnant was left behind in Jerusalem.  The temple was stripped of all ornamentation; the Jews and the Temple completely subjugated.  The warning of the prophets, including Isaiah, had come true.  The Jews were exiled in Babylon.

And then unexpectedly comes this voice from Isaiah 40, saying “Comfort, O comfort my people.”  All of a sudden in the text, the Jews are nearing the end of their captivity in Babylon.  They had paid for their sins of neglecting God and worshiping other idols.  The people had withered like grass and yet they remembered the word of God stands forever.  Israel had paid double for their sins.  Now it was time for God to comfort Israel, and make straight the path back to Jerusalem—leveling the high mountains and building up the low plains, making straight the highway back to Jerusalem.  Our passage today is a song praising God for punishing the sins of Israel as promised, but now declaring that it is time to comfort Israel and guide them back home.  “Comfort, O comfort my people.”

Virtually all biblical scholars now agree that starting in chapter 40 the Book of Isaiah now has a new author, one who wrote not from Jerusalem before the exile like the first Isaiah, but a second Isaiah who wrote at the end of Israel’s captivity in Babylon.  And actually, there is also a third voice of Isaiah occurring later in chapters 56 through 66.  This third voice is spoken after the exile in Babylon as the Jews re-establish and re-build the Temple in Jerusalem.  The third Isaiah voice is concerned with reestablishing religious practices and reinstating the Jewish national and religious identity.  Biblical scholars call these voices Proto-Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, and Tritero-Isaiah.  So today, we are dealing with the opening verses of Deutero-Isaiah.   “Comfort, O comfort my people, says the Lord.”

Through the last 2500 years, when Muslims, Jews and Christians have sought comfort and consolation, they have returned to this passage.  At a time of deep desolation and rejection in the history of Israel, the Jews cried out and said, “Comfort us, O God!  We confess that we have sinned.  Comfort us!  Take us home.”

And in the fullness of time, 550 years after our passage was written, Israel had had been conquered again.  This time the Romans subjugated and deeply oppressed Israel.  The rise of a prophet named Jesus of Nazareth caused the early Christian writers to closely associate those difficult times with the calamity of the Jewish exile.  Once again, people of faith sought the comfort of this passage.  Comfort us, O God. “See, the Lord God comes with might.  He will feed his flock like a shepherd, gathering the lambs into his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”

When we apply this message of comfort and consolation to the opening words from the Gospel of Mark, John the Baptizer is introduced as the messenger who goes forth making straight the pathway for the message of Jesus, just as Israel pleaded for comfort before.  It is not coincidence that Mark starts out his Gospel by introducing John the Baptizer, and then referring to this Isaiah passage.  Mark also adds a quote from the prophet Malachi who says in Malachi 3:1 “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.”  But the message is clear, John prepares the way for Jesus, who will come and bring comfort and the peace of God to God’s gathered people.  Comfort and Peace.

We live in times that could use some comfort and peace, don’t we?  During the holidays, many of our families have agreements that certain things will not be discussed at the family dinner table because we are so divided and so far from being a people of comfort and peace.  The evening news brings endless stories of division and pain and separation.  Where is God’s comfort now?  Where is God’s peace for the people of God?

Let me tell you a story of where I found comfort and God’s peace just this week.  Last Thursday evening at our Blue Christmas service I found comfort and peace here in this sanctuary.  As we gathered, we acknowl-edged together that things are indeed tough, families fractured, society rent asunder, and that we all are experiencing losses in our lives.  Lost jobs, lost financial security, loss of loved ones.  Lost cohesiveness.  Lost agreement even about the causes of our society’s travails.  But in the end, in the midst of all of our trials, tribulations, losses and fears, we remembered that we are a people of God, held in the loving arms of our gentle comforting God.  And we remembered that we are a people, a gathered community of love and compassion.  We may not agree on all things, but we do agree on some important foundational things.  We all agree that the Lord is our hope and consolation, we all agree that God will walk with us through the dark valleys of life, and we all agree that in community together we are far stronger than we are as individuals.  We are a gathered people of God, a community of Christ-presence, a place where together at this table, with the help of God, to lift each other up in the tough times when we are in life’s valleys and to make the high hills of the mountains low so that we can scale life’s difficulties together.  In this community of friends and disciples of the living God, we support and care for each another, support and care for others in our world, make meals for one another, pray for one another, sit at the bedside of one another, and when the valley is the darkest, we attend the funerals and memorials of one another.  When one of us stumbles, we all help each other stand back up.  Time and time again, I have seen this community reach out and gently lend a hand or strong back to lift one another out of pain and sorrow.  I have seen you walk with each other through terrible diagnoses, horrible illnesses, losses of job or career, constantly embodying this voice of God, “Comfort, O comfort my people!”  When one of us is weak, the rest of us lend a shoulder.  When one stumbles, we all extend the right hand of fellowship steadying each other until we are all walking again, building up one another and bridging the low places, while also and tearing down the high obstacles and making straight the paths back to our new Jerusalem. 

In our cottage meetings this last fall, I heard this voice of comfort spoken in so many ways by you, the people of God.  Stories of support and love when someone had come to the end of their rope.  Stories of how the community had loved and supported one of us when hope had vanished and the horrors of exile had become too much.  And our voices cried out, “Comfort, O comfort my people.”

This is the essence of our faith community.  To be fully present with one another, lifting up hope to every one of us when there does not seem to be any hope left.  We walk with each other when one of us is in pain, we witnesses the complexity of each other’s chaotic lives.  When things get messy, we embody these words to each other, “Comfort, O comfort my people.”

We are now the messengers who are lifting up the low valleys by sending shoes to Africa.  We are the messengers who are tearing down high un-scalable mountains by providing food for those who have none in Thanksgiving baskets.  We are preparing a straight pathway for the coming of Jesus.  We are the voice crying in the wilderness of 21st century America.  We cry out, “Jesus is coming.  Jesus is coming in hope.  Jesus is coming in peace.  Jesus is coming in joy.  Jesus is coming in love.”  In community together, we are the wilderness messengers of God.  And with the love of Christ as our beacon and our guide, we are living out our calling as a comforting community to one another, and to the world.  Think about how we have comforted the world this holiday season: food for the hungry, angel trees for children otherwise without, mitten trees of warmth, gift shares for Columbus House, generous gifts through benevolence that are both local and global.  We are the Comfort of God into this fractured world.  We are living Mark’s message that we are not worthy to tie the sandals of the one who comes after us, but telling everyone that Jesus comes this way soon.  Watch and wait!  Jesus guides us, comforts us, and leads us into everlasting peace.  We are the messengers that guide, comfort and bring peace to the world in the name of Christ.

So, Come, dear Jesus, Come.  Come and comfort us all.  We dare to be your people and prepare the way for you into the world.  We wait in hope. 

[sing] O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,  and comfort us, O God of Israel!