Forgiven and at Peace
Isaiah 40:1-11
Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
A voice says, ‘Cry out!’
And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’
All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.
Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
‘Here is your God!’
See, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.
Today’s passage begins with a prison metaphor. God’s chosen people have served their time, and they are entering into a new era— an era of security and peace that was promised to them. But church, at this point, God’s people had been through a lot, and it wasn’t over yet. Slavery, punishment, seemingly never-ending uncertainty. That’s not something a people can get over quickly. There are memories, worries, what-ifs—there’s trauma.
Do you remember in the early days of this pandemic, there were all those well-meaning but kind of corny ads, “we’re all in this together.” A nice sentiment, sure—and it is true…. it’s true in that we’re truly experiencing a collective trauma. Of course we’re all different people and we’re feeling it on different levels, but we’re all feeling some sense of isolation, some sense of change, all of our lives have been upended in some way. And I think just about all of us are worried about our or our loved one’s health, safety… I think all of are desperately wanting some peace of mind.
But here’s the good news—God always keeps God’s promise. That’s what this passage is all about. God might seem absent right now, like God seemed during the exile, during the wanderings in the wilderness. God seems far away right now, just as we actually are far away from our loved ones. But God is coming. In Isaiah, God is coming as a shepherd of peace and comfort—for us, in less than three weeks, we’re reminded that God is coming in the form of a baby, born in a manger. And with that reminder, God slowly becomes more present. With that reminder, we are aided in shaking our anxieties and worries, remembering that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is coming as a shepherd, to gather us in his arms and keep us safe, regardless of our earlier transgressions. And church, we need safety now. We need to know that we’ll be okay. We need to know that we are loved and forgiven.
But in reading this passage, I had so much trouble getting past that first section, that first metaphor, I was really stuck on it. This metaphor of imprisonment, of paying their debt. God’s chosen people have served their term—they have paid their penalty, and are ready to reenter society—to be freed from the prison of exile. Now generally speaking, one of the goals of a sermon is to make the scripture applicable to today’s world. But I really struggled with this metaphor because we live in a country that has the highest incarceration rate in the world—a country where people have been given life sentences for first time drug offenses, a country where the mentally ill are thrown in prison instead of given the healthcare they need. And when people are released after serving their sentence, we, as a country, more often than not do not give these highly vulnerable people what they need to re-enter society. They come out scared and traumatized, and those without families or loved ones are essentially just thrown to the wolves, leaving them exposed and susceptible to falling to the same traps, leading to a vicious cycle of being incarcerated again and again. Church, we live in a country that doesn’t bother to prepare or support those reentering society—as I see it then, we live in a country that is desperately lacking compassion. We live in a country that doesn’t forgive. We know from this passage that God forgives—in fact, God goes beyond forgiving, promising double for God’s people’s sins. We know God loves us unconditionally, and will always forgive us, will ultimately welcome us all into the kingdom. But it’s not enough to just know that. Knowing this might give us a little peace of mind, but is it enough to feel truly peaceful, to feel truly safe in the world we live in?
Last week I had a conversation with our own Sherrie Greeley about a project this church will hopefully be involved in, probably in the Spring—similar to our backpack drive for school kids, this would be a backpack drive for people recently released from prison. Because so many formerly incarcerated people do enter this world with no money to their name, and often little to no support from family or friends, they would receive a backpack with essentials—toiletries, basic clothing needs, etc, for some sort of boost, some sort of recognition that you’re out and you might need a little help, a little support. You might need to have a mountain lowered, a valley lifted, you might need a highway to make it through the desert. And it is also a recognition that you deserve to make it, that you are forgiven.
Since we live in a culture that refuses to forgive people, we have to do our best to do what God does, and what Jesus asks of us, to forgive all people, to help all people. We can’t forget what Jesus says in Matthew 25: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these members of my family, you did it to me.” Church, just as we have to prepare a way for the coming of the Lord, we have prepare a way for the least of us. We have to prepare a way for the most vulnerable in our society, alongside a way for the Lord.
Historically, in the time when this section of Isaiah was written, it was still a time of instability and uncertainty for the Jewish people. It was a time of near constant political and cultural upheaval and the Jewish people were always in fear of losing their traditions and in turn, in fear of losing their God. They were still living in occupied territories, still feeling othered, less than, stigmatized, even as they were technically freed from exile. But as absent as God may have seemed, God never left them, would never leave them, and this comforting passage is a reminder of that. It is a reminder that God is with us in the midst of a pandemic and isolation. But just as I spoke last week of not being passive and despairing in the midst of strange and discouraging times, we must also not be passive and complacent. This passage is lovely and peaceful, it makes sense that it’s a very traditional reading for the second Sunday of Advent. But this passage isn’t about God making the path easier for us—it’s about us making the path worthy of God! With the tools that we are given by God, it is our job to prepare the way for God, for Jesus. It’s our job to build a world where we treat all those as we would treat Jesus. It’s our job to make sure everyone feels safe, feels protected, feels at peace.
We’re definitely living in a time of political uncertainty, of transitions and unknowns, a time of divisions and fear. This certainly doesn’t feel like a peaceful time, and neither did it for the Jews, even as they were being freed from exile. And even as we look forward to a post-COVID world, we also look ahead to so much uncertainty. We will look ahead never forgetting this past year, never forgetting the trauma that we have experienced as a nation, never forgetting this sentence we have served together. And we will have to work very hard to heal.
In an article I read from a few years ago about people who had served prison terms for crimes they didn’t commit, one exonerated woman was quoted as saying, “People worked really hard to get us out, and then we’re out and nobody knows what the heck to do with us.” And the same goes for people who are released after serving terms for crimes they did commit—there’s just not enough support. There’s just not enough forgiveness. If God’s people coming out of exile receive double for the time they’ve served, the least we can do as a society is give vulnerable, traumatized people what they need to survive. Living in the midst of all this uncertainty, of this tumult, it’s easy to be ignorant of those who need our support and forgiveness. It’s easy to ignore those who are made invisible by the stigma this culture brands people with. That’s what hate does, that’s the division does—it makes us blind to the circumstances that allow for someone to end up in exile. It leaves us only willing to look at the surface, only willing to see the worst in people.
It’s hard fighting for change, fighting to preserve the dignity of all people on God’s earth when so much in this world is working to make us hate and fight one another. As Jesus said, “as you did to the least of my family you did to me.” And as Martin Luther King Jr said, “no one is free until everyone is free.” And as we talked about last week, Jesus isn’t coming back until we create a heaven here on earth, until we prove that we are worthy.
I want to work towards a world in which we don’t have to collect backpacks of basics for people entering reentering society after paying their debt and experiencing so much trauma in prison. I want to work towards a world where we don’t have to beg and plead people to wear masks for the good of the most vulnerable. I want to work towards a world where it is a given that we are all fed and clothed and nurtured. I want to work towards a world bursting with compassion, a world where forgiveness is a given. And that is what we’re doing, church—because projects like this backpack project for formerly incarcerated people not only helps people in practical ways; it also helps to break a stigma. It helps people to know that regardless of what they have done, they are forgiven, and they are worthy of love, they are worthy of safety, they are worthy of peace. This is what Jesus asks of us.
We don’t have long on this planet, church—the fact that we’re nearing 300,000 COVID deaths is grim evidence of that. After all, as this passage notes, “all people are grass.” And like grass, like flowers, we will wither and fade. But the word of God lasts forever. And remember the scripture last week? “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.” We don’t have a lot of time. No one should have to spend their short and fragile lives on this planet worrying, scared, feeling othered, feeling exiled, feeling unsafe. It’s a true sin that in a country this wealthy, that there are so many people struggling to be fed, struggling to feel safe, struggling for peace—that people become so desperate to survive that they do something that lands them in prison. But these promises from God, these teachings from Jesus… these remain eternal truths.
There is so much healing that needs to be done, church. We need to heal as a country. We need to be aware of the trauma that individuals experience, that we are all experiencing. We need to be aware that there are systems in place in this country that are broken, and that are contributing to this trauma—contributing to the trauma of those who have paid their debts but still are not forgiven. These are systems contributing to our collective trauma—trauma of a people waiting, begging for help, and only receiving conflicting information, confusion and chaos in return.
We are waiting for that gentle shepherd to envelop us. We are waiting to be gathered in his arms, to be held to his bosom. It’s Advent. We are waiting. But remember, church—we must actively wait. We must work. We must prepare a world that is worthy of Jesus. We must prepare a world that is free of fear and hate and stigma. We must prepare this perfect world by recognizing our transgressions, our own biases, our own sins. We must recognize broken systems and work to fix those systems in order to heal this trauma, and prevent others from experiencing this pain in the future.
Imagine building a world that is so perfect that when Jesus comes back, we are receive double love, joy, compassion and peace despite all our previous transgressions. Because that is God’s promise. Let’s work to heal this national trauma, let’s work to make it known that all are forgiven. Let’s work to make everyone feel safe, feel at peace.
