Isaiah 40:1-11
There
are times when I am on one of my yearly backpacking trips with Melissa when we
come upon a box attached to a tree in the middle of the trail. A sign on the
box will read. “Entering a ‘Wilderness Area’ please sign in before entering.”
The box when opened will contain a logbook and a pencil, which is to be used to
write your name there will be another box at the other side of the wilderness
area which is used to sign out, so when the trail rangers come by to check on
it, they can keep track of everyone who enters and leaves the wilderness area.
When
on the trail, when we are near state or national parks, or even near roads with
trail heads, we will often run into other hikers, mostly day hikers hiking to
the top of a nearby mountain or a popular loop trail. Something which can be
done in a few hours, so they can return home before evening. When we are in
wilderness areas, we are certain to not run into other people. Perhaps,
occasionally we will pass by someone else who has planned a two to three day
trip covering this section of the trail, or a through hiker who is somewhere
along their Appalachian trail journey, who have set aside 3-4 months of their
lives to hike from Georgia to Maine. But mostly we are alone.
These
wilderness areas, are quiet still places. The human influence is minimal. The wilderness
is a place where truly the wild things are, and live and call their home. Along
these sections of the trail we will often see deer or moose poop. In these wild
places where the beauty of God’s creation surrounds us, when we are far from
any town, road or trailhead, the only things around us are trees and wild life.
And although when we are safe in our kitchens pouring over trail maps and trail
books, we might think to ourselves, it might be neat to see some of the local
wild life, the last thing we would want actually to do is to startle a deer, or
a moose, or a bear, because we have been too quiet.
The
wilderness is a wild place, where only wild things live. These are lonely and
abandoned places. Visiting such places is aweing and a bit frightening. Losing
the trail, wandering too far off of the path, coming up on an animal all of
these are real dangers. They are places where humans really don’t “belong”;
places which are truly unsafe for humans. When we enter wilderness places we do
so carefully and cautiously.
The
wilderness, which is a more literal translation for the word “desert,” used in
the translation I read this morning, would have been a was similar kind of
place as a wilderness would be for us, except the wilderness, the desert, for
them, was an even wilder place, more lonely, more abandoned, and even less
touched by human presence than almost any place we might find here in the US.
The wilderness places, for them, were places without out water, without ready
food, teaming with wild animals and any humans who managed to remain there were
likely to be bandits and thieves. Wild places, full of wild things and were
fraught with dangers. They were places to be avoided and when traveling
anywhere all roads would take the long way around them and no traveler would
dare to take a “short cut” through.
The
people who are addressed in this passage are God’s people in exile. They had
wandered away from the kind of lives God had called for them to live. They had
not taken care of the widow, the orphan, or the foreigner. God had accused them
of swindling one another with dishonest scales, for trampling the poor and the
needy, as well as for abandoning God, worshipping other gods alongside God, as
well as instead of God. God had instructed them to change their ways through
the words of prophets. They had been chastised, they had been warned, but they
heeded nothing and no one. And so, as they had been told would happen if they
remained living as they were, they were taken away into the exile, where they
lived for several generations. And it is to these people who are living so far
from their home, from the land of their ancestors, from the place where they
belong, which the words of this passage are addressed.
God
calls to these people, living in exile, from across the wilderness, from across
the barren and desolate places, to these people in exile, and calls them home. These
are people who actually have no memory, except cultural memory of the place
called home. But like any displaced people they long for a place they have
never been. They know they do not belong where they are. We can only image how
lost and abandoned they must have felt. Their parents had told them why they were
here. God had abandoned them, had allowed them to be destroyed and taken away.
As much as they had been taught to long for “home” they did not truly
understand what home meant, what it was to actually belong somewhere.
It
is to these lost, alone and abandoned people God spoke. “Comfort, Comfort, my
people.” God says. Comfort them by telling them they are going home. God will
bring them home. They will finally return to the place where they belong. And a
voice calls out, “prepare the way!” Make a highway, build a road, plan a route,
have it go straight through the desert, don’t let it divert this way or that,
make it straight and smooth and even, make it the easiest road to travel which
has ever been built. This is the road for my people. This is the road down
which they will travel to take them to the promise land.
That
is where God is taking them, out across the desert, through the wilderness to
the land flowing with milk and honey. God is taking them to the land God had
promised to their ancestors Abraham and Isaac. God has heard their cry and once
again God is setting them free. God is rescuing them from the repressive rule
of their captors. God will once again lead them across the vast wilderness to
the land flowing with milk and honey, just has God had done before. But this
time, in this second Exodus, God will lead them down out of Babylon and
straight home. They will not take a long circuitous 40 year wandering. God will
not even divert along the wildly traveled route going around the desert wilderness
following the rivers and valleys, the along the “safe,” well-travelled way. God
will make a wide, straight, highway, through the desert, across the wilderness,
down which they will travel, a way which will take them home via the quickest
route possible. God will lead them through the wilderness, watching and guarding
them all along the way.
And
then God lets them know these words of promise are not like anything else which
springs up in this world. God’s words are not like the flowers or the grass,
which all will wither and decay. When everything else passes away, God’s
promise will stand. God will lead them home, upon this they can rest assured.
The
final word they hear is a description of their God. “Here is your God,” the
voice cries out. Your God is a shepherd, who will lift you up. Like a shepherd
carrying the lambs, God will carry you. You will be held close to the bosom of
God, and gently led. “Here is your God,” a loving shepherd carrying for the
sheep, gently, kindly, leading you home, where you will be safe. Guiding you to
the place where you belong.
In
these days, when travel is discouraged, so many of us are perhaps longing for
home, but even those of us who do not live far from the places we call home, we
can find a deep longing for another time, another place when and where things
were different than they are right now. It is December at the end of the year 2020
and we are living in a foreign world, from the one we entered at the beginning
of this last year. This is a world where we all wear masks, unless we are
inside our own houses. This is a world where there is no singing in our worship
services, no handshakes or hugs or the caring touch on our shoulder when we
need to be comforted. Our sanctuaries
are unrecognizable with pews taped off and signs telling which direction we
must go. And some of us continue to be unable to be here in person and you “watch”
church from your living rooms. If you were able to make a recording of even simple
visit to the grocery store and send it to your January self, your January self
would not believe that it was a recording from life in just a few months’ time.
We live in a foreign land; a land of COVID and social distancing. And I don’t
know about each of you, but I long to go home, to go back to the place where I
belong, back to a world which makes sense and felt so much safer than the world
does today.
Although
this passage is addressed to the people of God living in exile in Babylon, we
too can listen and hear the words of God, as if they were for us. “Comfort,
comfort my people.” God will bring us comfort. God is with us in this place, where we are, at this time,
even with all that is going on. God has heard our cries. God will make a way
for us. A highway which will take us home, a safe way, a straight way and God
will lead us down that way. God will bring us Home. God will bring us to the
place where we belong.
I
don’t know about you all, but I need to hear these words this morning. I need
to hear words of comfort from God this morning. It brings me peace to hear and to
say, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” God will speak tenderly
to us this morning and remind us where it is we belong. As God promises a road
home, a road back to a more familiar world, a safer world, we can know this is
a promise which God is making for us today, just as God made it to those people
in their exile so long ago. God will make a way for us too. God will bring us out of this COVID exile. The
place to which we are going may not look like the place we remember from last
January, but it will be a better place, a place where God will be our comfort, to
which God will lead us, a place where God will care for us and guide us like a
shepherd does the sheep.
As
we look around at our world in chaos, as we see the fear and confusion in which
our nation currently finds itself we can find our rest, our comfort, our peace
in God. We will not live here forever. And we know that “Here” was never really
home. Even as God promises to lead us out of this troubling time we find
ourselves in, we can also know the home to which God ultimately leads is a
greater home, a better home. A world where God’s will is done, where God reigns
and God’s peace is known throughout the earth. One day we will be home again. Here
in our place of exile we can hear the words of the Lord to us this morning. Because
the Lord is our shepherd, God will hold us close, will take care of us and will
bring us home again. And now in this season of Advent waiting we are reminded
even as we are waiting for a vaccine, for a better world, a more stable world,
we are really waiting for something which this world cannot provide, the peace
we will know when Christ returns and where we will truly and finally be where
we belong. We can rest in the peace of God’s promise this morning to bring us
comfort, to make a way for us and to finally bring us home.
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