Isaiah 51:1-6
51:1 Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the LORD. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.
51:2 Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many.
51:3 For the LORD will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.
51:4 Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples.
51:5 I will bring near my deliverance swiftly, my salvation has gone out and my arms will rule the peoples; the coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope.
51:6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats; but my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.
Focus – even in times of uncertainty – Trust in God. God is steadfast and loyal
Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the LORD.
We live in unsettled times. There are marches and riots. There are cars being driven into crowds and it feels like we are sitting on the brink of war.
No one is talking, just yelling each other with louder and louder voices.
And the Lord our God says:
Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation;
Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats;
but my salvation will be forever,
and
my deliverance will never be ended.
Listen to me.
Have you ever had that moment where you are watching a movie or reading a book and you get so lost in what is happening you miss the timer going off on the stove and accidentally burn something you were cooking?
It is a fair statement to say that this has happened to me.
It can have a dark side sometimes. We get so wrapped up in our own thoughts or feelings and before we know it, we are lost. It can happen when we read or watch the news. We get so tied up in what is happening or in the argument we start to lose sight of what is going on in the big picture.
I feel like our 24 hour news cycle contributes to this. When there is a natural disaster, traumatic event, or political protest it seems like no matter where you look, on TV, in the newspapers, or in the coffee shop, it feels like there is no other conversation happening. It gets to the point where we start to go numb. We either check out and ignore it, or We get lost in the details and start to be consumed by it. Either way – It takes over our lives and thoughts and conversations and we get passionate about our opinions and when we get frustrated, we might start to think of the person that disagrees with our position in ways that are…. Uncharitable.
We have a tendency to label those that disagree with us or our opinions as wrong or fake. I would guess that if we were honest with ourselves, we have all been guilty of that tendency at one point or another in our lives. We take comfort in being “right” or at least in being surrounded by people that think like us. We get trapped in our own bubble.
It seems like all the drama happening around us is all consuming. It takes over the news, the conversations, and sets neighbor against neighbor.
And yet, the Lord says to us:
“Listen to me”
“Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the LORD.”
This particular passage is addressed to a people that had experienced pain and disgrace in exile after losing the city of Judah to the Babylonian Empire. God says to them “listen to me”
Don’t focus on the exile, the burning of Jerusalem, the death of king Zedekiah, or even your captivity. Listen to me and hear my promises. Even when you feel defeated and you might think that I have abandoned you
“Listen to me”.
The larger historical context of this passage is that in 539 BCE, the Persian general Cyrus the Great defeated the Babylonian armies. This is the time when Jews were scattered in the Babylonian diaspora and were being offered the opportunity to return home after a time of great despair. It looked like everything was going to be all right.
It was also a time of great change and upset. With change comes stress, and great changes are even more stressful.
This is true in our own lives. People are creatures of habit. Good or bad, we like routine. So when we change jobs, or move houses or our kids leave home, it’s stressful. Change is stressful.
The stories we knew to be true growing up are being challenged and our memories of places and times are being challenged and it’s stressful. Our churches are shrinking, and our neighborhoods are changing. Like the community in Isaiah, we find ourselves wondering about our direction. Asking questions like what could we have done differently, what should we have done? Where is God in all of this?
There is a lot of fear. Both by the people in our text and a lot of fear going on around us right now.
Lots of questions and lots of discussion and it feels a little overwhelming. The stress of this change is causing cracks in strong relationships and dividing communities, families, and friends.
And yet, just like God says to the people in Isaiah, the Lord says to us “Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples.”
Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many. Listen to me.
The “listen to me” that is repeated in this text isn’t a request. It is an imperative. This is God speaking through Isaiah to comfort Gods people. Reminding them that God has, can, and does do miraculous things.
God, through Isaiah is reminding us that change has happened before. God points us back at Abraham and Sarah – our common ancestors in faith. Abraham and Sarah were barren, and God promised them a child and that nations would be their descendants. We know from the stories they had a child named (isaac) laughter and birthed all the nations of Israel.
Through Isaiah, we are told “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats; but my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.”
The intent of this passage, as gruesome as it seems with its language of decay, is to reinforce the idea that time belongs to God and God’s promise of salvation is eternal. As God spoke through Isaiah, “Even as the heavens and the earth vanish, my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.”
We can take comfort in God’s promises to Isaiah’s community. We are invited to remember that the hope of Abraham and Sarah and the promises fulfilled are the promises given to us as well. These are our spiritual ancestors. God reminds us of this saying “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug”
We are cut from the same spiritual quarry as they are. Breaking a rock does not change its chemical composition. It does not erase its foundational elements. Knowing that we are cut from the same rock as Abraham and Sarah, God is inviting us to remember their hope as we read – Their hope is our hope.
While we see and experience time in a linear fashion, we need to see and to understand that the faith and hope of our ancestors flows from Abraham and Sarah to Isaac to Jacob to Judah and down through the generations all the way to Jesus in whom we see and experience hope and salvation from our ancestors.
Understanding our spiritual history brings us back to thinking about all that is going on in the world today. The unrest. The divisions between neighbor and friend. The questions. The shrinking church. The changing landscape of our world and environment. Amidst all this God says:
“Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the LORD. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.”
It is our call to look to the promises made to our ancestors. We see those promises and can remind each other of the miracles that God has done even when we are trapped in hopelessness.
Amidst the chaos of the world, the divisive conversations and the fights between friends and neighbors, God is calling us to listen to the promises of God. It is God’s promise stretching from our ancestors across the generations to us here and now that will inform how we interact with friends, neighbors, and our own history. God calls us to remember God’s promises and obey God’s commands to “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” Even as we live through this discontented moment, we know the hope of our ancestors is our hope. We know that all of these things will pass away, but the promises of God are eternal.
Matthew Messenger 