Isaiah 52   The Postman

The context for the first writing of this sermon was a class at Princeton Seminary for my master’s degree in preaching. I have used it several times over the years since I love the concept of beautiful feet bringing good news.

When I was growing up on a farm in Northwest Iowa, I would often look for the cloud of dust rising over the hill to the south that signaled the approach of the postman with the daily mail.

He carried the newspapers, the letters, the postcards – yeah this was a long time ago. When communication was done by hand and the equivalent of today’s texting was done on postcards. As the postman drove the country roads, his wheels would kick up a cloud of dust and when we saw that at about the same time each day, we knew he was on the way to our neighborhood.

 Everything he brought was eagerly anticipated. I couldn’t help thinking about that scene as I thought about what it would have been like to see the approach of the messenger in ancient times. Our postman came daily with news from all over the world. When my neighbor was in the navy, his ship was a part of the blockade of Cuba during the presidency of John Kennedy. We would pore over the newspapers to see if there was ever any mention of his ship.

When my brother was serving with the Air force in Vietnam, the newspaper was the primary source of information about his unit. And always, it was brought to us by the postman, his wheels churning up a cloud of dust a mile away and heralding his approach. And always we would wonder what sort of news he would bring.

The approach of the messenger was similar in the ancient world. The Scriptures contain more than one story about seeing a messenger approach, but I want to point us to one in particular.

In II Samuel 18, King David had fled from Jerusalem when his son Absalom had tried to take the throne of Israel in what we would call a coup. The matter came down to a battle between the troops loyal to David and those who were siding with Absalom. After Absalom is killed, the battle winds down, and there are two messengers dispatched from the battlefield to the city where David was left for protection.

 A watchman, studying the   landscape from the roof of the city gate, saw first only one of the runners and reported that fact to the king. Then the second runner became visible and the watchman said, It seems to me that the first one runs like Ahimahaz the son of Zadok. And David replies, He is a good man, he brings good news.

But they do not know for sure until the runner arrives to announce the message. Undoubtedly, that was typical of the way the sequence often worked itself out. First the runners are sent. Then, the watchmen saw them and tried to guess what the message would be. And third, the messenger actually arrived and spoke the message.

That is the situation that lies behind this passage in the prophecy of Isaiah 52. Jerusalem has been destroyed. Zion, the city of God, has been lying waste for many years. She has become a widow with no children. No one is left to care for her. Her busy streets and markets are silent. Her walls, once thought to be impregnable, have been broken through in many places. The mountain peaks, once the boast of her generals, now look more like monstrous jaws about to crush her bones in order to extract the last of the life-giving marrow inside.

In this vision, Isaiah surveys the tragic state of Jerusalem. He lifts his tearful eyes to the mountains. Those mountains of which Israel had sung about on their way to worship. I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of the heavens and the earth.

 Isaiah needs a message from the Lord, the king, the lord of hosts, the mighty one, for these broken people. They have borne their exile from the land not with stoic confidence, but with hearts heavy with grief. He needs a message from the Lord, his helper, the helper of Israel. Isaiah needs to spark the imaginations of those exiles, to set a fire of hope and faith burning in their hearts.

 It was like the days in my youth when the postman brought the newspaper telling of how the air base my brother was stationed at had come under attack. And every day we would lift our eyes to the hills waiting, waiting, for the messenger, the postman to bring  us a letter that would tell us, I’m OK.

We needed to hope, but all we had to go on was “no news is good news.” Until….. again the letter would arrive. We would heave a sigh of relief and lift a prayer of thanks that all was well. For us it was a matter of only days, at most a week.

 Israel had given up hoping. It had been too long. People who had been children when they were led away into captivity were now grandparents. They needed a strong message of hope to stir them. And Isaiah finds that message for these despairing exiles in the vision of the sighting of a messenger.

 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news. A messenger is coming. A messenger is coming over the mountain pass. His running is like that of Ahimahaz the son of Zadok. He is a good man. He brings good news.

 Israel, do you know what the messenger means? It means your God is still in this world battling for you. The lord has not abandoned you after all. Look! God has sent his messenger and you can see he brings good news.

 Indeed, the letter they carry is one of tremendous good news. They have been commissioned to proclaim peace, to bring good news. To proclaim salvation, to say to Zion, Your God reigns!

The messengers shout Peace. Not an empty peace like the false prophets had done just before the exile. They had said, Peace, Peace, when there was no peace. Those messengers were not sent to proclaim the sovereignty of the Lord. But these are. T

he messengers kick up a cloud of dust as they run. Never mind the dust, these are beautiful feet. No more hanging your heads in sorrow. Lift up your heads. Redemption is drawing nigh!  These messengers, Israel, these messengers bring good news!

Oh, those elderly Jews who had been led in captivity from Jerusalem would have remembered what it looked like to have those messengers coming over the mountain passes near Jerusalem. The last time they saw such a thing, it had been messengers bringing really bad news of the approach of the Chaldean army that was destroying the land as it moved toward the capital. And ultimately destroyed it.

Isaiah stirs their imaginations and that of their children and children’s children by telling them of a vision of a new set of messengers approaching over the mountain passes. These messengers bring good news of peace. Your God reigns!

What I find fascinating about his vision and this passage from Isaiah as we read it in this year of our Lord, is this, I hear the messengers shouting to me. In my mind’s eye I  see the cloud of dust and it reminds me of the way we looked for the postman and the news he would bring us of battles half-way around the world.

And I feel in my heart the stirring of hope that comes when the messenger is on the way. In our day of instant communications, we still long to hear good news don’t we?

 In my classes on the media at the University of Phoenix, we have a week devoted to how the news affects our view of the world. And the truth of the matter is that for many of us, the way we see the world is colored by what we hear on the news. What we see on the news.

And it is such bad news, isn’t it? I have many students, and they tend to be in the age range of 25-35, who have stopped listening to the news because they cannot stand it anymore. They find their lives being weighed down by the bad news that seems to grow stronger every month.

So they begin to follow the news about celebrities and devour all the news about Kim Kardashian and her baby bump.

They want to know what cool thing Kathy Gifford did to shock the world on New Year’s eve.

They want to follow Lady Gaga on Twitter so that they can know that the world is OK because Lady Gaga had lunch today.

They will follow the news about whomever they can, just so they do not have to listen to the bad news that is marching over the mountain passes in their lives.

No work. No money. No  life. It pains me to see this. I turn my eyes to the hills, and I ask, where does my help come from? My help is in the name of the Lord, the creator of the heavens and the earth. So I realize that what I need to do is hear again the messengers shouting out to me, Your God reigns.

Because I will readily confess that I am all too saturated by the bad news. I hear bad news every day. No matter where it is coming from. We are in trouble in the world. There is not much of a future for my children and grandchildren. The lure of the almighty dollar is turning far too many eyes toward the lives of the rich and famous.

 We want the rich to pay. We want the rich stop oppressing us and our families. We want freedom. But we have no freedom when we find ourselves in debt up to our ears.

But wait, I hear the voice of the messenger shouting out good news! Your God reigns! There will be peace. there will be salvation. You just need to lift up your eyes, redemption is drawing near!

My students need to be able to see that modeled for them. They are longing for someone somewhere, somehow, to bring them good news. And it is not just my students. It is the people of this city who need to hear good news. It’s people who work with you. Who live near you, who are burdened with pain, with sorrow, with defeat.

They need some good news. They need to hear that God has not given up on our world. A hundred years ago, a theologian named Abraham Kuyper was a messenger of peace for people. One of his favorite lines was, there is not one square inch of this world over which Christ does not say, it is mine!

Perhaps you saw it on your facebook page after the shooting in Newtown Connecticut. God why did you not stop the shooting? And God replies, I’m not allowed in school anymore.

When Christians think along those lines, its no wonder that people fall into despair. For we have swallowed the idea that if a few guys in Washington DC say that God is not allowed in the public schools, then God simply walks out. The good news of the messenger is that Your God reigns.

There may be rebellious pockets of resistance, but there is not one square inch of this world, over which Christ does not say, it is mine. That is still true.

 And the day will come when before the nations he will bare his holy arm and all the world will know that Jesus Christ is lord. And every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord.

 So church, lift up your heads! Salvation is on the way. Look, the messenger is on the mountain pass, he is kicking up dust as he runs. And he runs as though he is Ahimahaz the son of Zadok. He is a good man, he brings good news!

As you leave this place of worship today, may you go with a vision of the glory of God as king rising before you. Take a look at your feet, they are beautiful feet as you go into the world out there and you bring the good news that Our God reigns.

---

Isaiah 40 31 Hope in the Lord

The context for this message was the installation of a friend of mine as the pastor of a struggling church.

Isaiah 40:31 but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

That word hope is one which is difficult for us. We live in a culture that is rapidly losing hope, especially in the camp of those who claim to be believers in God. Oh my, Christians had better wake up and do something. I hear it again and again in the Facebook posts of my friends who are alarmed by developments in our country and around the world.

 There is no hope. There is no hope. Perhaps you have felt that way from time to time. Perhaps you have found that like Old mother Hubbard, you went to the cupboard to get your child some hope, and when you got there, the cupboard was bare. Alas, there is no hope! We have no future! We have no hope.

The thing about hope is that it is something that one cannot see. The book of Hebrews tells us that faith is the substance, the contents, of what we hope for. So when our hope cupboard is bare, our faith has very little in the way of contents either. When we have no faith, and no hope, our love runs dry. And we walk around as if we are those really popular things these days – the zombies – the walking dead.

Our lives are filled with pessimism and with doubt. We wonder if God is still in control of the world. We join our voices to those of the agnostics who say if God is good, he is not great, and if God is great, he sure ain’t good.

 We sound like what I imagine the people of Israel sounded like as they sat in Babylon and wept next to the river. They believed that all we lost. They had lost all their hope for a future. They had no reason to think that God had anything for them in their lives at all. They sat there and wept. And longed for the good old days when they sat under their olive trees and drank the wine from their grape vines. They longed for the times when they could go to the house of the lord to worship.

All that was now gone. They found themselves deep in despair.

No hope, no future, no reason to go on. We might as well close up shop and eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

Then they discovered an old manuscript from the prophet who had lived a hundred and more years before in the land of Judah. As they made their way through the book, they saw how Isaiah had again and again warned the people that God would not allow them to continue in their corrupt ways and that the day would come when they would be cast out of their land. And all it did was create more tears.

 Then they came to a section which we call chapter 40 and there they read, comfort, comfort my people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her that she has received double for all her sins. Then as the lines continued, they came to a place where the great prophet had written this – those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

The word Isaiah used was an old, old word in the Hebrew language. It originally meant to twist two things together— it was like making a rope. When I think about that I get the image of twisting myself into a relationship with God. Isaiah says that when I do that I am engaging in hope.

 But here is the thing, to do that twining of myself into God, I need to believe that he is capable of helping me.

 Isaiah says, Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? 22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. Why do you complain, Jacob?

 Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”?

28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall

; Then he goes on,

but those who twine themselves with God will renew their strength, they will rise up in wings like eagles!

Like R Kelly the hip hop artist who has some real evil in his life, but he had this wonderful song, that goes like this

I used to think that I could not go on

And life was nothing but an awful song

But now I know the meaning of true love

I’m leaning on the everlasting arms

If I can see it, then I can do it

If I just believe it, there’s nothing to it

I believe I can fly

I believe I can touch the sky

I think about it every night and day (Night and day)

Spread my wings and fly away

 I believe I can soar

I see me running through that open door

I believe I can fly

 I believe I can fly

 I believe I can fly hoo  (Read more: R. Kelly – I Believe I Can Fly Lyrics | MetroLyrics)

Now, the biggest problem with this is summarized for us in a poster one can find in college bookstores. It features a flock of turkeys, and the caption reads, it’s hard to soar like an eagle when I’m surrounded by all these turkeys!

Yes turkeys can fly, but only with great effort on their part. And they never soar like an eagle soars.

 A church secretary I had a few year back was, together with her husband, an avid birder. That meant that they always went to places where they could see birds they had not yet seen or where they could photograph birds they held in great esteem.

One summer she came back from a trip to the mountains of Idaho and had all these photos of an eagle’s nest. It was located on top of a pillar of rock that stood off from the rest of the mountain they were on. They had their telescope they used for birding focused on the nest and from time to time they would see the eagles bringing food for their young.

What is interesting about that is when an eagle hatches it is not feathered at all. But soon its feathers grow and it increases in size. But this is the important thing – eaglets don’t fly. They just sit there and enjoy the view. (I think there may be parents here this morning who can relate to that!) But when the eaglets are big enough and feathered, the parents need to teach them to fly like eagles.

Perhaps you have a hummingbird that visits your flowers like my wife and I do in our backyard. That hummingbird beats its wings so fast one can only see a blur- the wings are going about 50 times per second as it hovers to get a drink from the flowers it visits. Eagles don’t do that. Eagles have to do like the r Kelly song and they have to believe they can fly, that they can soar!

What that means is that the eagle is capable of staying aloft for extended periods of time with almost no energy output. They simply spread their wings and soar. That is one of the more amazing things about eagles. They don’t labor hard to remain aloft. They simply rely on the wind beneath their wings. One might say the eagle hopes on the wind. The eagle entwines itself with the wind and becomes something that it is not by itself. But combined with the wind, it soars.

 The baby eagle, when it first learns to fly, needs to learn to trust the wind. To let the wind lift it to heights far above the earth.

Isaiah says, those who entwine themselves with the Lord will renew their strength, they will rise on wings like eagles. That means that it is not up to us.

 If it is to be, it’s up to me, is a slogan I learned as a youth. But in the context of my flight with God I have discovered that if it is to be, it is up to God’s wind, his spirit beneath my wings.

In the Biblical languages the same word is used for wind and for spirit. As my good friend  takes the leadership role in this church, I want to remind him and all of you that, Lord, if it is to be, it is up to thee.

And Isaiah tell us that those who entwine themselves with God will renew their strength! This congregation has had some difficulties in the recent past. But, that does not mean that your cupboard is empty of hope. For where there is an empty cupboard today, God promises to blow with his wind and to lift you far above where you can get if you try to flap your own wings and fly like a barnyard turkey.

Just to end this with an image you might be able to relate to.

When we come to the end of a service, the pastor raises their hands and gives a blessing from God. It’s as if they are spreading their wings and getting ready to fly. So, when you see that, remember that when that blessing falls upon you, God is saying to you, You can fly. You can fly when you entwine with the God who wants to be your strength and your wind!

---

Is There a Balm in Gilead?  Psalm 4, Jeremiah 8: 18-9: 1,

Context for this message is an urban congregation finding themselves in a church conflict that had caused the atmosphere in the congregation to become toxic

When he was growing up, Ben was nourished and nurtured on the Word of God. By the time he was twelve, he had stood before the congregation and had declared that he was a follower of Jesus. He had gotten involved in the ministry of the church. He went on mission trips. He was a young man about whom I was grateful to God that he was one of those that I had the privilege of pastoring.

Then when Ben turned 18, he moved out of his home, he moved in with a girlfriend. He stopped attending worship. He told his friends that he no longer needed God. He was through with God. In fact, he told the elder who went to see him one day, I no longer am in need of fire insurance. You can keep your God and your church and I’ll get along just fine without any God.

 My heart breaks when such a thing happens. It seems to me to be so like what was going on in Jeremiah’s day when the people of Israel decided they no longer needed this God who was telling them what to do. They wanted a god they could tell what to do. They wanted to have their gods do for them all the things they wanted and so they started looking for a way to dump the god that was the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and instead found that they could manipulate the gods of the peoples around them. That was much more to their liking.

But they discovered that God, the true God, then brought them into judgment and they were carried off into a land that was not their own.

And suddenly they discovered that they were in dire need of the God of their fathers. And there is repentance and mourning. But God seemed so far away. And Jeremiah laments the sin of the people and he asks, is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?

 What is it that is going on here Lord? The cry of the people has gone up, the harvest is passed, the summer is ended and we are not saved. How long does it take for God to save us? We’ve repented for a few months now? How long does it take, O God?

The people have realized their sin, but, but where is God? Where is God? Where is God when it hurts so badly? What do we do now? In our lives too, we find ourselves going off on our own directions and we want our way or no way. And, I’m telling you, as the pastor of people like that, I find myself mourning over them.

 But I am not going to tell them they can go any way they like and that God will simply coddle them. I’m telling you that now.

When someone wants to go off in their own direction and not seek to humble themselves before God, I am going to be like Jeremiah. He was a man who no one listened to, but he was walking with God. Jeremiah was a man who did God’s bidding and was disliked by everyone. He did not have a great ministry.

In fact, most of us would say that he was way too stubborn. Couldn’t he figure out that the people didn’t want the sort of God he was proclaiming? Why keep it up?

I think the answer is in how Amos once put it; the Lion has roared who can but prophesy? But Jeremiah saw that to proclaim a different God was to miss out on the calling God gave to him.

 But all through church history, God’s people have tried to have the church made in their image rather than in the image of God. God’s people have not changed much over the years.

 Why, because I have people who are facing in two opposed directions and there will be no joint worship of the Lord, not if I have to worship with them! Then I’m out of here!

 Then I begin to weep over the way people on both sides of an issue define themselves in opposition to others. I am convinced we struggle not with flesh and blood with but with the principalities and the powers of this evil age. Then with Jeremiah I cry out to God, is there no balm in Gilead to heal these people? Is there no way to have a cure for the sinful heart that refuses to call on the name of a holy God with someone else who is not like themselves?

 I mean that! I weep over the way people act. I cry out to the Lord to seek his holy face and to ask him what do I do with these people who are so difficult to deal with? What do I do? then I realize what a friend I have in Jesus for I can take everything to him and he will hear and he will take my anxiety and my struggles and he will give me peace in their place.

How about you? Do you ever think too, wouldn’t it be great of we would just take everything to Jesus? Let’s sing of that together.  

BREAK to sing Whata Friend We Have in Jesus

Help us o God our savior, for the glory of your name! Help us o God, our savior for the glory of your name! As we read this we see that the psalmist really did have something to weep about. Jerusalem had been sacked and the temple had been defiled. The holy of holies had been trampled by heathen feet. and God had not reached out and saved his people.

Why not? well, it was because they had abandoned God long before and he was done with them.

 O help us God our savior. The people are learning to repent and come home to God. They are searching for a place of refuge in a world that is intent on destroying the place of the Lord’s dwelling. Just think of this. In our own day, here in the United States: every week we have about 20 churches that hold their first service of worship. There are about 20 new churches every week. Just think of that. In a year that’s over a thousand new churches. We can rejoice at that, can’t we!?

But maybe we need to also realize that every week in the United States 27 churches close their doors. So that we have a net loss of 7 churches every week. That’s over 350 in a year.

Since I have been a pastor, that means we have closed over 9000 more churches that we have started. I think you and I need to cry out to the Lord to save us here in the United States for we have become a nation that doesn’t want to have to put up with other people any more.

 We have rejected the Lord’s community of faith and we will soon be paying a heavy price for it. Oh Lord save us from ourselves! In this place and all over this nation. We are failing to uphold your righteous cause. We have instead gone each one his or her own way. We are a people who need to repent. God we need you so much!