Hymn to Joy

The poetry of Isaiah is the bridge over which we walk from the Hebrew Bible to the Christian Testament. It is a beautiful bridge that feeds our souls and also fed the soul of Jesus. Only the Book of Psalms, in all the Hebrew Bible, is quoted more times than Isaiah by our Lord himself. We want to read what Jesus read, quote what Jesus quoted, believe what Jesus believed. In two weeks, my last Sunday here, I will speak once again from Isaiah: Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” These are the words Jesus read when he launched his ministry many years ago in Nazareth. Here we are today, living into the beauty and wisdom of Isaiah. We might think of our text today as a song, a hymn, a hymn to joy. There are four stanzas, and I have felt no compulsion to add new verses. But I will say this: these 11 verses from the 40^th chapter of Isaiah, more than any other portion of the Bible, inspired George Frederic Handel in 1741 to write his masterpiece, called simply, “Messiah.” In fact, that oratorio begins with the opening words of this chapter, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” A half dozen other phrases in these verses made their way into that grand piece of Christian music. I cannot touch on all of them; neither can I give equal attention to these four stanzas. I want today to speak from verse one, about the comfort of God. I will brush over lightly stanza two, “And the glory of the lord shall be revealed” from verse five, and also from verse eight, “The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” In addition to the comfort of God, I want to focus on the care and compassion of God, inspired by those tender words in verse 11, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, holding them close to his heart.” This four-stanza hymn in Isaiah chapter 40 may be what you need today. It is a hymn to joy.  We as Baptists are accustomed to leaving out verses of a hymn as we sing, so why not do that to the hymn here in Isaiah. My prayer is this: that reading this poem will inspire you, that my preaching from this poem will comfort and consecrate you, and that our receiving the word of God through this poem might help us to be strong, generous, and faithful followers of Jesus our Lord. After all, our joy is in Jesus, risen from the dead and living in and through us. I “Comfort my people,” the Lord tells the prophet. “Tell them her sad days are gone.” Who does not need to hear this good word? We do, especially after all the anxiety generated by the national election. We do, after all the damage created by the storm. We do, and each of us could add a string of personal and private things that fall under the category “sad days.” What is on your list? We have a tendency to personalize promises like this, to apply them to the tension at home, the fallout at the office, and the struggles at school. That is not wrong. We need to comfort one another with a word of kindness and courage. But this good word in Isaiah is directed toward Jerusalem. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” the Lord tells Isaiah. Jerusalem is a city, it represents an entire people, the Hebrew people, the Jewish people, the people of God. In that sense it speaks to us as the people of God. In that sense it speaks to God’s people everywhere. The messenger of God addresses all people everywhere with the good news of faith, hope, and love. We summarize the gospel word with our slogan, Singing with Joy and Living with Hope. This message goes to people emerging from sadness, desperation, and danger. The Hebrew people at the time of this poetry were at the end of their captivity, the Babylonian captivity. Nebuchadnezzar, the great Babylonian emperor and dictator, had captured Jerusalem, destroyed the city, and taken many of her people into captivity. It lasted at least 70 years and then they were free to return home, to Jerusalem. They were the first people to hear this stanza one: “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her that her sad days are over.” This is the message people hear when the war is over, or when they are released from prison, or when they ring the bell to announce that their cancer is gone. Your sad days are over. As I look around the world, I see people who are longing to hear this word from Isaiah: people in Gaza, and Ukraine, and all of Latin America.  I will tell you who has needed to hear it for years and who heard it afresh this week: the people of Syria. For a half century they have suffered under the iron rule of the Hassid family. Last week, Bashar al-Assad was run out of his country. The people there who walked in darkness, on them a light has shone. He was a tyrant, an evil man, a cruel man. He left in a hurry; he flew to Moscow; he was taken in by another tyrant. To the people of Syria, the good news comes, Comfort the people. Tell them their sad days are gone. Tell them it is over. Do you know the first thing they did? The people rushed to the state prisons, opened the gates, and released the prisoners! Thousands of people are desperate to find loved ones. They picked up scraps of paper that might contain some clue; they talked to anybody and everybody hoping to find some news. That is hymn verse number one: comfort the people and open the prison gates. Not just Jerusalem, but the United States needs to hear this because we are the number one jailed nation in the world. More of our people are in jail than anywhere, and a greater percentage of our people are jailed than anywhere. It is an indictment of our system of justice and mercy. We need the comfort of God, especially to those behind bars. II. Hymn verse number two is familiar to all of us: “A voice is crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the path through the wilderness, clear a way through the wilderness…for the glory of the Lord will be reveal and everybody will see it together.’” That is worthy of preaching. Many years later, Jesus was among those who thought of John the Baptizer as “the voice crying in the wilderness.” Hymn verse number three is also familiar to us and full of the truth, “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.  Some things come and go, including you and me, and this church; but some things remain, like the word of God. But I want to move on to verse four. Jerusalem is commanded to shout it from the mountains, The Lord is coming! The Lord is coming! The Lord is coming! Sure enough, the Lord came. His name was Jesus. His story is told in the four gospels. His birth story is told in two of the gospels, and Marcy will preach from those texts next week. And we will celebrate his coming on Christmas Eve. Our service is at 5:30 pm. Please come and bring your family and your friends—I know those two are not always the same! Christmas Eve is a grand time around the world. Churches are full, musicians are at their best, and candles are lit as we sing, here in our church, Away in a Manager and also Silent Night, Holy Night. But many churches have another Christmas tradition, Messiah. For six years, I was pastor of Third Baptist Church of Owensboro. Because our sanctuary was large and beautiful, we hosted the community performance of Messiah. I remember vividly the time I welcomed the crowd of 1300, every seat taken is that century old sanctuary. I walked up the church aisle to the foyer, stopped to listen for a while, then up the stairs to the balcony—the best seats—none available for me, so I leaned against the door way to the sanctuary, and listened, just as the alto solo began, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, and he shall gather the lambs with his arms.” It struck me with such force, such emotion, such pathos, that I began to cry. Have you ever been moved to tears by some piece of music that touched your soul? With all that glory and grandeur, we forget that the Lord came, not as a hero, not as a general, not as a commander. He came as a servant, a slave, a shepherd. “I am the good shepherd” he later said, according to John in his gospel. Jesus read Isaiah. Jesus memorized Isaiah. Jesus quoted Isaiah. “And he shall feed his flock like a shepherd.” Not, and he shall conquer with the sword; not, and he shall incarcerate his enemies; not, and he will rule with power and authority. The justice and fairness Messiah brings is born of love and care and compassion, not power and authority and force. Comfort, comfort my people. Speak tenderly to them. Tell them their trauma is over. Tell them the night is passed. Tell them her sins are forgiven. That is the good news of God. That is the kingdom of God. That is the Messiah of God. A week ago yesterday, Bob Bradley and I met here at the church just before nine in the morning. We had rakes and wheelbarrows and mulch. We had a lot of work to do. Before beginning our work, I walked around the property, just looking. I walked down the house driveway to the back and around the corner, there where the covered alcove is; and there on the gravel, by the door, was a man sleeping. It was very cold, you recall, and he was wrapped in a sleeping bag. Beside him was his wheeled cart, packed with all his stuff. I stopped for a moment then walked on to the parking lot. I retrieved something from my car then walked back to the sleeping man. I quietly said, “Good morning.” He stirred. A minute later, I spoke again, “I’m going to open the church, and you can come in and get warm.” He stirred some more. I left to go about my business. A few minutes later, I noticed him standing in the driveway, stretching and dressing and gathering his things. I was spreading mulch around the shrubs by the back door. The visitor, whose name I later learned is Eric, came walking toward me. “I’m going to get some coffee at Burger King,” he said. “Do you have some money?” I asked. “I have two dollars,” he said. I pulled out a few more dollars from my pocket and handed it to him. “Thank you,” he said, then added, “Thank you for waking me up this morning so gently.” He turned and walked toward the back lot. I stood there and replayed the conversation. “Thank you for waking me up so gently.” I couldn’t help but imagine how often he had been awakened by a boot striking his ribs or a string of curse words or a bucket of water on his face. Thank you for waking me up so gently. Sometimes, gospel work is just being kind to a stranger. God bless all of you who do it every day, every week, every Sunday afternoon for Eric and all his people.