Isaiah 35 & Matthew 11
“Are you the one who we’ve been waiting for Jesus? Or what?”
John is in prison. Things are not looking good. Emboldened
by God’s Spirit and maybe by the flocks of people coming to receive baptism,
John had spoken out against the tyrants of his time—Herod and Herodias—and they
heard the critique, were upset, and threw him in prison … and probably at this
point in the story, John’s whole sense of God’s plans are called into question.
Things are not looking good from the inside of the cell, so he calls out this
question to Jesus. “Is there any reason for hope? Are you the one or did I
stake my life on this God-mission for nothing?”
Whether or not we’re at John’s level of passion and
commitment, we’ve had something like that question go through our minds. It’s a
question about purpose, about where we put our hopes, and about wondering from
the middle of the story what the end will be.
These past couple of weeks, several of us at Christ have
been walking with and praying intently for the Humphrey family of Rock of Ages,
the Baptist church that worships in this space right after us. Pastor John
Humphrey gave me permission to share with you that their oldest daughter,
Jonnay, has been in jail. She was coerced at gunpoint to participate in a
robbery, and with the real criminals, she was incarcerated. Her faith has been
tested in jail. Doesn’t God hear our prayers? Then, why is she still in the
cell? Why is the bail so high? Why did this even happen to her? Knowing she was
vulnerable, why didn’t God protect her?
These are the questions we ask God on behalf of Jonnay…
these are the questions that rise up from the cell, when all looks bleakest…
when it seems as if God is powerless or not acting on behalf of God’s people at
all.
And here is what Jesus says in response to John’s deep
questions (and ours)—
People who have been unable to walk can now walk. People
covered with leprosy are now cleansed. People who could not hear can now hear.
People who live in poverty can look forward to a time when there will more than
enough…
God will release individuals and systems from these
disabling conditions, so that all interactions and relationships take place
according to God’s original purposes.[1]
And although some of God’s healing, then and now, is
literal—literally, people being given glasses and being able to see—I think
that Jesus is not saying that the physical cure is the main thing… because we
can all think of so many examples, then and now, of moments when a physical
cure just didn’t happen.
In fact, John’s story ends in a bizarre turn of events… with
his death.
John’s story ends, but the storyteller seems to be trying to
tell us that it is not the end for him, or for the God-movement that he was
part of… God’s work continues in Jesus, who is confident that God never gives
up offering the world opportunities to become more like heaven.[2]
And God’s work continues through “even the least in the kingdom of heaven”…
then and now.
Maybe we feel like “the least” as we wait and watch for
God’s action… maybe we feel like those exiles Isaiah describes—with weak hands,
feeble knees, fearful hearts, obscured vision, hindered hearing, broken bodies,
and silent tongues… I imagine that with that long list, there’s none of us who
can’t identify because either we have that physical challenge or we have it
metaphorically. This season, so many people have been utterly overwhelmed by
despair and weariness. Our capacities needed to move through this world have
been diminished. We’ve felt sorrow in our bodies, deep in our bones.[3]
But the good news is that God does not abandon us to our
despair. Our sorrow will come to an end, and on a day when the sick body will
find new life in God, Isaiah says the people of God will: “Come to Zion with
singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and
gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
It’s not just humans who will benefit, Isaiah describes the
whole creation will experience new life… and Isaiah in the end invites us into
this life-changing vision, giving us both something to do and something to
preach to others (you heard me right, you are all invited to be preachers in
your everyday life… sharing your reasons for hope and assurance with those who
are bent down by despair and hopelessness).
Here’s the invitation to courage:
Strengthen the weak hands and make
firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful
heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. God will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense. God will come and save you.”
That is not our usual picture of vengeance. It’s not our
usual picture of payback.
God’s way is to protect and save—and it’s for you… and for
everyone who needs to see this life and hear this word from you.
This morning, we’ll act this out. We’ll stand and sing.
We’ll confess our sins and hear them forgiven. We’ll pray for people like
Jonnay who are incarcerated and for all those who need healing—from physical
pain and for all the other kinds of fear and despair that make us unable to
move—and we’ll pray for confidence in God who has come in Jesus Christ and will
continue to come to save us.
And then at Holy Communion, you are invited up to receive
not only the bread and cup, the healing & restoring body of Christ… but to
receive prayers personally, through the laying on of hands of another sister or
brother in Christ who is clinging with you to the promise that this future that
Isaiah and Jesus describe is not just a dream unfulfilled. In fact, it has been and is and will continue to come
into being.
So we are invited to watch and walk with Jesus, the One, for
signs of the Holy Way, both as we wait and then as waiting comes to an end… and
God’s joy breaks through to us.
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