4/21/63

Scripture: Isaiah 43: 1-12.

There are some among us who have been through deep waters this past week. As a matter of sober truth, no week passes, no day passes, but that someone, or some people, find that the going is hard -- sometimes seemingly impossible. Among those who find that life has taken a dismaying and difficult turn, there are usually some whose outlook and faith sustains them, in the knowledge that they are not alone. They have help in bearing the burden of adversity. And that help is enough to make their own challenged strength sufficient.

We have just sung the hymn: “God Himself Is With Us.” It is not set to contemporary popular music. Its words were not recently composed. It is 200 or more years old. It is not a hymn that is long familiar to many in the Congregational Christian churches. It may be more generally known among some of the Evangelical and Reformed people who now make up the United Church of Christ. It is a good hymn. It celebrates a good idea; a great conviction. First of all it proclaims that God is with us. Then it urges those attitudes in worship that help us to open ourselves wide to the knowledge-in-experience that God is with us in whatever state we find ourselves. Life may be filled with brimming joy; or with overwhelming sorrow. Either can be borne the better for the assurance that it is shared by the Father of our spirits. I am always impressed by the comparative competence with which confident Christians bear their burdens and their reverses and their sorrows.

The prophets of Israel were people who had an unusual awareness of God’s presence. Sometimes it was their lot to proclaim God to people who had forgotten the Presence. Sometimes their mission was a witness to heighten, or make more vivid, the awareness of God working among people. Isaiah was one of the great prophets of Israel. And it is from some of his proclamations that our scripture lesson today is chosen. The writing is in poetic form. But that form frequently enables a writer to impress truth in a way that would be quite unconvincing in prose.

But now thus says the Lord,

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters I will be with you;

And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

When you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God,

The Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

It seems to be a description of the amazing grace of God. The prophet could proclaim God’s judgment in fiery language. “But now” he is proclaiming the grace of God. God is never finally defeated. He persists, even with these Israelite people who are often unrepentant and unresponsive. Goodness is like that. It persists in, and through, and even in spite of perversity. The grace of God is that.

A correspondent of Robert Rainy was troubled over lack of vital religion and sinfulness. Rainy wanted him to know the assurance of forgiveness and strengthening renewal. So he wrote to him: “Grace is goodness that triumphs over all reasons to the contrary.” It may be when the situation appears utterly desperate that God graciously intervenes.

Isaiah was assuring Israel that God intervenes in the life of their nation. The prophet was sure that God had created it, and fashioned it, and that he will not forsake the work of his own designing. Israel must have been formed for a particular purpose. However unworthy she may prove to be, however unresponsive to him, the Creator can be counted on not to abandon the purpose on which he has embarked.

Generations later, Paul was saying to Christian people [Philippians 1: 6], “I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” People --- individual persons like you and me, Paul seems to be saying --- can count on this great persistence on the part of God. He will overrule our errors and perversity and his good will be accomplished. It can be accomplished, sooner and better, if we are sensitive to what we think is his will, and set ourselves to doing it.

The same is true of the church. We may become discouraged with the church at times when she seems so ignorant and even unaware of the resources of God at her disposal to help redeem society. But, if we find ourselves discouraged, it is well to remember again that God created the church, that his Spirit is a gift to her, and that (as Paul told the Romans) “the gifts and call of God are irrevocable.” [Romans 11: 29]. God is not finished with his church, nor with any of its members, nor with the rest of his creation.

Even when Israel was in exile, its people are reminded that God has redeemed them. The second part of Isaiah has in it the distinctive assurance that God’s very reputation is at stake. He will not allow those who had been called His people to become such a disappointment that He had to abandon them. “I have called you by name, you are mine,” says the Lord through this prophet. [Isaiah 43: 1]. He was talking to people who were in real trouble. They felt crushed as a nation; they were often discouraged as individuals and without much hope. The ordeal with which they were confronted is described as a passage through fire and waters. And the prophet proclaims God’s gracious assurance of his companionship throughout the trouble. There is no intimation that the circumstances will be made less terrible. Neither did Jesus, at a later time, find his crucifixion less terrible. But the difference is God’s presence. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”

There is an incident related of an eminent British surgeon whose skill was so great that many others wished to see him operate in order to learn of his art. He was so famous that his government had knighted him and he was known as “Lord Moynihan” of Leeds. He was, on the occasion described, operating before a group of exceptionally distinguished surgeons from many lands. Someone later asked him how he could do his work unperturbed before all those men of skill with their eyes fastened on his hands, watching intently from all over the operating theater. “Well,” he replied, “it is like this; there are just three people in the theater when I operate -- the patient and myself.” “But that is only two; who is the third?” And Moynihan replied quietly, “God.”

Many a soul finds, in the time of strain or of need or of discouragement, that the promised presence of God is what sustains them. “I will be with you.” The prophet says nothing about the people’s awareness of God’s presence. One may not always be aware of it. His presence is a conviction, not a feeling. When a surgeon, scalpel in hand, is concentrating on a delicate task, he can not be thinking of anything else. I once heard a priest of the Episcopal church say that, when he entered the sacristy of his church to put on the vestments appropriate to the season and service, his main concern was to put out of his mind everything, except the meaning of what he was about to do in leading his people to the divine presence. He wanted to concentrate solely on the matter in hand.

The story is told of a brilliantly able general of the civil War who was faced with a crucial battle. He knew that the battle was to be joined that day. He knew the approximate position and strength of the enemy. He knew his own troops and how he expected to deploy them. He knew that the day would be terrifically important, and much of its event terrible, with an awesome responsibility on himself. Before he left his tent, he breathed one short prayer: “O God, I’m going to be very busy today. I may forget Thee. But do not Thou forget me. Amen.”

The conviction that God is present and concerned carries many a person through deep waters and fiery trials, quite apart from whether they feel that presence or not at the time.

Do you remember the Old Testament story of Daniel and a couple of other faithful young Israelites who, for disobedience to the orders of a tyrant king, were tossed into a fiery furnace? The story relates that those who watched from a little distance were aware of a fourth presence in the furnace with the three young men; it was “like the Son of God.” There is nothing said in the story about the youths having a sense of that presence. [Daniel 3: 17-30].

The final recorded promise of Christ to his disciples was this: “Lo, I am with you always.” [Matthew 28: 20]. Nothing is said of our sensation of that companionship; it is simply an assurance on his part; a conviction on our part. But when we assert our conviction, feelings that have been dormant sometimes awake. It is the prophet’s message to Israel that God cares for His people; that He is present in trouble as well as in triumph. Isaiah goes on with further comment:

I give Egypt as your ransom,

Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.

Because you are precious in my eyes,

and honored; and I love you;

I give men in return for you,

peoples in exchange for your life.

Fear not, for I am with you.

This appears to be an interpretation of Isaiah concerning world events. He sees how the conquests of Cyrus and Canbyses II extend westward and toward the south in to Egypt, Ethiopia and Seba. And he interprets the conquest of these other nations as a move that relieves the pressure on Israel, giving her a freedom to discharge her spiritual mission to them and all mankind. Israel was not to dominate other lands. That would not be her destiny. No more is it the destiny of our own country. The United States of America has long felt a remoteness from the struggles of powers in the old world. Now, her position of influence and power can easily become a temptation to dominate. That is not her divine destiny. It is the mission of our country to maintain the ideal of liberty to which the nation has been dedicated. And even our “well-meaning” should not be employed to coerce others to our will. Rather, let our nation aid other peoples to discover God’s distinctive purpose for themselves. Let the conviction of God’s presence be our nation’s defense against smugness at the employment of wealth and power for relief and strengthening of others.

When one recalls the harsh judgment of the prophet on “deaf and blind” Israel, one is startled by the assertion of the divine:

“You are precious in my eyes,

and honored, and I love you.”

What is there in this people that is particularly precious, or honorable, or lovable? We are thrown back on the mystery of God’s favor. Paul spoke of it in his case. “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle,” says he. [I Corinthians 15: 9]. But he also says: “To me, though I am the very least of all saints, this grace was given.” [Ephesians 3: 8]. Grace is love, working in the face of everything which appears to render it impossible.

There follows, in this part of Isaiah’s prophecy that we have considered today, several verses which suggest the necessity of a kind of solidarity. The Israelite nation needs to be reunited in order to have any social or spiritual strength. So does the church of our time, or any time. I am not sure that the church must be an organic whole. But I am sure that it needs a union of spirit to be effective in its witness. One of the perils of each denomination, each local church, each group within a church, is that its members may become ingrown upon themselves, concerned chiefly with their own welfare, their own beliefs, their own awakening, or whatever else. Our better spiritual health lies in reaching out to do the work that needs to be done, to tell others of the grace of God, and the leadership of Christ, to be the church as mission.

Then the prophet comes, pointedly, to these verses:

You are my witnesses, says the Lord,

and my servant whom I have chosen,

that you may know and believe me

and understand that I am He.

Before me no god was formed,

nor shall there be any after me.

I, I am the Lord,

and besides me there is no savior.

I declared and saved and proclaimed

when there was no strange god among you;

and you are my witness, says the Lord.

The church is composed of believers, each of whom is a witness; the corporate fellowship of Christians, the body of Christ, is the combined witness. The prophet’s word “witness” is taken up by the New Testament church. Every Christian is called to be a witness to the worth of his Lord --- by word of mouth, or by action and attitude, or by all of these means.

About the beginning of this century, W. T. Stead, who edited the Review of Reviews, wrote to a number of prominent people, asking them to name the hymns which helped them the most. Among those whom he approached with this request was Lord Roseberry, who declined to confess to the public on such a subject, as though it were too personal. And Stead commented: “There is a curious, and not very creditable, shrinking on the part of many to testify as to their experience in the deeper matters of the soul. It is an inverted egotism - selfishness masquerading in disguise of reluctance to speak of self. Wanderers across the wilderness of Life ought not to be chary of telling their fellow-travelers where they found a green oasis --- or the shadow of a great rock in a desert land. It is not regarded as egotism when the passing steamer signals across the Atlantic wave news of her escape from perils of iceberg or fog, or welcome news of good cheer.” --- Stead went on to say that those who shrink into themselves at this point really deprive themselves of a share in the communion of saints, “refusing to partake with their brother in the sacramental cup of human sympathy, or to break the sacred bread of deeper experience.”

He may have been a bit harsh in his judgment of those who find it immodest to let their personal feelings appear in print or in public. But it is true that tongue-tied Christians deprive themselves and others of communion in things of goodness and of God. “You are my witnesses,” says the Lord. And it is right that others have a chance to know Him through us who profess a belief in His name. For He is present with us, in triumph or in tragedy, in fair weather or foul, in sunshine or in storm, ready to bless our joys or our trials.

Howard Thurman insists that man’s faith teaches him that God is near. There is a sense in which God seems to come to us only on rare occasions and in rare situations. And often He is found in the high moment, the great experience, the supreme challenge, or in the poignant sense of a great contrition, or in deep tragedy. But we do not live continuously in this exceptional atmosphere.

What we most want to know about God is whether he is present in the commonplace of ordinary living, available to ordinary people under the most “garden variety” of circumstances. That God is not far from any one of us is the essence of the Gospel which Jesus proclaimed. “Closer is He than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.”

“Fear not, for I am with you,” says the high and holy One. “I have redeemed you.” “And I love you” and “You are my witnesses,” says the Lord.

Amen.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, April 21, 1963.

Also at Waioli Hui’ia Church, April 29, 1973.