And They Shall Obtain Joy and Gladness - 12/11/22
Sermon 2022.12.11. "And They Shall Obtain Joy and Gladness" (Isaiah 35:1-10),
1. Introduction
A lot of scriptures refer to joy: The prophet Nehemiah said, "The joy of the Lord is my strength” (Neh 8:10). Paul wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice" (Phil 4:4). And the angel said to the shepherds at the birth of Jesus, "I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people" (Luke 2:10).
But the most sustained attention to the concept of joy is found in our Old Testament scripture for today. Isaiah 35 begins and ends in joy: “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom” (35:1), "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness" (35:10). This passage is a poem, indeed, a song. A song of joy! Hallelujah!
2. Context
It is important to remember that when Isaiah wrote this passage, the Hebrews were still in Palestine, their homeland, but they were shaking in their boots because a major imperial power of the day, Assyria, was threatening. The Assyrians threatened Jerusalem in the 8th century BC, so 700 years before Jesus. The Assyrians did not destroy Jerusalem; that dirty deed was done by the Babylonians, in the 7th century. Isaiah, though, was writing in the 8th century while the Assyrians were at the gate. Isaiah as a prophet and as an astute political observer knew that Jerusalem would eventually be conquered, and many Jews deported out of the promised land. Some of Isaiah's contemporaries did not agree. They thought that God would protect them. After all, the Hebrews were God's chosen people. God wouldn't let the temple be destroyed and the chosen people be defeated, would God?
It's kind of like today when believers refuse to wear masks during times when masks are mandated. "Oh God will protect me. I won't get covid." I'm here to say that you might, especially if you don't take precautions. God works through common sense and simple precautions. A colleague at Howard Divinity had a poster on his office door: "RESPECT YOURSELF, PROTECT YOURSELF." I think that that's good advice.
Isaiah saw the handwriting on the wall. Jerusalem would be destroyed, and the leadership would be exiled. That wasn't prophetic insight, it was political reality. Whoever the conquerors were--Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, or Romans--they always took their captives back home and displayed them as spoils of war. But Isaiah's prophetic insight was that God would return the Hebrews to the promised land from wherever they were. That was what God had always done, all the way back to the Exodus from Egypt, perhaps 700 years before Isaiah. God had heard the cries of the Hebrew slaves and had brought them out of Egypt and had settled them into their promised land.
So God was still faithful, Isaiah was saying. Even though the Hebrews would be defeated by a foreign oppressive power, and the people would be taken out of their land, the God of Exodus would return them to the promised land. It may not be in their lifetimes, but eventually God was the God of Exodus, the God of liberation, the God of freedom and would free the people to return. And such freedom results in joy!
3. Content
And that's exactly what would happen. The Hebrews would be defeated and deported, but they would be delivered! Defeated, deported, delivered! The Hebrews' story would be presented in 3-D; defeated, deported, delivered. Isaiah 35, then, is a work of imagination, theological imagination. God will triumph, and God's people will triumph, if they remain faithful. A song associated with the civil rights movement, "We Shall Overcome," was first written as a labor song. "We shall overcome someday. / Deep in my heart I do believe. / We shall overcome someday." Isaiah 35 is the prophet’s hymn "We Shall Overcome." It celebrates what God would do in the future for God's people.
And the Hebrews go out in joy and gladness, rejoicing. Notice how many synonyms for joy appear in this chapter: be glad, rejoice, blossom, rejoice with joy, singing, not being afraid. Notice in verse 1 that it is the wilderness and dry land that are glad, the desert that rejoices and blossoms. In Bible study this week, someone talked about a desert that they observed was blooming with plants and flowers. That’s the image here. "Wilderness" meant something different in biblical times from what it means today. For us, a wilderness is a deep, dense forest. For biblical folk, a wilderness was a desert. But here the desert is blooming!
In Isaiah, the earth gets glad before the people do. The land gets happy at the return of the redeemed! This news will strengthen weak hands and firm up feeble knees. Someone in Bible study said that that's what he needs. Oh, that our weak bodies would be strengthened! But joy can strengthen them! Good news fortifies.
And looks what this good news is going to do to disabled bodies: Blind eyes open! Deaf ears unstopped! Lame leap! The speechless sing for what? For JOY! And we fast forward about 700 years, and Jesus was asked by followers of John the Baptist, "Are you the one to come, or are we to wait for another?" Jesus said, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers cleansed, deaf hear, and poor preached the gospel” (Matt 11:2-5). In other words, the signs of the times are happening in Jesus' ministry. Healing and resurrection are taking place! The end of the ages has come--in Jesus, in his preaching, in his healing, in his dead-raising. Praise God! Praise God!
4. Application
How have your eyes been opened? your ears unstopped? your leprosy cleansed? your dead raised? Now if we were a certain kind of congregation, we would have healing services in which I would lay my hands on people and they would throw away their crutches, their eyeglasses, their hearing aids, their topical creams because God would heal their infirmities. Name it and claim it!
But Baptists don't do that; that's more of a Pentecostal or Charismatic thing, though I think that there are more physical healings in this church than are discussed. Fifty years ago, Ray Stevens recorded his song, "Everything Is Beautiful." It contains the lines: "There is none so blind as he who will not see. / We must not close our minds; / we must let our thoughts be free."
I will ask the question again: How your eyes been opened? Perhaps you had blinders to the way that God was working in this congregation. And God has opened your eyes, unstopped your ears, and enabled you to walk and talk. (Here I’m speaking metaphorically of blindness and so forth.) You were blind to your own potential, you were deaf to God's pleas that God loves you and others love you, so you can now love yourself. Yes, yes, despite all the self-hated and self-loathing, you can love yourself!
Imagine this church in which everyone is walking in their power, in their abundance, in their freedom, in their grace, in their love. Yes, I know that we have weak hands and infirm knees. But God will strengthen them. As the old African American spiritual said, “Walk together, children. / Don’t you get weary.” Imagine will you, that the joy of the Lord has opened your eyes and ears and mouths to who you really are: a gifted child of God called to love and serve. Yes, yes, that's who you are: a gifted child of God called to love and serve. Gifted, called, loving, serving. Yes, that's you! And I'm talking to you, not the person behind you, in front of you, to either side of you. I'm talking to you, gifted child of God. If God calls you, then God will give you the strength to respond to that calling.
God is calling for a new Exodus in this church, not an exodus from the church, but an exodus into the church, an exodus into being the people of God. A preacher friend of mine, Mark Parkington in Indiana, always concludes a conversation: "Be blessed, be a blessing, BE the church."
During the time I have served here, and it's only been a little over three months, I have seen that happening. I have seen the church coming into its own power, its own abundance, its own calling. People realize that the church is not the building, though this is a beautiful building, and we use it to love and serve God and one another. The church is not the pastor, though this church has had some outstanding pastors. No, if COVID has taught us anything, it is that the church is the people.
The church is the people--you and you and you and you. Pastors come and go, but people stay. Pastoral transitions are times in which people are reminded of that fact. The church is the people. Sometimes we forget that. We forget our Baptist principle of the priesthood of all believers. We think that we need a priest, a pastor, to be the go-between with God and to do the ministry for us. A settled pastor is nice. A settled pastor is wonderful because there is someone here year after year. But the pastor is not worth a wooden nickel if the pastor doesn't empower the people to do God's work--in the church, in the community, and around the world.
Let me tell you what's happening here in terms of a settled pastor. Things are happening. The previous pastor left at the end of February 2022. I have served since the end of August 2022, just over three months, like I said. My energies have been spent in two ways during this time with you: I have been getting to know you, and I have been putting in place structures to move us forward to a settled pastor and to a new chapter in the church's history. One group has been formed, and another group will be formed. We have one group that has met since mid-November. That is a group of church leaders who are looking at the current functioning of the church, who are looking at the roles and responsibilities of the leaders, who are looking at communications within the church. We meet this Tuesday, and our assignment is to look at the by-laws. Please pray for this group. It is a very important group.
In the new year 2023, the regional staff, the executive ministers of American Baptist Churches of Rhode Island, ABCORI, as it's often called, will help the church form a pastor search committee. It takes a while to find the right fit between settled pastor and congregation. Pastoral searches often take a year or longer. But that does not mean that God has paused working in this place. “Oh, they don’t have settled pastor, then let’s just sit back and wait.” To the contrary, it means that God is working through the people who have given themselves to the kingdom of God in this place. You are the ones that God has called. You are the ones that God has gathered and sent out. I have come here from the Mid-Atlantic region to New England to help you clarify God's call, to help you respond to that call as faithfully as possible. This church is in a transition, not just from pastor to pastor, but from a church at one stage of faithfulness to a church at a greater stage of faithfulness. And you and God are responsible for that. My teacher for one of my courses in interim ministry training says, "Our slogan is that of Home Depot. ‘You can do it; we can help!’"
5. Conclusion
Yes, you can do it, FBCEG. You have been doing it: serving Christ. Despite COVID, despite deaths of key leaders, you have been doing it--in love, in faithfulness, in joy.
I would like to conclude with one of my favorite poets, the late Lucille Clifton of Baltimore, Maryland and her poem, "Good Times":
my daddy has paid the rent
and the insurance man is gone
and the lights is back on
and my uncle brud has hit
for one dollar straight
and they is good times
good times
good times
my mama has made bread
and grampaw has come
and everybody is . . .
dancing in the kitchen
and singing in the kitchen
oh these is good times
good times
good times
oh children think about the
good times
At FBCEG, these were good times; these are good times; these will be good times. Oh children, think about the good times.
Let us have some silence.
And all God’s people said, “Amen.”