Positioned for Transition

I am going to be straight up with you, it can be hard to imagine how God is working in all that we see going on in our world today and yet this day, Sunday March 13^th church bells are ringing across the City of Thunder Bay in support of the people of Ukraine. It seems like a small gesture in the midst of the images of devastation and lives lost as we scroll through our social media feeds or check out the news channels. So why do we do it? Why ring church bells? We do it because is a reminder that God is present, is still powerful, and still God.

Verse 19 of our reading states, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

This statement comes in the second part of the Book of Isaiah. If you were to read the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, it is pretty doom and gloom. The people were in captivity with little to no hope that things would change or that God has remembered them. Theologian Paul Hanson puts the trouble succinctly when he writes, [The people of Israel] had the testimony of the prophets that it was their ingratitude and disobedience that had brought upon them the calamitous events that had robbed them of temple, land, and freedom.”[1]

When looking at the events of the last two years, with politicians and people in sharp disagreement with each other, a pandemic taking its toll on lives, livelihoods and relationships, and people with extreme power taking their tanks of artillery, money, and their brand of crazy out to destroy without regard for human life, forget even considering the well-being of another, it may feel that the world is in captivity again with little to no sign that God is with us.

And then we read in Isaiah 43, “But now, this is what the Lord says, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel; Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” What you might not realize is that these words are spoken by the prophet long before the people experienced the actual events that them saved from the crazy they were living. This was the promise, but the promise to which they were to cling and trust did not come to pass until the Persian King Cyrus allowed the people to return to their homelands.

So what brought them hope in the midst of chaos, pain, estrangement? It was a word from God through the prophets. For us the hope comes through the assurances of the words of scripture such as can be found in the Book of Isaiah. Words that were spoken and found to be true. In that time of captivity, the prophet spoke words of God that reminded the people of Israel of what they had already lived through and the faithfulness of God in the time of Exodus from Egypt, “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.” (v2) And this because God is God, and the people were precious in God’s sight, and honoured, and loved. (v4)

Those are words for all people, God created all people; people of different cultures, different faiths, different sexual orientations, different countries. We are precious in God’s sight and honoured and loved. This is a word for all not just for Israel alone, and we know this through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ who lived and died for not just one nation but for all who would believe that God wants to be in relationship with them, who believe that God is present even now.

A good portion of this reading from Isaiah depicts a judicial trial where witnesses are called to attest to God as above all gods. The witnesses are the very people who have been blind and deaf to God for sometime. This is a moment of remembering all the people know to be true about their lived experience and relationship with God as part of their history. Then abruptly after recalling that relationship the people are told, “Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old.” (v18).

This does not mean to forget all of that, but when we live in the past, holding on to the nostalgia of the way things used to be, holding on to buildings, relationships, memories we can miss that God is still at work, that God is still present. God said to them, “I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (v19).

The past is a great place to spend some time, to honour, to remember what was good, but also what didn’t work. To discern what is nostalgia, what is helpful, and what one must let go of. But God is about to do a new thing! If we spend our time only reminiscing about the good old days of church, of society, or relationships, or our lives, we can miss what God is doing right now.

God is about to do a new thing! We pray and hope for it in our world, we declare it in the ringing of bells, in our words, in our hope, our generosity of time and money. We declare it in our compassion and care of others. We declare it when we step out in faith to see where God is leading our church, our country, our lives, and ultimately the world. God is about to do a new thing where people live in gratitude and obedience to God, our God who declares to us we are precious in God sight, honoured, and loved. This is God with us – present, powerful, and about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth, may we be community and people who perceive it.

[1] Hanson, D. Paul. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Isaiah 40-66. Editors James L. Mays,  Patrick D. Miller and Paul J. Achtemeier. John Knox Press. Louisville. 1995. P62.

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