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Isaiah 49.8-15

Thus says the Lord: In a time of favor I have answered you, on a day of salvation I have helped you; I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages; saying to the prisoners, “Come out,” to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.” They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. And I will turn all my mountains into a road, and my highways shall be raised up. Lo, these shall come from far away, and lo, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syene.

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones. But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

One of the unexpected joys of COVID remote schooling in our household has been being able to eavesdrop on the classroom discussions of 8 year olds as they make sense of the world and themselves. I love sipping my morning chai in the living room while, behind a sliding door, Halcy and her classmates debate and then make decisions by playing rock-paper-scissors. Or, more recently, as they ponder what it means and how to be a change maker in the world.

In today’s reading, Isaiah reminds us: We are God’s children, and our Creator/Sustainer/Redeemer will not forget us or forsake us. He says, “To those who are in darkness Show yourselves… for the one who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.”

In the past, I have thought about those in darkness as people in despair, weighted down by depression or sin. The kind of darkness that is within us. However, this year, with all that has happened and with the fresh voices of 8 year olds making sense of the world in my mind, I began to think of those in darkness as those who history or society has refused to acknowledge. As well as those who refuse to acknowledge and honor their existence. The kind of darkness that we, as a society, create and sustain.

In particular, I found myself thinking about the great personal sacrifices endured by civil rights and human rights change makers. I imagined the many change makers in history, the many bold and righteous spirits unseen, unknown, unappreciated. In darkness.
The Lord commands us to light. He says: Show yourselves. Come be nourished. I will comfort and restore you.
As we stand in this moment in time, dismantling the darkness piece by piece, individually and collectively, let us all be encouraged and emboldened by Isaiah’s words. Let us lean on our God. He is with us. Feeding us, comforting us, and guiding us to springs of hope and justice!

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John 5.1-16
 
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well? ”The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. 
 
 Jesus does not suffer victims that gladly.  In this passage, Jesus comes upon an assortment of sick and invalid people.  Yet He focuses on one individual, a person whom He knows has been ill for a long time, specifically 38 years.  We don’t know why Jesus chooses him and not any of the others, but He approaches the man and asks him if he wants to be made well.  The man’s explanation is that he is unable to compete with other invalids to access the healing waters.  This appears not to be precisely the answer Jesus wishes to hear from him.  Jesus doesn’t accord him much sympathy for his tribulations, but basically tells him to stand up and walk.  We are told that at once he is made well and walks.  No further communication follows between Jesus and the healed individual.  Jesus appears to suggest that the people he ministers to and heals are responsible for themselves and need to contribute to their own salvation, albeit through Him.
 
I am struck by the fact that Jesus is a God-Man of relatively few words.  He does not treat the people with whom He intercedes as victims or invest much energy in making them feel better.  He has these rigorous expectations of them, that they will get with the program, as he moves on to the next parts of His plan.  Jesus has a mission, and he appears highly focused.  I periodically wonder how Jesus looks upon his earthly work, whether it is marked by heavenly assurance or earthly doubt.  I think Jesus expects of the people He will save a measure of personal responsibility in their healing, that they will practice agency in the process.  I have sometimes asked for God’s assistance and then neglected to take actions on my own behalf that could contribute to achieving the things for which I prayed, waiting in the wings for God to appear.  When I ask for God’s assistance in a helpless manner, I am not practicing what he expects.

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Isaiah 65.17-21

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

This passage is so joyful, so full of hope, and yet it troubles me. God is making a promise – a New Jerusalem! – but in that promise lies the certainty of destruction. The old Jerusalem will be wiped away, from the earth and from our minds. For a phoenix to rise from the ashes, don’t you first have to have a fire? And indeed, in the verses previous to these God promises destruction and revenge. This passage is not a promise to heal, but to start over.

This desire to scrap the whole thing and start over carries a rueful kind of resonance for me, especially over the last year. 2020 left me few places to hide from my own inadequacies, and indeed afforded me further opportunities to develop new ones. More than once I’ve looked in the mirror and wondered if there wasn’t some kind of reset button I could hit, a return to factory settings. I feel this on a selfish, petty level for myself; I feel it on an overwhelmingly sorrowful level for the world. Even before the pandemic, hadn’t we already befouled the Old Jerusalem beyond saving? Did it not seem as though we were ever more passionate architects of our own destruction, hastening the moment when we’d be balled up and thrown in the trash?

But the passage here focuses on the joy of the fresh, clean sheet of paper, the return of God to the drawing board, having learned from His mistakes, or from ours. But a saying springs to mind: God don’t make no junk. Maybe that’s just a folksy way of saying “matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” God exists in and through all things, and is ever experimenting, becoming new forms of His eternal, undimmable energy. Seen in this light, it becomes unnecessary to mourn the old Jerusalem, or to worry about it at all. The new will be built from the matter of the old, just as spring arrives through the mulch of last year’s grass, as we take up palms that will be next years ashes. Life, eternal, springing through new and ever more joyous forms.