Sermon 12.3.2023: Comfort, Discomfort All My People

The prophecy from Isaiah becomes the prophecy used by John the baptizer as he preached a message of repentance. It’s a prophecy of both comfort and discomfort. Those who have been exiled will come home. Those who have exiled others will need to change their ways. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, in need of both comfort and correction. Come and find community in worship as we prepare our hearts for God’s way in the wilderness. 

“Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother

and in His name all oppression shall cease”

Scripture

Isaiah 40:1-11

Comfort, comfort my people,
    says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
    that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the Lord[a];
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

A voice says, “Cry out.”
    And I said, “What shall I cry?”

“All people are like grass,
    and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
    Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God endures forever.”

You who bring good news to Zion,
    go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,
    lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
    say to the towns of Judah,
    “Here is your God!”

See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
    and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
    and his recompense accompanies him.

He tends his flock like a shepherd:
    He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
    he gently leads those that have young.

Sermon Text

If you've been following along in the advent devotional this week, you’ve already read these verses, and seen beautiful reflections by members of this community about this passage. This passage from the Book of Isaiah begins what is known as Isaiah’s Book of Consolation, also called Second Isaiah. The story told in the Book of Isaiah begins in 742 BCE, but by the time we get to chapter 40, scholars think we’re at least 100 years down the road. 

At the end of chapter 39, we’re told “Days are coming when all that is in your house, and that which your ancestors have stored up until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the Lord.” 

But as chapter 40 begins, that exile is ending, the penalty is paid, and people are to prepare to return home. It’s hard to say exactly how much time has passed, but more than one would expect between a chapter 39 and a chapter 40 in a book. 

This is the chapter that is quoted when the gospel accounts introduce John the Baptist. We often hear of John the Baptist during Advent. This year, we’ll instead read about him in January, but here’s what Mark’s gospel, chapter 1, says to introduce John: 

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, 

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, 

who will prepare your way; 

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 

‘Prepare the way of the Lord, 

make his paths straight,’” 

Mark describes John as the embodiment of Isaiah’s prophecy, the messenger to prepare the way of Jesus. 

But the author of Isaiah didn’t know about John the Baptizer or about Jesus. He was writing to people in his own time, people facing their own dislocation. People who had been carted off to Babylon, collateral damage of the policies of unfaithful and unjust kings. 

I wonder what it would have been like for people who had been in exile, and who had heard the prophets’ cries about how the people’s own unfaithfulness had led to their calamity. What is it like to hear “comfort, o comfort my people” if you’re a person who has not known comfort at any point in your life? What is it like to be given a message of comfort after getting 39 chapters of prophetic blame and judgment? 

For some of us, perhaps the anxiety in our world has kept us from identifying with the word “comfort” for a while now. Job stress, family instability, disease, pandemic disruptions, money worries, or other factors can make you forget what “comfort” is like.

Isaiah was speaking to a people in exile, offering comfort to a people who were facing real political troubles, reminding us that it is appropriate to see the political troubles of our world and respond to them with our faith. John the Baptizer heard those words of comfort and applied them to a different group of people facing a different kind of political reality, the first century occupation of the holy land by Rome. 

That is one of the gifts of Scripture, to be able to reach across the years. A passage written by Isaiah as a response to a specific situation becomes the living word of God, hundreds of years later to 1st century Palestinians, and then again become the living word of God to us here in San Francisco in 2023, speaking specifically to our lives, our political realities, today. 

We hear “speak tenderly to Jerusalem” and think of the Israeli and Palestinian people today—Jews, Muslims, and Christians— living in the midst of conflict, terror, and war. I was thankful to hear of a temporary ceasefire this past week, and the return of some hostages, but am aware that everyone there is in need of comfort, hope, and peace. 

Scripture is inherently political. We hope to keep it from being partisan. God’s word is bigger than any political party, or ideology, or national agenda. But it was written in the midst of political challenges to give meaning and guidance to people’s real challenges. 

Comfort. Comfort ye, my people, 

This passage is also the opening aria from Handel’s Messiah. And I listened to Messiah the whole time I was writing this sermon, which also helped me get Elijah out of my head—can I get an amen from the choir? 

One thing that gets obscured in this passage, perhaps because we equate it to John, singularly preparing a way, or we hear it sung as a solo in Messiah, but “Comfort my people” in the Hebrew text is a plural imperative. It isn’t the work for one person. It isn’t an instruction to one person. 

Scholars aren’t exactly sure why it is plural. One thought is that it is like other places in Scripture where the heavenly host is present. We see that in the book of Job, or in Psalms. 

Psalm 148 opens with: 

Praise the Lord from the heavens; 

praise him in the heights! 

Praise him, all his angels; 

praise him, all his host! 

The heavenly host also appears to shepherds at Jesus’ birth. That’s why Joann, Victor, and I all read the passage together. It’s a conversation of a passage, like earlier in Isaiah, in chapter 6, when seraphim and cherubim are gathered around God’s throne. 

I think it is also voiced in a plural imperative because it is a reminder that none of us are called do the work required by ourselves. Preparing the way for God is not work that can be done alone in isolation from others. 

I don’t know about you, but I think our society hasn’t been doing well with plural imperative living for a while, where people recognize the need to respond collectively for the good of others, to provide comfort. It got worse because of Covid, but our descent into isolating individualism began before 2020. 

It’s possible that those of us who gather for worship on a regular basis may be better equipped against the lure of lone ranger individualism than some. 

We sing together and our individual voices become more than any one of them are on their own. 

We volunteer and serve together and the help we give the community is magnified. 

We give money together which allows our individual gifts to combine with those of other people to make more of an impact in the community than any of us can do alone. 

We worship together, and as Isaiah says: 

Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, 

and all people shall see it together. 

In this season of Advent, in this mad dash to Christmas, I suspect we both need comfort, and we need the discomfort that comes with preparing the way for God. We are the preparers of the way and also the people for whom the way is prepared. 

What does Isaiah say we need to do to prepare the way for the coming of our Lord? 

The text is clear. We are called to comfort. We are called to prepare the way. We are called to use our voices and cry out about where God is at work in the world. 

Isaiah is calling the people to work together for all people. But when the voice says, “cry out!”, the heavenly host has no better sense about what they are to do to prepare than we do. “What shall I cry?”, they ask. 

Isaiah tells them to get up to a high mountain and lift up their voices with strength to proclaim. 

“HERE IS YOUR GOD!” 

That is what we are to point out to people. We are to boldly and with confidence stand on the mountaintops and show people where we have seen God. 

As worship began this morning, I spoke about the French poem that became the hymn O Holy Night. When Unitarian minister, John Sullivan Dwight translated it into English in 1855, he showed people where he had seen God. 

The French verse was: 

The Redeemer has overcome every obstacle.

The Earth is free, and Heaven is open.

He sees a brother where there was only a slave.

Love unites those whom iron had chained. 

Dwight translated the verse to: 

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is Peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name, all oppression shall cease. 

In 1855, in a country about to be divided by war over slavery, he connected the work of God to the plight of the slaves. 

Where have you seen God? I invite you to be on the lookout for where God is at work in the world and in your life.

I’m thankful to hear that voice in Isaiah telling us to lift up our voices. And I’m thankful to have this community because your voices ‘cry out’ together for God better than any of our individual voices ever could, amplifying the message so people may know of a God who, as Isaiah says, 

“will feed his flock like a shepherd; 

he will gather the lambs in his arms, 

and carry them in his bosom, 

and gently lead the mother sheep. 

And as we struggle together to figure out what it means to prepare the way for God, I hope that we’ll be able to go about it with love and great joy. I hope, like Isaiah, we can say to the cities of Judah (and San Francisco)—“Here is your God!” 

Comfort, oh comfort, my people. Prepare the way! 

Thanks be to God. Amen.