Isaiah 9:2-7
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
Isaiah 61:1-4
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendour. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have thought about the promise of truth and the promise of justice, and they have paved the way for the promise of restoration. Once we have told the truth of the world as it is and should be, and once we have used that truth to tear down the old injustices, then we can start to restore God's good desire for a good creation, to “rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated”, because very little is so hopeless that it cannot be renewed, or so lost that it cannot be reclaimed.
I have preached on the reading from Isaiah 61 before, and so many of you will have already heard me say this next bit, but I will keep repeating it because I think the whole church needs to hear it. According to the Gospel of Luke, early in Jesus’ ministry, he went to the synagogue in Nazareth and was given the scroll of Isaiah to read from. He found the passage we have just heard, and he began to read, but he stopped at “the year of the Lord's favour”, without declaring “the day of vengeance of our God”, and then he sat down and declared that “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”. He chose those verses and then he stopped reading halfway through a sentence. I do not believe any of that was an accident.
I believe Jesus was telling us that he had come to preach the good news and bind up the broken hearted and proclaim freedom for the captive and fulfil the year of the Lord's favour, but he had not come to declare the day of God's vengeance. And I believe that is because there is no vengeance. That doesn't mean there will be no consequences for those who have wounded and oppressed, but it does mean that those consequences will come as truth and justice, not as punishment or retribution. God acts with mercy not spite, and so there is hope that even those who have done the damage will be restored.
I still chose for us to hear the longer passage from Isaiah 61 because I think everything that comes after the day of vengeance connects back to everything that came before it. Vengeance sticks out like a sore thumb in these verses, and I think that it is what Jesus was rejecting, not everything that follows. God still promises comfort, and not just for those who grieve in Zion, but for those who grieve anywhere. The passage goes on after the verses we heard to speak of the people feeding on the wealth of the nations and being seen as those the Lord has richly blessed, and it might seem there is a favouritism there, and yet in the final verse of this chapter, we hear that “the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations”.
There is this constant tension in the scriptures, where God promises good things and this is interpreted as better things for us than for them, and yet God also keeps pushing at the boundaries to include all peoples in the promise. Remember the covenant with Abraham was that God would make him into a great nation, through whom all people on earth would be blessed. When scripture speaks favourably of God's people, it is never to exclude everyone else, but with the understanding that those people have a special part to play in blessing everyone else. Restoration isn't only for some but for all.
So God promises to “comfort all who mourn...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair”. These are such hopeful words, and they tell us that restoration doesn't just bring us to some kind of neutral default position. God won't only take away ashes and mourning and despair, but replace them with beauty and joy and praise. Perhaps that promise feels so far off as to be meaningless, or perhaps it only seems to widen the gap between what is and what should be, but it is not meant to torment us, and I pray that the promise will hold you gently.
I pray that others will hold you gently too, because we all have a part to play in this promise. The verses from Isaiah do not say that God will rebuild the ancient places but that the people will. We're clearly not doing this on our own, because it is through the Spirit of the Lord that everything in these verses is accomplished, but we are part of the work of restoration that began - or began anew - at Christmas. We rebuild ourselves and one another and our world through the Spirit at work in us, through love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and good less and faithfulness and gentleness and self control. That is the true promise of restoration.
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