Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

Isaiah 42:1-7; 43:1-7

Preached by Rev. Robert Matlack
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The sixth century BC was a tough period in the history of Israel. Early in that century Israel was conquered by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar. Jerusalem was destroyed. Thousands of Israelites were deported to Babylon, where they lived as slaves, and Jerusalem, the holy city, was destroyed. During this century the population of the land was literally drained away.

To give you a picture of how bad things were, let me tell you a little about what happened. Before this all happened, back in the eighth century, Judah's population was probably greater than 250,000 people. After the war with Babylon in which the land was conquered, and the first wave of people sent into exile, the population of Judah was still about half that figure. By the latter part of the sixth century, further deportations, famine, disease and further wars had taken a toll so that the entire population of Judah was only about 20,000 people - less than 10% of what it had been.

This was symptomatic of that period. Israel was geographically in a key place. It stood in the midst of most of the trade routes going from north to south, east or west. In that period, any major power would want to control Israel because of it's strategic location - and they did.

Babylon ruled the land of Israel during the first two thirds of the sixth century BC. This followed a period during which Israel had barely survived by making key alliances as needed with Assyria, Egypt and others. These alliances were efforts to survive by assessing who was strongest at the time, and then becoming one of their allies, for the alternative for a nation like Israel was to be one of their victims, like they had been with Babylon.

It is in that context that Isaiah is prophesying to the people. In the midst of their weakness and despair, Isaiah tells them that they have been called by God to be a light to the nations, to open eyes that are blind, and to free prisoners.

Now I imagine that their were some very interesting and very skeptical reactions to these words. I'm sure there were people who said things like: How can we free prisoners from the dungeons, when we can't even free our own people who are enslaved in Babylon? How can we be a light to the nations, when our own present and future seem so bleak?

In the midst of their despair and their sense of hopelessness, they were being told by Isaiah that God had a plan, that God was not only there with them, but was working through them. Their political and military weakness were no barriers. God was working through them to bring a message to all people.

Their job was a very simple one, to be faithful even in the midst of hard times. They were instructed to sing a new song to the Lord - a song of praise. Their job was to live their lives in such a way that they were lifted up as an offering of praise to God, and in doing that, God would work through them to make great and wondrous things happen around them.

J. Richard Peck used this example to talk about the inspiration that can come from failure. "Cecil Lampert was my inspiration. He was the poorest runner on the cross country team. But he always kept me going. Cecil consisted of some wired-together skin and bones, and he huffed along as if each step would be his last. But he never quit.

"As I suffered along the miles, it wasn't the opposition ahead nor the team members beside me that kept my legs moving. It was an occasional backward glance at Cecil, who kept plodding on.

"He always sounded exhausted, and by contrast I felt fairly zippy. What's more, my ego just wouldn't permit me to finish behind generally-last-place Cecil.

"I never thanked my skinny friend for his inspiration, but in truth I would have quit several races if it had not been for his dogging presence."

Think about that. In life everyone wants to be the winner. We look up to them. We give them the glory and the honor, but how often it is that someone back in the pack, maybe even like Cecil at the very back of the pack, is the one who is really inspiring others.

I wonder if Cecil ever knew the impact that he was having on the other runners? Probably not. But he knew that he wasn't going to quit, no matter what, and in his determination to continue on was the stuff of inspiration.

In some ways Israel was sort of like Cecil - small and weak, not built like the big nations that were designed for power, that were designed to compete for first place. Israel's strength, and in many ways it's only strength, was it's faith. Israel's strength was it's persistence in believing that God was with them, that God had a plan for them, that God could and would work through them. They believed that, and they lived it, even when they were conquered, even when the notion must have seemed laughable to the surrounding nations, for as a military power, Israel was pitifully weak. Yet they inspired others by their example of faith, and it was in that faith that God was indeed working through them to make great and wondrous things happen.

There's a message here for us. There's a message that Isaiah would offer us, and it's the same message that he brought to the Israelite people in perhaps their darkest hour.

You see, when life gets tough, and nothing seems to be going the way we want it to, the temptation is there for us is to think that somehow God has abandoned us or is punishing us or has just plain forgotten about us. The temptation is for us to turn away from God.

That's precisely the situation in which Isaiah came to the Israelite people and said that God had a plan for them. He reminded them that yes, things might be bad now, but they wouldn't always be this bad. Better things lay ahead, and through it all God would be there working through them to offer a beacon of hope and faith to the world around them, a world which so desperately needed it. Isaiah reminded the Israelite people that their job was to be faithful, and as long as they did that, then better things would lie ahead.

Those were prophetic words back in the sixth century BC, and they're prophetic words today. No matter how bad things in life may seem, God has not abandoned us. God loves us and is with us, and God has a plan for us. God can work through even the most difficult times in our lives, and in fact, sometimes it's those times when God uses us to be like Cecil, to be an inspiration to others because of our persistence, our faithfulness, our genuine belief that better things lie ahead.

May God be with us and guide us on this path of faith, as we seek to live faithfully in all things, and may we be that inspiration of faith, that beacon of God's light to a world that so desperately needs to know the light of God's love.

Amen.