The Fruit Of The Word
Sermon
The Presence In The Promise
First Lesson Sermons For Advent/Christmas/Epiphany Cycle C
Andrew Goldfinger, a physicist working with the Space Department at the applied physics laboratory at John Hopkin's University, has explored a theological understanding of creation. His work is titled Thinking about Creation: Eternal Torah and Modern Physics. The book is a fascinating study of how the scientific theories of the origin of the creation and the maintenance of the creation gravitate more and more to compatibility with the description of the theological understanding of the universe in Genesis 1. Currently the two scientific theories about the creation are incompatible. The theory of relativity and the theory of quantum mechanics are at odds with one another. Scientists are on the verge of creating four theories about the universe. However, as Stephen Hawkings has pointed out, science cannot be comfortable until we have one theory of force in the universe. Consequently, physicists are working hard on a theory they call "the theory of everything," TOE. This theory would unite all forces, or theories, of the universe into one. That force is hidden so deeply in everything, we consequently think there is more than one force.
However, Goldfinger points out that by faith we know that the mover and shaker in the universe is God. God, we know is so hidden in the universe that we cannot know God fully or comprehend God's person completely by our observation. What we are able to perceive is what God would have us know about God's person so that we might be in relationship with God by faith and also know what we might expect from the hand of God's goodness. The First Reading appointed for today helps us to understand how God is the Mover and Shaker in the universe to be our Benefactor.
The Context
The First Reading is from one of the great poetic sections of Second Isaiah. Second Isaiah was the prophet who ministered to the Hebrews in exile in Babylonia. As First Isaiah ministered to the people of Israel before they went into exile, he called his people to repentance and faith in the light of the covenant. Tragically, he also had to foretell the doom that was to fall on them. However, he could also assure the people that God would keep the covenant God had made with them. As the people languished in the exile for decades, the Second Isaiah built on the work and promises of the First Isaiah. He called the people back to the covenant God had made. If there were those who had made accommodations to their exile and saw no future other than to prepare for a permanent stay in the land of Nebuchadnezzar, Isaiah would want them to think differently. If there were some who enjoyed the prosperity that had come to them in the sophisticated environs of Babylon, Isaiah would want to shake them loose from their complacency. If there were those who had drowned their faith in sorrow, thinking that God had completely abandoned God's people, the prophet would call them back to the faith in the faithfulness of God. If there were still others who had relinquished all thoughts about God, the prophet would revive their dead faith into a living hope.
All those whom the prophet addressed would be asking for evidences to which they could point that the words of the prophet could ring true. The way things were going in Babylon, there was no hint or inkling that the captivity in which these people found themselves could be lifted. There were no political signs on the horizon they knew of that could guarantee their freedom. While some of the captives had risen to prominence even within the court of the king, there were no indications that the exiles could muster the strength for any kind of revolt or civil action that would gain their freedom for them.
The Creation Is God's
In typical prophetic fashion, Isaiah assures his hearers that God is not without witness. To be sure, there is much about God that is hidden from us. The prophet would not encourage anyone to tangle with those matters that we cannot know about God. Luther would add that to try to draw near to the hidden mysteries of God, we would invite nothing but disaster and judgment, for those would be the areas which God has reserved as divine prerogatives and privileges. In the section immediately preceding this reading, the prophet had written about the divine thoughts and ways of God being much higher than the earth or the thoughts of people. However, the prophet had also said that his audience should seek the Lord, because God can be found. God is not lost. God is near. God is near for all those who want to call upon him.
Mark William Worthing, a professor of Lutheran Seminary in Adelaide, Australia, has given an account of how physicists and scientists view possible scenarios for the future of the creation. His book, God, Creation and Contemporary Physics, cites some of the likely dialogues between theology and the physical sciences. However, much depends upon whether one subscribes to an open or a closed view of the universe. In view of the fact of an expanding universe, the universe could continue for billions of years. However, given the second law of thermodynamics, one would have to conclude that the universe is bound to die. A closed view of the universe would suggest that the universe could die from heat death in a large dark hole from which nothing could escape. Those are observations we can make from a scientific point of view. However, the prophet would have us look at much more simple evidence of the presence of God in the creation.
The Creation Serves God
We do not have to know the sophisticated scientific theories of the nature or origin of the universe to recognize the obvious in the creation. The prophet writes that God says, "The rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater." God has built this natural rhythm of production of fruit into the creation for our daily benefit. We do not question that. We take advantage of the blessings that come from the hand of God. The scientists give serious study to how all of the creation works for our benefit in the effort for us to be good stewards of the creation. What the prophet would have us understand is that we should recognize that God performs the remarkable feat of providing for our tables daily. In the creation account we are told that this process of ordering the universe for our benefit began with the words from God.
Goldfinger, the physicist mentioned earlier, notes that God made ten utterances that proceeded from the mind of God to form the creation. Luther explained that we do not have to think of these as oral or verbal expressions, but rather as expressions of the mind of God. In Hebrew the words could also be thought of as "acts" of God. Goldfinger would emphasize the words expressed God's consciousness, awareness, and working of the physical universe. The word then, is the means by which God orders, shapes, and maintains life. The Hebrew helps us to understand that the word of God is not merely the word upon the page. The word of God is always the lively, active power of God exerting and expressing what is in the mind of God. The Hebrew helps us understand that best. The "word" can also be translated as "he says," or "he acts." In the word God is acting on the creation, in the creation, or through the creation. In the word God also acts on us, for us, or through us. That is the point that the prophet Isaiah wants to make clear for us.
The Word Serves God
Isaiah writes that the word which God addresses to us is as effective as the word by which God created and the word by which God sustains the universe. God says, "So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it." The prophet's purpose in sharing this word was that the exiles needed to know that God had not lost control of history, or more particularly, their lives, when they were taken into captivity. Contrary to all appearances, God was very much on top of things. Babylon had served God's purposes in taking Israel into captivity. It was not as though God wanted Israel to suffer so. Israel had provoked those consequences as a result of their indifference to God's word and warnings through the prophets. Now that the captives had served their time in captivity, it was time to awaken to the promises God had made them. Now they could recognize that the First Isaiah had been perfectly honest with them as he had delivered to their fathers the warnings of the inevitability of the exile. They could learn not simply from their history but from the word that interpreted their history.
Now the exiles could listen to the Second Isaiah, who came in the power and strength of God's word again. They could trust that their history and their future were assured and guaranteed by the promises of God. It is true that ordinarily the nations do not learn from their history. They do make the same mistakes over and over again. However, the people of God can learn about history from the word of God so that they do not have to be slaves to their own mistakes. They can rise above them. The people of God do not have to plunge into or be dragged into the future as victims of the moment. They can move into the future with confidence with the presence and help of God. God's word works in the world.
No Empty Word
The prophet witnessed to the fact that God's word was active in history. God moves history for all people. All the people of the earth are affected by the word of God's judgment. God is constantly pressing upon all peoples to make God's will and purposes work out in the world. That is true whether they recognize it or not. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were serving the will of God by taking Israel into captivity. The Israelites should have recognized what was happening, but they did not until they had sat in Babylon for seventy years. They had time to figure it out. But it was the prophet who came to figure it out for them on the basis of God's covenant. That is what the prophet means when he writes that God says, "So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty." In other words, the word of God is not be thought of as only some words on the pages of a beautifully printed Bible.
The word of God is actually God's power and force at work in the world demanding, pushing, and shoving people. The word of God makes people sweat as they go about their daily tasks trying to put bread on the table, striving for peace and contentment in a world where people elbow and compete with one another in trying to achieve the same goals. In that whole process God is moving and judging, rewarding and punishing. God may be judging or rewarding people. It all depends upon how the people themselves view their roles in the world. But you can be sure of this: when all is said and done, when it is all shaken down, God's purpose and will is truly done. God's word does not return to God empty. God is never just blowing in the wind. You can be certain of that. The word is God's power in action. The word is God's power working on people. That word working on people can be their salvation or it can be their judgment. But it is never without results. It never returns to God empty.
The Positive Result
What the Prophet Isaiah wanted the people to know is that they could look for the word to bring about positive results in their lives. No matter how remotely possible the people may have thought the possibility of being delivered from their captivity, they were to think differently. Concentrating upon the promises God had made concerning the effectiveness of God's word or promise, they could have a different feel for their future. The prophet says, "You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace." To emphasize the possibility the prophet says that the creation which has to respond to God's word and care would cooperate. "The mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." The reversal of the fortunes of Israel would be dramatized by the way the creation would behave. "Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle."
Leo Tolstoy talked about how dramatically his life had changed when he came to believe in Christ's teaching. Tolstoy did not overcome his criticisms of the church. However, he does describe how his thinking was changed. What he had longed for before, he no longer wanted. What had seemed good to him before now appeared to be evil and vice versa. What was on his right before was now on his left. And what was on his left was now on his right. The prophet wanted the exiles to sense that same kind of change in looking at their situation. Instead of living by all the threats of the power structure around them, they could visualize the power as weakness that would soon falter. They could look to the word from God as to where the power and the control really were concentrated.
A Memorial
The prophet was convinced that the day of deliverance would come inevitably. As the creation responded to the word of God in saluting the deliverance of the people, it would serve as a memorial to God. The restoration of God's people out of the exile would be one more mighty act of God. It would compare with the deliverance of Israel from its captivity in Egypt. The Exodus had been fashioned as the people witnessed how the creation cooperated and let the people cross over the Red Sea on dry ground. Now the new Exodus would be accompanied by the pleasant cooperation of creative forces that would make the wilderness seem like a beautiful garden. The differences the people would see and feel would be testimony to the presence of God.
We witness the differences in our own lives and the lives of others who have been touched by the deliverance God has effected for us by the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We view ourselves, the creation, and everything about us in a different light. We read history that is being made in a different way than people who can see and read only how the forces of the world are at work. As the prophet dubbed the promised return of the people from exile as a memorial to God, by the gift of faith and the Spirit of God we are able to see the works of God. Luther would say that is the function of our faith. Our faith enables us to see how things really are. On the one hand, we can see how some evil and bad things are left only in the hands of people. On the other hand, by faith we are able to see God at work on our behalf. What spells the difference for us is the prophetic conviction that the word of God never returns to God empty. Our faith is not a guess as to how things will be. Our faith is not an idle hope. Our faith is based on the certainty of that word which assures us that God is at work among us. The next time you are out in the snow or the rain, remember that is God at work producing the fruit of the earth for you. Then recall that that action is parabolic of how the word of God works in the world.
However, Goldfinger points out that by faith we know that the mover and shaker in the universe is God. God, we know is so hidden in the universe that we cannot know God fully or comprehend God's person completely by our observation. What we are able to perceive is what God would have us know about God's person so that we might be in relationship with God by faith and also know what we might expect from the hand of God's goodness. The First Reading appointed for today helps us to understand how God is the Mover and Shaker in the universe to be our Benefactor.
The Context
The First Reading is from one of the great poetic sections of Second Isaiah. Second Isaiah was the prophet who ministered to the Hebrews in exile in Babylonia. As First Isaiah ministered to the people of Israel before they went into exile, he called his people to repentance and faith in the light of the covenant. Tragically, he also had to foretell the doom that was to fall on them. However, he could also assure the people that God would keep the covenant God had made with them. As the people languished in the exile for decades, the Second Isaiah built on the work and promises of the First Isaiah. He called the people back to the covenant God had made. If there were those who had made accommodations to their exile and saw no future other than to prepare for a permanent stay in the land of Nebuchadnezzar, Isaiah would want them to think differently. If there were some who enjoyed the prosperity that had come to them in the sophisticated environs of Babylon, Isaiah would want to shake them loose from their complacency. If there were those who had drowned their faith in sorrow, thinking that God had completely abandoned God's people, the prophet would call them back to the faith in the faithfulness of God. If there were still others who had relinquished all thoughts about God, the prophet would revive their dead faith into a living hope.
All those whom the prophet addressed would be asking for evidences to which they could point that the words of the prophet could ring true. The way things were going in Babylon, there was no hint or inkling that the captivity in which these people found themselves could be lifted. There were no political signs on the horizon they knew of that could guarantee their freedom. While some of the captives had risen to prominence even within the court of the king, there were no indications that the exiles could muster the strength for any kind of revolt or civil action that would gain their freedom for them.
The Creation Is God's
In typical prophetic fashion, Isaiah assures his hearers that God is not without witness. To be sure, there is much about God that is hidden from us. The prophet would not encourage anyone to tangle with those matters that we cannot know about God. Luther would add that to try to draw near to the hidden mysteries of God, we would invite nothing but disaster and judgment, for those would be the areas which God has reserved as divine prerogatives and privileges. In the section immediately preceding this reading, the prophet had written about the divine thoughts and ways of God being much higher than the earth or the thoughts of people. However, the prophet had also said that his audience should seek the Lord, because God can be found. God is not lost. God is near. God is near for all those who want to call upon him.
Mark William Worthing, a professor of Lutheran Seminary in Adelaide, Australia, has given an account of how physicists and scientists view possible scenarios for the future of the creation. His book, God, Creation and Contemporary Physics, cites some of the likely dialogues between theology and the physical sciences. However, much depends upon whether one subscribes to an open or a closed view of the universe. In view of the fact of an expanding universe, the universe could continue for billions of years. However, given the second law of thermodynamics, one would have to conclude that the universe is bound to die. A closed view of the universe would suggest that the universe could die from heat death in a large dark hole from which nothing could escape. Those are observations we can make from a scientific point of view. However, the prophet would have us look at much more simple evidence of the presence of God in the creation.
The Creation Serves God
We do not have to know the sophisticated scientific theories of the nature or origin of the universe to recognize the obvious in the creation. The prophet writes that God says, "The rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater." God has built this natural rhythm of production of fruit into the creation for our daily benefit. We do not question that. We take advantage of the blessings that come from the hand of God. The scientists give serious study to how all of the creation works for our benefit in the effort for us to be good stewards of the creation. What the prophet would have us understand is that we should recognize that God performs the remarkable feat of providing for our tables daily. In the creation account we are told that this process of ordering the universe for our benefit began with the words from God.
Goldfinger, the physicist mentioned earlier, notes that God made ten utterances that proceeded from the mind of God to form the creation. Luther explained that we do not have to think of these as oral or verbal expressions, but rather as expressions of the mind of God. In Hebrew the words could also be thought of as "acts" of God. Goldfinger would emphasize the words expressed God's consciousness, awareness, and working of the physical universe. The word then, is the means by which God orders, shapes, and maintains life. The Hebrew helps us to understand that the word of God is not merely the word upon the page. The word of God is always the lively, active power of God exerting and expressing what is in the mind of God. The Hebrew helps us understand that best. The "word" can also be translated as "he says," or "he acts." In the word God is acting on the creation, in the creation, or through the creation. In the word God also acts on us, for us, or through us. That is the point that the prophet Isaiah wants to make clear for us.
The Word Serves God
Isaiah writes that the word which God addresses to us is as effective as the word by which God created and the word by which God sustains the universe. God says, "So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it." The prophet's purpose in sharing this word was that the exiles needed to know that God had not lost control of history, or more particularly, their lives, when they were taken into captivity. Contrary to all appearances, God was very much on top of things. Babylon had served God's purposes in taking Israel into captivity. It was not as though God wanted Israel to suffer so. Israel had provoked those consequences as a result of their indifference to God's word and warnings through the prophets. Now that the captives had served their time in captivity, it was time to awaken to the promises God had made them. Now they could recognize that the First Isaiah had been perfectly honest with them as he had delivered to their fathers the warnings of the inevitability of the exile. They could learn not simply from their history but from the word that interpreted their history.
Now the exiles could listen to the Second Isaiah, who came in the power and strength of God's word again. They could trust that their history and their future were assured and guaranteed by the promises of God. It is true that ordinarily the nations do not learn from their history. They do make the same mistakes over and over again. However, the people of God can learn about history from the word of God so that they do not have to be slaves to their own mistakes. They can rise above them. The people of God do not have to plunge into or be dragged into the future as victims of the moment. They can move into the future with confidence with the presence and help of God. God's word works in the world.
No Empty Word
The prophet witnessed to the fact that God's word was active in history. God moves history for all people. All the people of the earth are affected by the word of God's judgment. God is constantly pressing upon all peoples to make God's will and purposes work out in the world. That is true whether they recognize it or not. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were serving the will of God by taking Israel into captivity. The Israelites should have recognized what was happening, but they did not until they had sat in Babylon for seventy years. They had time to figure it out. But it was the prophet who came to figure it out for them on the basis of God's covenant. That is what the prophet means when he writes that God says, "So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty." In other words, the word of God is not be thought of as only some words on the pages of a beautifully printed Bible.
The word of God is actually God's power and force at work in the world demanding, pushing, and shoving people. The word of God makes people sweat as they go about their daily tasks trying to put bread on the table, striving for peace and contentment in a world where people elbow and compete with one another in trying to achieve the same goals. In that whole process God is moving and judging, rewarding and punishing. God may be judging or rewarding people. It all depends upon how the people themselves view their roles in the world. But you can be sure of this: when all is said and done, when it is all shaken down, God's purpose and will is truly done. God's word does not return to God empty. God is never just blowing in the wind. You can be certain of that. The word is God's power in action. The word is God's power working on people. That word working on people can be their salvation or it can be their judgment. But it is never without results. It never returns to God empty.
The Positive Result
What the Prophet Isaiah wanted the people to know is that they could look for the word to bring about positive results in their lives. No matter how remotely possible the people may have thought the possibility of being delivered from their captivity, they were to think differently. Concentrating upon the promises God had made concerning the effectiveness of God's word or promise, they could have a different feel for their future. The prophet says, "You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace." To emphasize the possibility the prophet says that the creation which has to respond to God's word and care would cooperate. "The mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." The reversal of the fortunes of Israel would be dramatized by the way the creation would behave. "Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle."
Leo Tolstoy talked about how dramatically his life had changed when he came to believe in Christ's teaching. Tolstoy did not overcome his criticisms of the church. However, he does describe how his thinking was changed. What he had longed for before, he no longer wanted. What had seemed good to him before now appeared to be evil and vice versa. What was on his right before was now on his left. And what was on his left was now on his right. The prophet wanted the exiles to sense that same kind of change in looking at their situation. Instead of living by all the threats of the power structure around them, they could visualize the power as weakness that would soon falter. They could look to the word from God as to where the power and the control really were concentrated.
A Memorial
The prophet was convinced that the day of deliverance would come inevitably. As the creation responded to the word of God in saluting the deliverance of the people, it would serve as a memorial to God. The restoration of God's people out of the exile would be one more mighty act of God. It would compare with the deliverance of Israel from its captivity in Egypt. The Exodus had been fashioned as the people witnessed how the creation cooperated and let the people cross over the Red Sea on dry ground. Now the new Exodus would be accompanied by the pleasant cooperation of creative forces that would make the wilderness seem like a beautiful garden. The differences the people would see and feel would be testimony to the presence of God.
We witness the differences in our own lives and the lives of others who have been touched by the deliverance God has effected for us by the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We view ourselves, the creation, and everything about us in a different light. We read history that is being made in a different way than people who can see and read only how the forces of the world are at work. As the prophet dubbed the promised return of the people from exile as a memorial to God, by the gift of faith and the Spirit of God we are able to see the works of God. Luther would say that is the function of our faith. Our faith enables us to see how things really are. On the one hand, we can see how some evil and bad things are left only in the hands of people. On the other hand, by faith we are able to see God at work on our behalf. What spells the difference for us is the prophetic conviction that the word of God never returns to God empty. Our faith is not a guess as to how things will be. Our faith is not an idle hope. Our faith is based on the certainty of that word which assures us that God is at work among us. The next time you are out in the snow or the rain, remember that is God at work producing the fruit of the earth for you. Then recall that that action is parabolic of how the word of God works in the world.
