A new student looks out on a sea of strange faces in the high school cafeteria, wondering where he should sit, which group he should join, how he will be received.
A woman walks down the hall in her empty house to look at her daughter’s bedroom. The bedroom contains pictures and souvenirs of childhood and high school, left behind when this youngest daughter set off for her first year of college. Now the mother wonders what lies ahead—not just for her daughter but for herself, suddenly alone, cut adrift.
An older man groans in his sick bed. Retirement from his successful law practice had not been that difficult. But now he has been felled by chronic illness that leaves him lethargic, with nothing to show for his days. He feels worthless.
A younger man drives toward his hometown. He has been away for two years in a minimum-security prison for misappropriating money at work. His time in prison has ended, but he wonders if the true penalty he must bear for his wrongdoing is a lifetime sentence.
Who am I? Where do I belong? What makes me worthy? These questions, which seem to plague us most especially in adolescence and young adulthood, never really go away. Whether voice them explicitly, whether we ponder them daily, or even if they only nag at our subconscious, we often look for the answers in the wrong places: in our roles, our work, our peer groups, or our accomplishments and acquisitions. Ultimately, though, as many of us are keenly aware, none of these can deliver what we need. What we need, according to the prophet Isaiah, is to hear how God gives us identity and value.
By the time Isaiah speaks these words we heard a few moments ago, he is talking to a people who are bloodied, battered, and bruised. Sure, they had been in waters that went over their heads and had been delivered; in fact, they had seen their enemies drown in the very waters that had saved them. They had stories of deliverance from fiery furnaces, and a pillar of fire was part of their redemption, leading them through the wilderness to the Promised Land. But now they were in exile. The Babylonians had conquered the Promised Land and destroyed the Temple. The Israelites had been exiled for hundreds of years; entire generations had grown up having never laid eyes on the Promised Land given to their people thousands of years before. As foretold by prophets before, the continual failure of the Israelites to follow their covenant with God had left them lost and hopeless, strangers in a foreign land. Before this passage, Isaiah, too, had words of judgment. But now, here, he has words of comfort and assurance.
As you can imagine, the years of exile have slowly squelched the hope of the Jewish people. They long ago began to doubt their own worthiness as God's chosen people, and now, it seems, they are beginning to lose faith that God will deliver them yet again. So Isaiah now brings words of encouragement to this community. The tender words of Isaiah 43 remind these exiles who they are and whose they are, despite their failures and sins. The central verse of this passage is also the center of the prophet's message here: "Because you are precious in my eyes, you are honored, and I love you. I give people in your place, and nations in exchange for your life."
Just imagine the hope that these words would renew among this discouraged band! They are feeling like nothing at this point. In fact, if the exiles were to take an honest look at themselves, they would see "a tiny, miserable, and insignificant band of uprooted men and women" standing on the margins of a hostile empire. But here, the prophet declares that this people have a new and different identity. They are not tiny or miserable or insignificant, and though they are uprooted, they are yet a people valued and honored by God.
"Do no fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine." What is Israel's comfort and hope? They can find assurance in the simple fact that the one who made them has not turned away from them. Instead, God still claims Israel and holds on to them. Israel belongs to God as sheep belong to a shepherd. God is creator and birth mother for them. How could a mother forget her children? How could an inventor abandon his invention? Such thoughts are as absurd as thinking God could forget God's people. We are appalled when we learn that a parent has been abusive or neglectful. We balk at the notion. Isaiah now says we ought to also balk at the notion that God would abandon us.
"I have redeemed you."
"I have called you by name."
"You are mine." Possessive and protective, God acts. That's what Isaiah wants us to know. We don't have to be afraid because, even in our exile, we are not alone; we have not been abandoned.
For a people in exile, these words must have been hard to hear. If God is with us, they must have wondered, then how did we end up in Babylon in the first place? I imagine such questions run through our minds as well. If God is with me, why is my future so uncertain? If God is on my side, why can't I find employment? If God is with us, why are we so overwhelmed by crime, war, poverty, and hunger? If God is with us, why do we continue to feel alienated, isolated, lonely? If God is with us, then why...why...why...?
Isaiah has offered an answer to those questions too. We cannot hold these words from Isaiah 43 in isolation, we have to remember they follow the angry declaration of divine disappointment and judgment in the previous chapter. Life is hard because we mess up. We feel alienated because we separate ourselves from God through sin. And yet, Isaiah 43 is a reminder that God's words of comfort and restoration are greater than our sin and defeat. Despite Israel's sins, God will not let the rivers overwhelm Israel, or "the flame consume" them. And the message is the same for us. Yet, without the reminder of Isaiah 42, we might all be tempted to think that divine assurance is the same as divine license, that's God's election of Israel, or God's unconditional love of his creation, is the occasion for self-indulgence. But look what self-indulgence has gotten us. Insecurity, doubt, hopelessness. Yet, God remains. In the wrath of Isaiah 42 and the grace of Isaiah 43, "faith recognizes the presence of the God who wills only to love and be loved in return."
Who are we? Where do we belong? What makes us worthy? These are the questions of our uncertainty and insecurity. And it is with these question hovering over a hopeless community that Isaiah reminds us that our core identity lies not in our roles as individuals, nor even in our relative size or wealth as a faith community, but in God's identification of us as "precious in my sight, and honored." All that matters is God's unconditional love for each of us. Our sense of belonging doesn't come from the acceptance of our peers or the status of our communities, but from the One who claims and will never let us go. This is what is declared through our baptisms. There is nothing we can do or achieve that makes us worthy. The only thing that makes us worthy is God's gracious and unconditional love.
God calls Israel precious in God's sight, despite Israel's sins. Therefore, when we fail and fall, as we inevitably will, we can take comfort in the realization that our failures do not prompt God to quit loving us or laying claim to us. We can trust and hope in the God who is with us and will protect us, even in the midst of the floods and chaos caused by our own bad choices.
Today, Christians around the world are remembering and celebrating Jesus' baptism. This passage from Isaiah also prompts us to recall our own baptisms. Because, you see, it is through the waters of baptism we understand that God marks us and claims us as God's children. In the waters of baptism, God seals his love for us, no matter what me might have done and what might happen. In the waters of baptism, God gives evidence of God's claim on us, "I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine."
A woman sits in a restaurant with her daughter, son-in-law, and only grandchild. The granddaughter plays in the lap of her grandmother, the grandmother enthralled by the child's every move. This baby girl, just barely two years old, is precious in the older woman's sight. Observers see it vividly in their interaction. This delight must give us some glimpse of what the prophet means by God's love and delight in the people and in us. There emanates from God this unabashed desire for his creation that moves God to compassion and action. How can God leave the people languishing in exile, with a lost identity and diminished hope? A God who honors and loves would not do that, the prophet says. In fact, God's voice is carried on the wind, north and south, east and west, from Babylon to Egypt and back again: "give them up." God's voice demands a return, a remnant, a rescue. Sons and daughters, created in God's image and for God's glory, hear the call.
We are those children, listening and responding in the light of God's grace. We are those who belong, baptized by water and fire. We are those claimed by God; given purpose and identity, offered worth and grace. Valued, loved. God's very own people whom he will never abandon.
Praise be to God. Amen.
