4.3.22 Isaiah 43:16-21
16 This is what the LORD says, who makes a road through the sea and a path through mighty waters, 17 who brings out the chariot and the horses, the army and the strong warrior. They will all lie down together. They will not get up. They are extinguished. Like a wick they go out. 18 Do not remember the former things. Do not keep thinking about ancient things. 19 Watch, I am about to do a new thing. Now it will spring up. Don’t you know about it? Indeed I will make a road in the wilderness. In the wasteland I will make rivers. 20 The wild animals, the jackals and ostriches, will honor me, because I am providing water in the wilderness, rivers in a parched wasteland, water for my chosen people to drink. 21 This people that I formed for myself will declare my praise.
How is your memory? It’s pretty hit and miss with me, and usually it’s more miss than hit. When I need to remember something I usually can’t. But when the Arkansas Razorbacks made it to the sweet 16 this year? I somehow remembered that Todd Day and Sidney Moncrief, basketball players for the Milwaukee Bucks from YEARS ago, both played for Arkansas. What good is that?!?
If someone tells you to forget something, that isn’t easy to do either. That especially tends to happen with bad things we’ve done and guilt. Like ELO sang, “I can’t get it out of my head.” Paul, in today’s epistle reading from Romans, wanted to FORGET something that he used to take pride in, with all of his achievements and religious history. He said it was all a bunch of garbage. He would rather forget about it. Why? Everything he took pride in only took him away from grace.
What about with you and your spiritual past? You look back on your confirmation day. How hard was the questioning? How many did you get right? How strict was the pastor you had? You remember riding to church in the back of the station wagon. You think back to your Christmas programs. Is that going to matter to God when you die, if your faith is nothing but memories of confirmation? Do you want your God to be merely nostalgic? The legend of Sunday School stories? Nothing more? I hope not. God wants your faith to think of Him in the here and the now as well, that you are still actively engaging with Him in your everyday life. The past and the present are meant to come together into the future.
The Israelites had an AWESOME and PERSONAL history with God that was worth remembering. He made them into the nation that they were, calling Abraham from beyond the Tigris and the Euphrates, from worshiping other gods, and bringing him to the Promised Land to believe in the one true God. He kept them alive through a drought by bringing them to Egypt under the care of Joseph. But when the LORD called Moses in Exodus 6, He wanted Moses to know that this would be a DEFINING event that would truly REVEAL the LORD as Redeemer, the One who would free them from SLAVERY.
So after all of the plagues, God reserved this last splash as the finishing touch on His masterpiece. Isaiah says that God made “a road through the sea and a path through mighty waters. He brought “out the chariot and the horses, the army and the strong warrior.” Then when they were in the middle of the sea, Isaiah said that God snuffed them out like a wick. Think about that. When Marilyn Monroe died, John Elton compared her life to a candle in the wind and the rain. But these weren’t drug addicted movie stars who were snuffed out. This was a whole army of warriors who were driving the tanks of their day. Yet God was able to snuff them out like nothing more than blowing out a candle. Who could forget such a thing? It’s the stuff of legend.
But Isaiah commands them to forget about it. Do not remember the former things. Do not keep thinking about ancient things. In the Hebrew the word doesn’t mean to forget it forever. But at least to forget about it for a bit. Why? God’s going to do something BETTER! Watch, I am about to do a new thing. Now it will spring up. Don’t you know about it? Isaiah uses similar terminology in Isaiah 11:1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. We are now in the season of Spring, a time when plants come forth from the ground rather quickly. I noticed one plant in front of our house already trying to come out of the ground a couple days ago. That’s how Isaiah talks when he writes, “spring up” and “come up.”
This “new thing” is talking about Jesus, who seemingly popped forth out of nowhere, in the little town of Bethlehem, from the chopped off nation of Israel. Nobody in Jerusalem knew anything about it. But here a breath of life sprung up in a world of death. Isaiah 53:2 says, “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.” Isn’t it a beautiful picture to make you think of Jesus - like a tender shot of life - green and beautiful? Think about the insightful questions that he eagerly asked the rabbis when he was only 12 years old. How refreshing to have a young man taking an in-depth interest in the Word of God! Imagine Him talking life into the young man in the casket - for the widow of Nain - when he stopped the funeral procession and raised him to life. Imagine Him speaking love and forgiveness into the heart of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof, even prior to healing Him. “Take heart, son. Your sins are forgiven.” Think of someone who is a bundle of energy and personality. Jesus was so much more. Jesus oozed with LIFE. He was LIFE in the flesh.
Even when this life was put to death and buried in the cave, it was in order to give ETERNAL life. When Jesus died, dead people raised from the dead. (Matthew 27:52) Jesus was like a seed being planted. The seed that burst forth from the ground would produce much more life. “Whoever believes in me will live, even though He dies.” John 12:24 says, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” This prophecy is a Jesus thing.
Isaiah draws a contrast here. In the EXODUS God brought the Israelites to safety by PUTTING to DEATH with water. After the Israelites were brought into the desert, they were saved and kept ALIVE through water. The wild animals who survived on practically nothing in the desert, the jackals and the owls, would see something they’d never seen before. Two million people walking into their deserted living space. And what’s more amazing? Wherever they went, water and food came with them. Instead of devastating the land and taking all its resources, the land was fed and watered wherever they went. As a result of the Fall, creation GROANS. But at the arrival of Israel, creation would rejoice because of the LIFE God brought with them. Indeed I will make a road in the wilderness. In the wasteland I will make rivers. 20 The wild animals, the jackals and ostriches, will honor me, because I am providing water in the wilderness, rivers in a parched wasteland, water for my chosen people to drink.
Think of how water was involved in Jesus’ ministry with the coming of John. Where does he perform his ministry? At the river, with baptism. People come repenting of their sins, and they leave forgiven and hopeful in the Messiah to come, watered with forgiveness and grace. Where does Jesus begin His public ministry? At the waters of the Jordan, anointed to be our prophet, priest and king. In Jesus’ words and actions the people found LIFE and forgiveness. Or you think of the adulterous woman at the well, how Jesus gave her new life and forgiveness when He spoke to her as well. She quickly overflowed with life and hope. Even look at Jesus’ side when He is pierced at His death. Water and blood flow out.
Is it mere coincidence that we too are brought to life through the waters of baptism? Or could it be that the same God and Lord works through and in our baptisms too? Could this God of life still be flowing with life in the here and the now? When He mentions how God parts the waters, he uses a PRESENT tense. He wasn’t just talking about the Exodus. He was talking about the here and the now as well. God still makes roads through the seas and the waters, through the dead ends of life. We don’t come here just to look BACK, we also come here to see what God is doing NOW too!
What is that desert today? Where is that desert? It’s not just out there in the world. Could you see the desert as being right inside of you? When you sin against God, you become thirsty for forgiveness. When you feel alone, you hunger for God’s companionship. In baptism He pours the Holy Spirit inside of you. The Holy Spirit comes to bring LIFE and salvation into your dry and thirsty soul, watering you daily when you come back to the wells of the Word. The Lord’s Supper continues to feed you with the body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Mercy breeds life inside.
John wrote in John 7:37–39 , “On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and called out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! 38 As the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from deep within the person who believes in me.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were going to receive.” The same God who brought water out of rock to give life to the Israelites can have waters of life flow out of you too.
I think of Paul with the Corinthians. Paul and the apostles were suffering under persecution. Their congregation was very talented but also very troubled. It would have been easy to give up on them. But Paul kept on praying for them. He kept on ministering to them. So Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:3–5 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our trouble, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so through Christ our comfort also overflows. There he uses water terms again, “overflows.” Trouble comes, but God’s mercy flows into us and onto us. The love naturally “overflows” into the lives of those we live with. When they need comfort, we have the grace and the desire to give it to them.
Well, watered, you are sent into a desert to live in. Envision the people in this world as STARVING for love and affection. Envision them as THIRSTY for grace and mercy. They need acceptance. They want love. But they just don’t know where to find it. You can be an oasis to them. I think of a nice relationship I was able to develop with some of our elderly neighbors. They have been nothing but kind to us. They have been a blessing to us with their friendship and generosity. I now call myself the “son they never wanted.” That is a part of being an oasis to people, a spring of living water to a world dying of thirst.
Is there someone you could be flowing to? I find it a sad thing that we don’t take the time and the effort to let our waters flow to people in our world. Entertainment and phones have made us self centered people. The only care we give is a care emoji on Facebook. We don’t feed at the stream like we should, and so we don’t flow with the water of life that we could. And then what happens? God’s name, His reputation, is not glorified in the world around us. This was a part of why God set aside the Israelites, This people that I formed for myself will declare my praise. Water that isn’t flowing is stagnant. It becomes a rotten and stinky cesspool. Jesus is a bubbling brook, a virtual geyser of life who flows into you and through you, so that you can flow with His life to others. But that won’t happen if you don’t keep on drinking from the fountain and wading in the water yourself. Think about where God has placed you. Who is starving around you? Who needs a drink of Jesus to quench their thirsty souls?
When you go out to eat, do you always go to the same place? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? Or do you like to take a chance on something new? It was a good thing that the Israelites remembered their past deliverance from Egypt. But God didn’t want them to be stuck in the past, to think He was done working miracles. He wanted them to see something new, a new deliverance, from the Messiah sprouting forth in Bethlehem, from Calvary, into life. New miracle, same source.
We live our lives looking back on that powerful Exodus. We never forget the cross and the empty grave, this salvation event, it is the center and foundation of our faith. It keeps on flowing with forgiveness and life and salvation, and it gives us reason to live here and now and forever. We think back on our lives, and we are thankful for our confirmation training, and the gifts that God has given us to help us grow in grace. Every day is a gift of God’s grace. His mercies are new every morning. Don’t just look back, but look forward too - see what kind of grace is coming. If you think the Exodus was great, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait until the resurrection. Watch, I am about to do a new thing. Now it will spring up. Don’t you know about it? Yes we do, and we can’t wait. Amen.
