Introduction to Scripture Reading…
A few weeks ago we started a series of sermons on Colossians. Today we were to begin to move into the second chapter of that book. But this week we have experienced a tragedy that eclipses anything we could have imagined.
Among professors who teach seminary students how to preach, there is an old adage about how ministers should prepare their sermons with a Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. The meaning, of course, is that the Bible addresses anything experienced in the life of a community.
So this week, we are departing from Colossians. The choir put aside their anthems and solos they had planned for today and presented what they felt was a more appropriate, more meaningful music. And likewise, Jason and I are putting aside our study of Colossians. Perhaps we will resume this study next week.
Our Scripture comes from Isaiah, chapter 40. In this passage, the people are coming to the end of a long national crisis. We are at the beginning of ours, but these people have been struggling for a long time. Still, there is in this passage a call to the Prophet Isaiah to speak to a people who have been in crisis. “Proclaim a message,” says the voice of God. “Cry out,” he says.
And in response, Isaiah asks, “What in the world can I cry out? All life fade away and whither like flowers in the field.” God’s response is to make clear a message of comfort for those in crisis. Let us hear the Word of God.
Isaiah 40:1-9
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken." A voice says, "Cry out." And I said, "What shall I cry?" "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, "Here is your God!"(NIV)
In one of Elie Wiesel’s books, there is a wonderful yet troubling story of a man who lived in Europe during the Second World War. This man is a Jew living in a community where the Nazis have invaded. He’s very devoted to God, but he’s also a bit on the crazy side.
The day the Nazis invade, this man goes into hiding. When it is safe to do so, he comes out of hiding, runs to the synagogue, looks up at the ceiling and shouts – “You see God. We’re still here!”
After the Nazis invade, the German army begins a series of oppressive moves against the Jews. There are crack downs on the population. Occasionally, a number of the Jews are rounded up and put on trains, never to be seen again.
And each time this happens, this crazy little Jew goes into hiding. And when it is safe to do so, he comes out of hiding, runs to the synagogue, looks up at the ceiling and shouts – “You see God, We’re still here!”
But eventually, after one crack down after another, this crazy little man finds himself alone in his community – the last living Jew in town. As was his custom, after he felt it was safe, he came out of hiding. He walked into the Sanctuary, looked up at the ceiling, and whispered, “You see God, I’m still here.”
And after a moment’s pause, he adds, “But you God – where are you?”
On Tuesday morning we woke up to a routine day – but it didn’t say routine very long.
First, one plane crashed into the World Trade Center, and then another. There were reports of a plane crashing into the Pentagon. There were rumors about car bombs exploding outside the State Department. But none of the rumors were as bad as the reality. Many of you were probably watching television as the two towers of one of the largest building complexes on earth collapsed.
And in all of this, many of us may have wondered, “we’re still here God, but where are you?”
There are so many feelings we are having at this time.
Anger – of course we feel anger and rage. This nation is our home – either by birth or by choice – and it’s been violated.
Grief – naturally. Thousands have died. Many of the people of our church have friends or family who were in the World Trade Center on Tuesday. Some of them we haven’t heard about yet.
Anxiety – how could we not worry about what tomorrow might bring. We don’t know where this will lead.
But the worst feeling of all is the feeling that God wasn’t paying attention on Tuesday. That he turned his back. That he was absent. That he removed his blessing from us.
Whenever there is a tragedy in our lives, we are haunted by the feeling that God may have deserted us.
In the Old Testament there is a profound book about suffering. The Book of Job is all about a man by that name who suffers terribly. He loses his wealth and property. He loses his sons in tragic deaths. He loses his health and endures a long and painful illness. Time and again, Job cries out to God in prayer. At one point, Job asks “Why did you hide your face from me?” (Job 13:24). Later, he wants to talk to God face to face and ask God a series of questions and in frustration he says, “If only I knew where to find him…” (Job 23:3)
It is the most discouraging feeling in the world – that God has deserted. In the New Testament, it is the most discouraging moment Jesus ever experienced. Hanging on a cross, Jesus cries out a prayer, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
We’ve all watched more news on the television this week than we probably should have. I’ve watched the news even when they weren’t telling me anything new. It was on the first day that I was watching television and some Congressman was being interviewed and he was asking “Where was our intelligence agency? They let us down.”
And it was right after this that a former CIA director asked, “Where was Congress? They didn’t give us enough funding to keep our intelligence accurate.”
Then a few minutes later another interview was on. This time the person on the camera was a regular man on the street, asking, “Where was the airline security? Why didn’t they stop this?”
An hour or so later, a similar question was asked. This time it was a woman covered in the gray powder of concrete and dust. She had been near the World Trade Center when the two towers collapsed. She addressed the reporter and said, “Where was God?”
That question, “where is God,” is a question that was being asked in our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah. And it is a rather natural question to ask at a time of crisis.
We are a nation in crisis. We are a nation in morning. In the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah, the prophet is told to proclaim a message and to announce a message of comfort to the people. Beginning in verse one, the Scripture says, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.”
Now these people had suffered terribly. They had endured a long national crisis. And God tells the prophet Isaiah in verse 6, “Cry out." And in response the Prophet looks up at God and with a sense of hopelessness asks, "What shall I cry?"
That’s a hard moment for Isaiah. He is told to proclaim a message of comfort. Most of us would like at a time of crisis to know WHY. Why did God allow this? How does if fit into his plan? But God does not often explain. In chapter 40 of Isaiah, just a little bit after our reading for this morning ends, you can find in verse 13 Isaiah wondering, “Who has understood the mind of the LORD, or instructed him as his counselor?” The answer to that is clear – no one understands God. So instead of God offering explanations, he offers comfort.
Isaiah wants to know what message will comfort the people.
And the answer is in verse 9: “You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, "Here is your God!"
This is an incredible source of comfort – knowing that when you ask the question, “why did God let this happen,” or “where is God,” the answer is very simply “Here is your God!”
The sad thing is that God is present with everyone, but not everyone realizes and experiences that presence.
The Amazon River is the largest river in the world. The mouth is 90 miles across. So much water comes from the Amazon that they can detect its currents 200 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean. One irony of ancient navigation is that sailors in ancient times died for lack of water--caught in windless waters of the South Atlantic. They were adrift, helpless, dying of thirst. Sometimes one ship would approach another and beg for help. “We’re out of water,” they would say. “Can you spare any water?” The other ship would simple tell them to drop their buckets, because the waters they were in were not salty, but still fresh water from the Amazon River. (James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988 p. 242.)
The irony of our world is that we are all in the presence of God, but we don’t let ourselves experience His comforting presence. Like the ancient sailors dieing of thirst because they think the sea is salty, when all the time it is fresh water from the Amazon – we suffer alone without reason. God is right here in our midst, and many don’t realize it. So they don’t find the comfort.
We have a chapel here at Sunrise. We call it the Upper Room. It is right over the church offices. It is never locked. It is open for use throughout the week, except on Tuesdays. On Tuesday mornings it is reserved for the children of our private school, who come in, one class after another, to have a brief worship service. Either the Associate Pastor or I will lead them in prayer and read them a Bible Story.
So on Tuesday morning of this week, as the attack on our nation was less than an hour old, the children of our Academy gathered and worshiped. Now of course, at this time, the children had no clue as to what had happened. But the teachers knew.
As the classes took turns coming into the Upper Room on Tuesday, one teacher looked at me and said, “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
One of the children looked at the teacher and raised her hand with the kind of enthusiasm only a 4 year old can have – “I know, I know what we’re going to do. We’re going to listen to Dr. Pittendreigh read us a Bible story and then we’re going to talk to God.”
For the child who gave this answer, it was still just another Tuesday in the Upper Room Chapel, but the answer is still a good answer. How do we deal with crisis? We listen to the Word of God. And we talk with God.
Tragedies, crises, sufferings – they come our lives. They change our lives forever. But the suffering does not last forever. As Isaiah would say, “They fade away like the flowers of the field.” What endures is the Word of God. Our reading from Isaiah said, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever."
Throughout Tuesday we were reminding people that our Upper Room Chapel was open for those wishing to come by and pray. And many people did. On Wednesday evening we had a special worship service – we tried to get the word out through television and radio and email. And a number of people came.
The stories they shared were amazing. One person talked about going to a blood bank to donate at 8:20 AM and not leaving until after 1 PM –the lines were that long but her determination to give was that great.
Another talked about a relative who works in the World Trade Center. We haven’t received any word as yet.
Another talked about hearing about the attack and calling her mother right away so that they could pray desperate prayers, and then hours later hearing from a relative who worked at the World Trade Center and who felt she was guided by an angel out of the building as it was being attacked.
But the thread that runs through each of these stories was God. God is present. God listens to our prayers. God loves each of us. When Isaiah asked God, “what shall I cry out,” God’s response was, “Say to them, Here Is Your God!”
In Isaiah, the crisis was coming to an end. For us, the crisis is just beginning. We don’t know what will happen next. We don’t know how all this will end. But the comfort of message remains forever.
God is here.
God is with us.
