Sunday 19th January 2025
Isaiah 62: 1-5
Psalm 36: 5-10
I Corinthians 12: 1-11
St. John 2: 1-11
“You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.”
Isaiah 62: 3a
I suggest that there are 2 equal and opposite errors one can have about oneself, or others… One mistake is to think too highly of oneself. The sin of pride is to think too highly of oneself and one’s accomplishments, or when one is looking down on others… Envy and coveting are other examples of a sin when we have an inflated view of ourselves – “I deserve something, and someone else does not…”
The opposite danger is to think too poorly of oneself – “I am a failure at everything;” “I am absolutely worthless;” or thoughts like these…
It was the writer and teacher C. S. Lewis who observed that the kingdom of hell is where there is the greatest locus of self-deception… In this world, there is a mix of clarity and blindness; of truth and falsehood… In the kingdom of heaven, there is absolute truth in perfect beauty, without distortion or any presence of evil…
The aim for Christians is to see ourselves, and others, not in an in-flated or de-flated way, but to see ourselves and others exactly as God sees us, containing both wonder (for we have been created in the very image of God (Genesis 1:27); and, left to ourselves, we all carry brokenness (for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3: 23)…
King David puts it this way in Psalm 8:
What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honour.
We have been created in the image of God; we are little lower than the angels; we have capacities for reason and wisdom and love (Proverbs 1: 8, etc.)…
However, the story of the origin of humanity in Adam and Eve is that we consistently tend to go dangerously off track from the God’s “good, pleasing and perfect” will for our lives… We all have the tendency to disobedience from God’s divine will; and these distortions, left unchecked, spoil our lives, and those around us… (Some of these failures are far more serious than we would like to admit. They cloud our relationship with our holy, living God.) That’s the problem…
The story of the gospel is that God done something about it!… Restoration for injustices have to be made, and God himself paid the price through Jesus Christ. We’re invited to receive the gift; to respond to this divine offer of love and forgiveness. Canon Harold Percy of the Diocese of Toronto put it very simply: We’re invited to say “yes” to God…
God sees us not for what we have been, but what we can be… We can be very aware of our numerous faults. God sees us as what we can be through the work of his Spirit – redeemed; healed; shining in God’s reflected light…
If there is someone who irks us, someone we don’t get along with – whether at our jobs or our neighbourhoods or even in the local church – we can be inclined to be annoyed at that person, or we might try to avoid them… Instead, we might ask ourselves different questions – like, “Where is the brokenness in that person, that they are saying or doing those things?…” Or we might ask, “Where does God need to work more deeply in my own life, so that I can respond more graciously?” If we’re being taken advantage of, that’s not loving. But avoiding people is not the best solution either. We don’t have to be best friends with everyone we meet; but we can learn to be gracious. We want God’s best for all…
So, our natural states is that we are made in God’s image, but all of us also carry this terrible habit of turning away from God’s best for us. We can live differently, with God’s help… As St. Paul writes, “If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation.”
The Anglican Book of Alternative Services, which we’re using now, provides 6 choices for the eucharistic prayers. The second eucharistic prayer was originally composed by a bishop named Hippolytus in the third century. Part of the prayer reads, “You have made us worthy to stand in your presence…” Let’s notice what we’re saying about ourselves in this prayer: We aren’t naturally worthy or entitled. But God has “made us worthy,” through Jesus Christ…
The prophet Isaiah lived in the 8th century before the birth of Jesus. During that time, the northern Jewish tribes were being oppressed by the Assyrians, a warrior ethnic group from the north. God’s message through Isaiah proclaims comfort, assurance, and hope, to a downtrodden people…
Today’s first reading, Isaiah 62, is from near the end of the Book of Isaiah. The commentaries which some of us have with our Bibles call this part “Second Isaiah,” because there is a theory that a prophet wrote this part a few years later – possibly as late as when the people were being crushed by the Babylonians, another ethnic group of invaders – and it was combined as 1 overall message… As in the earlier chapters, there are messages of comfort, assurance, and hope, to a downtrodden people…
The exact date of the biblical writings doesn’t matter very much to me. What does matter is that they are all part of the biblical canon – inspired; authoritative; and relevant to our lives today… If we are feeling frustrated or downtrodden, we need to take in the same message from God, of comfort, assurance, and hope – just as an earlier generation needed to hear the Word of the Lord…
If we are feeling superior to others, let’s examine ourselves and repent, before we fall!… If we are feeling discouraged or downtrodden, then let’s absorb the words of the prophet, which are a messsage from God to you and to me today…
Today’s reading begins with God telling us that he will not be silent: For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.
God has something to say to us, and we’d better pay attention!… Then the message moves to words of encouragement and of hope:
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will give.
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
The illustration or metaphor or marriage is about deep, abiding love and future growth…
So if we are feeling despondent, discouraged, or hopeless, let’s see ourselves with the clarity with which God sees us!… God has loved us so much, Christ himself paid the price for our redemption…
Let’s pay attention that this message is not just for individuals, but for a community; a nation… This is a message of the Lord to the people of Judah, a nation in that generation.
This can also be a message to a downtrodden people today… This can be read as a message to the Church, the community of disciples – for us to take in together…
Some of us are familiar with the movie Frozen. Near the beginning of the movie, a little girl sings to her sister, “Do you want to build a snowman?” The little girls are longing for relationship, for friendship… That’s a universal human desire. That is also God’s desire – to be in deep fellowship with his wandering creation, people throughout the world…
We’re in the Church season of Epiphany, when we focus especially on God showing himself through his Son to the entire world. If we are carrying pride or arrogance, then God rightfully will allow circumstances to take us down. This may happen over and over again, until we begin to look away from ourselves, toward the Lord and others…
On the other hand, if we are discouraged or downtrodden, then we need to drink deeply from these words in Isaiah 62!… God sees us from the perspective of what we can be; God offers us comfort and hope through the Spirit of his Son… May we see ourselves, and others, as God sees us all, and shine with his reflected glory.
Amen.