Into 2007
Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on the 7th January, 2007 by Rev Dr Jamie Walker
Readings: Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3:15-17, 21-2
Sermon:
On this our first Sunday together of the year, I have tended to focus on a text which we can take into the new year. Last year we looked at the words from Psalm 46:10, 'Be still and know that I am God'.
Today I want to take words from our lectionary reading, from Isaiah 43:2, 'I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you'.
Again and again when looking at texts I find we need to begin at the end, for this sets the tone to the whole verse. In our text the words are 'I will be with you'. If we begin instead with the preceding words, 'when you pass through the waters', then our thoughts instantly go to the kinds of challenges and troubles that face us and our world, and this colours how we think of God. God then would be mainly characterised as one who helps us in our troubles.
Instead we begin with the words 'I will be with you'. This is the message of Christmas. The God of the child in the manger says this to us! Says it with the greatest emphasis and reality. The God who made the heavens and the earth says it! The God who watched over his people Israel said it! The God who was to be born in the manger said it. Nobody else will be with us as he is with us - no mother or father, no brother or sister, no friend or partner, no lover or confidant - none will come even close to being with us in the way that he will be with us.
His way of being with us always is highlighted especially in his coming close to us at Bethlehem, God with us, Emmanuel. We have been singing about this so much recently. Here is not some distant God, some unmoved mover, some heartless fatalist, some abstract power, some mysterious force here is God who is willing to come to where we are, who drank from his mother's milk as we did, who needed his nappy changed as we did, who put his feet where we put ours, who needed washing as we need to be washed. This is the God who says to us I will be with you.
We know then who this God is, who tells us he is with us. This God is not unknown. He is not in hiding. He is not keeping out of the road. He is not an anonymous benefactor. This God has come close to us, and he says, I, I who am Emmanuel, will be with you.
Now to the preceding words. When you pass through the waters. The word 'waters' is so graphic here. The thought, as amplified in the next verse, is of a flood sweeping over the land, or of a raging torrent causing trepidation at a crossing. The waters are symbolic for troubles and fears and anxieties that face us. These may be personal, some deeply troubling and disturbing (and I am not just thinking of exams!) - troubles that feel at times like sword of Damocles hanging over us, making us churn in our guts at some approaching calamity they can be totally paralysing and debilitating. I am sure all of us have experienced at times a gut-wrenching fear. We wonder how we can get through.
The waters can mean also all that faces us in the world, much that bombards us on our TV screens we see so much hatred and war, so many refugees and displaced people, so many poor, so many people riding roughshod over others, so much suspicion and violence against people with different faiths and perspectives, so much rape of the world's resources. We hear of the coming effects of global warming and the need to take action now, but little significant seems to be happening. Such deep waters, such overwhelming rivers, and we hardly dare stop and think about them, and if we do we end up feeling a paralysis and a despair.
But into our world, comes the word, 'I will be with you'. How crucial to hear this word before we think of the waters, because we are then aware that God is with us no matter what.
Now to the beginning of our text: 'I have called you by name, you are mine'. This underlines intimacy and presence. Notice the pronouns 'I have called you by name, you are mine'. In fact the whole passage is similar. The I is God speaking, God committing himself, God defining God, God revealing God. 'I have redeemed you... I will be with you .. I am the Lord your God ... I love you ... I give people in return for you .. I am with you .. I will gather you' .. and so on. The deeply personal nature of God comes through with striking force and passionate commitment.
This God calls us by name. Our names are such a part of us. They identify us, they are whispered to us by a lover, they are spoken in greeting (if a name is remembered!). They are used to cajoule, criticise, manipulate, scorn, as well as to encourage, endear, cheer, console. For the Israelites the name of God had never to be spoken in vain, for every time the name was spoken, God was summoned to be present. Whenever our names are spoken, in a sense we are present - whether literally or not. We are brought to mind by the speaker and listener.
In our text it is God who calls us by name. The words are not I have called the human race, I have called all the people of the world. The words are I have called you by name, you are mine. Each one of us individually, as we enter and go through 2007, is called by name. God knows us personally, in unique intimacy, in heart-felt care and passion. Here is overwhelming loving kindness, a wonderful embrace. Here is not some abstract truth about God. Here is God facing you and me, God whom you and I can know, and above all who knows you and me, God to whom we can speak as a friend and who speaks to you and to me as a friend, God who is waiting for us to speak now, the first Sunday of the year. We are part of an on-going conversation. This is invigorating! This is liberating!
But does this not all sound too good to be true! Does it not sound quite unrealistic, a dream world? Here we note that the one who says I will be with you, I have called you by name is also the one who says when you pass through the waters.
When we think of the love of God all too often we translate it to mean all going well with us, our lives going smoothly, things working out, our way of life straightforward and clear. When things go wrong, we wonder what we have done to offend God, we wonder why he has stopped loving us. We wonder if we are too evil to love, as someone said to me recently. Again and again people say to me when they are going through it, what have I done, why had God brought me to this, why has God turned his back on me? God does not even acknowledge my name. And the underlying thought is that God must be punishing.
What then are to make of God when things do not go well in our life, when tragedies occur, when everything is dark around us, when there appears no way through. For Israel, there in Babylon, it must have seemed as if all talk of the loving kindness of God was folly, was make believe - after all they were languishing far from Jerusalem, far from Judah, from their homeland. Things could hardly have been worse!
Isaiah brought them a new word from God, a fresh word, a word reminding them of what the love of God is really about. It is a love that embraces and enfolds and keeps, no matter the terrible circumstance that they may be enduring.
Perhaps the meaning is mostly clearly seen through the baptism of Jesus. Jesus, in his baptism, passed through the waters, literally, a baptism of repentance, where he put himself into our shoes, confessing our sins. Further Jesus in his baptism had the sense of God with him, as the Spirit fills him. Jesus, in is baptism, heard the words spoken from heaven, 'you are my Son the beloved', words so close to the words in Isaiah, 'I have called you by name, you are mine'. You are precious in my sight, and honoured and I love you.
For Jesus, this meant not an easy, straightforward, trouble free life. On the contrary, it meant things would often be exceedingly difficult and terrible, and indeed would lead to the crucifixion and to death. Yet the gospels tell us about the continuing presence of God with him - or, using the words of Isaiah, 'When you pass through the waters, I will be with you...' Yes, says God, even you, Jesus, as you follow through your baptism of repentance, I will be there, there with you through all the implications of your taking human life and its sin, I will be with you right up to and into the cross. You will be in danger of your life, indeed your life will be forfeit, but I am with you.
The thought is that God would never give Jesus up. God would never let Jesus go - nor his people - nor us. God would take Jesus right into resurrection, into new beginnings, into new hope. We can be utterly certain as we face 2007, of the continuing embrace and loving kindness of God.
So when life is tough, often exceedingly tough, and it seems as if there is no way ahead, we need to recall this passage, to write it into our hearts, to memorise it, so that it becomes natural and a part of us.
But of course life is not always tough. There will be, I am sure, many many moments in 2007, where life will be exciting, enthralling, invigorating, liberating. The waters will be challenges that get our adrenaline going, that bring out the best in us. Here too God is with us, God know us by name.
I then invite you to take this text, as I take it for myself. Say it to yourself as you leave Chapel this morning, say it as you go to sleep tonight and as you waken in the morning. Say it when you remember through the year, 'I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you'.