Westworth United Church

Rev. J. Clark Saunders, Westworth United Church, December 4, 2011

Isaiah 40:1-11

What would be good news for you when the night is long and you are far from home?

Many centuries ago an entire people found themselves in that situation. They were living in exile, far from the land they loved, wondering whether life would always feel this bad. They felt stuck, oppressed, as if they were living in a wilderness. I wonder whether life has ever felt that way for you, and if it has, whether you could have said what would make it feel better.

One of the passages that is often read at this time of year – in fact, much of it is sung every time Handel’s Messiah is performed — comes from the 40^th chapter of the Book of Isaiah. It was written at a time when the people of Israel had been living for some years in captivity in Babylonia. But the writer has good news for them. The bad times are nearly over. Their deliverance is at hand. And in these ringing lines, I am struck by the words he uses: ‘“Comfort, O Comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly …” And then, after contrasting human frailty with God’s reliability, the writer goes on to compare God to a shepherd. “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.”

What kind of God is the writer speaking of? Think again of the words we heard: comfort, tenderly, gather, carry, gently. Say the phrase, “The God of the Old Testament”, and some people immediately think of a fierce and vengeful God. But that is not the God we encounter here.

When people in the Old Testament tried to conceive of God they often thought of a king. Kings were mighty and powerful, after all, and so, they believed, was God. But when some gave the matter deeper thought, they realized that God was not like just any king. God was not an arbitrary tyrant. If God was like a king , God would have to be like a good king, an idealized king, a king who truly cared for the people. In fact, that is how some ancient kings in the Middle East like to see themselves. That is what the best of them tried to be.

Some of you will remember that the Babylonian King Hammurabi is famous for having devised one of the earliest legal codes that has come down to us. In the prologue to that code, Hammurabi describes himself as “the beneficent shepherd”. “In my bosom,” he says, “I carried the peoples of the land.” You might almost think that the writer of today’s passage from Isaiah had read those words and used them to describe the God of Israel.

But wherever these images come from, the writer’s words must have been good news for his people. And it is good news for us when times are hard and we feel oppressed by life to know that there is comfort and tenderness and gentleness and caring in the world. Isn’t that what we value in the people around us — in a partner, in our friends, in caregivers, in strangers – at times when our lives feel fragile? And might these qualities in people not speak to us of qualities in the God who made us and loves us?

What would be good news for you when the night is long and you are far from home? It may not always be true to say that your troubles will soon be over. But it is always true – and it is always good news – that you are carried close to the heart of God.