Tidings of comfort and joy: connecting the dots (sermon from Sun, Dec 10, 2017)

Reading:  Isaiah 40.1-11

(After many long years, and 39 chapters of mostly woe -- bad news, loss, judgement and remorse, the prophet brings a message of hope -- of not only maybe-in-the-future salvation from God, but a salavtion and a new day that are right around the corner, and already appearing.  The prophet himself seems to find it hard to believe.  But there it is!  Can we believe it?)

 Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her

that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

In other words: enough!  Time for the hurting to stop.  And the healing to begin.

Do you ever get tired of bad news?  Of American politics?  And Canadian?  All over the world, stories of terrorism, civil war, religious and ethnic cleansing, and genocide?  Of environmental collapse and the extinction of species?  Of women abused and assaulted in the name of male privilege and power?  Of how even our newest vehicles of mass communication – Facebook, Google and Twitter, have been co-opted, manipulated and turned into juggernauts of mass mis-information?

And local stories, too.  It’s not just the big picture that scares and depresses us.

This past week most of Hamilton has been paying attention to the story of 19-year-old Yosif Al-Haswani, an immigrant with his family from Iraq, a first-year student athlete at Brock aspiring to be a doctor, who a week ago walked out of his mosque on Main near Wellington where he was attending a religious celebration, saw an elderly man being accosted by two young men, intervened to protect the old man, and was shot and killed.  And as the story has unfolded over the week, his death may have been unnecessary, because medical personnel at the scene did not recognize in time just how seriously he was injured.

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem …

Tidings of comfort and joy!  Comfort and joy! 

Oh tidings of comfort and joy!

Israel in the Book of Isaiah is in need of comfort and joy.  For years and years, and for chapter after chapter through the first 39 chapters of the book of the prophet, the news has been mostly bad.  Their unfaithfulness that they needed to see.  Judgement and the loss of the kingdom to pagan enemies and empires that they needed to accept.  Exile and alienation from their own heritage that they needed to live through.

Through all those years and those 39 chapters there were occasional optimistic words.  A few hopeful promises of God sending a new kind of king to restore the kingdom and bring peace to the world – promises that we see fulfilled somehow in Christ, and in the body of Christ.

But I wonder if the people and even the prophet himself sometimes found it hard to really believe the promises that were made, and that they would ever see them fulfilled.  Because when the tone changes in the reading today, in chapter 40, from bad news to good, from only-future promise to present fulfilment, it’s almost as though the prophet himself has to be convinced of it really happening.

The way it’s written, it’s like there’s an outside voice – the voice of a stranger, someone standing outside the place of despair, telling the prophet to look – really look, and to listen – really listen, to what is happening and to what God is actually doing in his time.

“Do you hear it?” the stranger says.  “Do you hear the simple message?  ‘Comfort, O comfort my people!’ Your God is saying to you.  ‘Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her penalty is paid – more than paid, and the time of hurting is over.’ ”

“In the wilderness that you’re so afraid of,” the voice goes on, “God wants a road to be built – a road you will make with your own good actions, that will let God come with visions of glory and new life, a road God will use to come as a shepherd to care for his flock, gathering up and carrying the lambs in his arms, gently leading the mother sheep to good pasture.”

Sometimes it takes a while and voices from outside ourselves to help us really believe and to choose to live into the hope of the promise.

One Sunday after worship a few weeks ago Marg Simpson shared with me her happiness after attending a memorial at the hospital, for the families of persons who have died and whose donated organs have been used to enrich and save the lives of others.  Marg said she went to the service with a little trepidation at having to re-live her grief, but once there was surprised by deep joy and gratitude instead for the ways in which Steve’s generosity of life has allowed other people to be able to see and live again.

Shortly after that I had a phone call from Cam Cocks telling me that Amy, Don and Norma Brown’s grand-daughter who for most of her life has been living with a rare blood disorder and for the last few years has been waging a losing battle with time on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, had just received a gift of a kidney from a woman in BC who found out about Amy’s plight on Facebook and fought her way through all kinds of red tape and problems, to make it happen.  A new lease on life just when the old one seemed closer to expiring.

Just a few days after that, a story in The Spectator – on the same day and even the same page as the story of the shooting of Yosif Al-Haswani, a story about a husband and young father saved by a kidney transplant arranged through the Kidney Paired Donation Program run by Canada Blood Services.  Since its inception in 2009 the program has arranged 556 donations and transplants across the country – 21 right here at St Joe’s in Hamilton.

Three separate stories in the matter of maybe two weeks of lives saved through the sacrificial generosity of others – of strangers.  And when you connect the dots, a picture starts to appear.  An image of new life in the face of death.  Of comfort and joy in the midst of darkness and anxiety.  Of human – maybe divine, goodness afoot in the world against coldness and sorrow.

I shouldn’t be surprised, though.  Because here we’re spending most of the Advent season – one of the busiest, most stressful, and most expensive seasons for any of us, doing good and reaching out to others with gifts of compassion and care.  The collection last week of mitts, hats, scarves, food and gifts for the Wesley Christmas and Holiday Store.  This week for a hamper of holiday food and gifts for the Assad family.  And next weekend, preparing and serving a hot meal for the patrons of the Wesley Centre.

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.…

Build a road in the wilderness,

Clear a path through the chaos,

Make a way into the present moment

for the good will of God to come near,

for the healing, nurturing presence of God to be made known.

And it isn’t just Christ’s church that is living this out.  In the same section of The Spec a week ago that carried the first story of Yosif Al-Haswani and of the Kidney Paired Donation Program – just 2 pages on, there was a story about a meeting this afternoon at First Unitarian Church where people of all faiths are invited to a two-hour “Speed-Meet Different Beliefs” event.  It’s like a speed-dating event, except here instead of 15-minute session to find a date, people will move around to have 8 15-minute sessions with different people each time to talk about their different beliefs, to break down at least some of the barriers of misunderstanding that too often keep us from creating real community together

I wonder if some members of the Sikh Temple that recently gave $10,000 to the stem cell centre at the Juravinski (also reported in The Spec) will be there.  Or if maybe some members of Yosif Al-Haswani’s mosque might be there too. 

The story of his death reminds us there is sometimes a price to be paid – a sacrifice to be made, for believing in and living out the way of God.  Maybe always a price and sacrifice of some kind.

But when we grow tired of bad news, there is an answer – to let ourselves see and hear the good news of what God is doing in our time, to take the time to connect the dots to see what kind of new life is appearing around us, and then to do our part in making a way for the glory of God’s good will and love to be seen in our time and in our city. 

And then we, like the prophet Isaiah, can honestly sing:

God rest ye merry, O gentlemen; let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan's pow'r when we were gone astray.
Oh! tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy.
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy!

Thanks be to God.