By Such Stripes Are We Healed
by Jack Shaver
©The United Church of Canada, 1985
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 0-88622-196-X
7M/12/85/APL
Used with Permission
Friday
Cheer up, your travail is coming
Isaiah 54: 1-3
Almost all students of the Bible agree that the book of Isaiah contains material from a variety of periods in Israel's history. Some of it belongs to a period before and during the destruction of the northern kingdom. Some of it belongs to the time of the Babylonian exile and some fits the time of the restoration of Jerusalem. The thinking, as well as the context,is different in the writings of each period.
At the same time, all the writings seems to reflect a common spirit. It is thought that the book is the work of a prophetic movement, made up of the disciples of the "first" Isaiah of Israel. There were different preachers down the years, but all were members of the same order.
The verses we consider today and tomorrow come from the preaching of members of this movement during the exile. The verses for consideration on Sunday come from the preaching during the restoration.
In the period around 540 BC a great change took place in the middle east. The power of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon waned as that of Cyrus of Persia grew. This brought new possibilities for Israel. For while Babylon's imperial policy had been to break the power of the small city states by redistributing their leading citizens to different locations throughout the empire, Persian policy was the opposite. Cyrus turned these communities of exiles into an underground movement by promising them all that, in his empire, they could rebuild their cities provided they swore allegiance to him.
All those familiar oracles that start with: "Comfort, comfort ye my people. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and say to her that her warfare is ended" were spoken at this time when the promise of political restoration was on the horizon. This particular school saw Cyrus as God's chosen one - God's right hand - in freeing captive Israel. Not many years earlier Jeremiah named Nebuchadnezzar as God's right hand in destroying Jerusalem. Some time through this same period Ezekiel was preaching that Israel could be God's people with or without Jerusalem.
It must not have been easy for the people in the street to know who was speaking for God.
Yet something remarkable is happening to Israel's theology through all this painful confusion. While the specific implications these exilic prophets draw may differ, what we find common is a breakthrough in understanding the connection between God and suffering.
The verses we consider today first moved me while I was a university chaplain during the sixties. The world we knew was losing its underpinnings. People grasped at intimate communities only to have them disintigrate. We dwelt in a desert. And here I came upon a verse where someone set out to cheer people up by saying, "All you poor people who have never been in travail, you are going to be in travail. All you poor people in the desert, now is the time to enlarge your tents!"
- Now it may be that only a woman can really understand that. But I think all of us can partially understand that strange truth. Travail can be good news, when it means giving birth. The absence of travail is something to be pitied, if it means emptiness.
Offering
Almighty God;
We've got a profusion of concerns and projects. - We're zealous about some and half-hearted about others.
- We're driven by concerns we don't approve of and are in flight from tasks we approve of but dread.
We bring our work before you:- our pursuits, the things we strive for ,
all that we persist in. - We bring our loves before you:
- our passionate desires,
our longings of the heart,
all that we adore. - We offer all this to you.
- We loosen our grip on all our concerns so that you can put them right.
We take our hands off all our works so that you can make of them that which is well pleasing in your sight.
We bring you ourselves so that we can become a fit offering.
Amen