Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Isaiah 54

Our reading today brings some of the most precious, reassuring promises in the Bible about God’s everlasting, constant love, compassion, and provision for each of us.  The setting is the people of Israel who are now returning from their exile in Babylonian captivity, a time when many of them felt that the Lord had deserted them.  That was, of course, not really true; instead it was they who had deserted the Lord and turned away to false gods over and over.  An earlier prophecy, Hosea 2, had pictured Israel as the Lord’s faithless wife who, after many adulterous affairs through which the Lord continued to love her (Hosea 2:1-8), would be deserted (2:9-13) and sent into the wilderness (captivity), where she would come to her senses, return to the Lord, and the covenant of faithful marriage between the Lord and his people would be renewed forever (2:14-20).  Now, in today’s reading, comes the fulfilment of the promise, the joyful day when renewal of the marriage covenant is celebrated.  The Lord affirms,

For a brief moment I abandoned you,
    but with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing wrath for a moment
    I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,
    says the Lord, your Redeemer.   (Isaiah 54:7-8)

Isaiah 54 is full of wonderful promises of  restoration, comfort, love, and eternal faithfulness from God  to his people, and by extension not just to those returning from exile but to all of us who, like them, have so often turned away from God, who have so deserted God that we feel that he has instead forsaken us.  Yet God is faithful, restores us, loves us, and commits himself to us forever, no matter what may come.

My favourite part, which seems to sum up the promise of the whole chapter, is verse 10:

For the mountains may depart
    and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
    and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,
    says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

I first learned this verse before I turned 20, and it has meant a great deal to me through all the many years since, especially in times when I have started to wander from the Lord and in times when my world seemed to fall apart.  My occasion for learning this verse was the oratorio Elijah by Felix Mendelssohn, where it appears as a baritone solo, toward the end (number 37 out of 43).  With a bit of poetic license, the librettist turns it around so it becomes Elijah affirming God’s faithfulness, so amply demonstrated in God’s help and provision for Elijah throughout his life:

 For the mountains shall depart
    and the hills be removed,
but Thy kindness shall not depart from me;
    neither shall be removed the covenant of Thy peace.

Below is a link to a YouTube performance – not the best or the most grand, instead it is a simple performance, with a good soloist but only a piano accompaniment and poor video (too dark), at a benefit concert after the Haiti earthquake five years ago.  What a desperate time that was (and continues) for the people of Haiti, how many of them must have thought themselves forsaken by God, but the Lord remains faithful – and part of our faithful response is to be there with all the assistance we can provide for the people of Haiti (where great needs continue) and of similar disasters throughout the world.

Click here (2 minutes, 38 seconds):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4_39fH-kzM 

May Elijah’s testimony be ours too, as we go on our way in the strength of the Lord.

– Robert Kruse