Coming Home With Shouts Of Joy

Isaiah 43: 16-21 & Psalm 126

Roger Lynn

March 6, 2016

4th Sunday in Lent

(click here for the audio for this sermon)

The people of Israel had been languishing in exile in a foreign land. Sometimes it seemed as if they would never find a way to go home. They were trapped in a life that was dark and oppressive and threatened to leave them forever cut off from everything which gave meaning to their lives. At times it even seemed that they were cut off from God. And it was into the wilderness of those hopeless circumstances, so filled with frightening and disheartening shadows, that the prophet Isaiah dared to speak a word of hope. Appearances-to-the-contrary-not-withstanding, God had neither forgotten nor abandoned them. Indeed, God was calling them home. The lifeless wilderness which stood between them and their dreams, a wilderness both real and metaphorical, could not and would not prevent the flow of God’s creative love. But for them to find that path, to experience that holy homecoming, the people had to look ahead rather than behind. God is always calling us forward into a bright and marvelous future. “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19) 

How often do we find ourselves in similar circumstances? We feel lost and in exile - cut off from our sense of home, cut off from our sense of self. The road grows dark and frightening and we begin to despair of ever finding our way again. Perhaps this is only a momentary rough spot in an otherwise centered and purposeful life - an unexpected diagnosis of disease, an accident, relationship distress. Or perhaps it is an ongoing struggle with no end in sight - chronic pain, mental health issues, intense loneliness. But whether short-term or extended, seemingly minor disturbance or serious life-crisis, we become overwhelmed and we lose perspective and hope. We long to find our way home, but we aren’t entirely sure where to look or even what we are looking for. We only know that there is a deep longing, an emptiness crying out to be filled, an ache for something deeper, richer, fuller than anything we have ever known. And then, just when we are tempted to think that the dream will never be realized, that our lives will always be broken and never be whole, we catch a hint of something echoing down through the years and across all the wilderness miles between then and now - God’s message to the people of Israel living in Babylonian exile can still be heard. “I am about to do a new thing . . . do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:19) If we will remember to look up from whatever it is that has us stuck, even if just for a moment, we might discover that God is already at work preparing a new path which will take us home.

When we lose our perspective and our way, it is helpful to turn our attention once again towards the center - towards God. It is there that we find direction and it is there that we discover joy. In reflecting back on the same events which were only a future hope for Isaiah, the psalmist put it this way, “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongues with shouts of joy!” (Psalm 126:1&2) Light dawns in the darkness. Laughter and joy emerge from hopelessness. But only when we dare to look beyond ourselves and trust in the God who is calling us home - home to a place we’ve never been before. And this homecoming is not a one time event – it is an ongoing way of life, for it happens over and over again. Whenever it seems that all we can manage to do is sow the seeds of tears, God offers the possibility of a joyful harvest of abundance.

It isn’t that hard times will never find us. Life will hand us difficult and even painful challenges. But we need not face them alone and we need not allow them to define us or defeat us. God is always with us and God is always doing a new thing among us. All that is necessary is for us to perceive this truth. If we can see the new path, then we can walk the new path. It is so easy to let fear blind us. It is so easy to let despair overwhelm us. Which is why it is so important to practice remembering the history of God’s amazing activity among us. That’s what the psalmist was doing - recalling a past occasion when God had called them home and left them laughing and joyful, so they might dare to believe that it could happen again.

I don’t pretend to know why bad things happen in this world. I do not understand why we so often allow fear to overwhelm us. I cannot explain why we seem so prone to forgetfulness when it comes to who we really are and in whose presence we always live. But through all of my own life experience I do know this - the darkness is never the last word, fear is never the ultimate reality, being lost is never our final destiny. God is calling us home. God will continue to call us home. And whenever we hear the call and respond, whenever we turn our lives again towards the center, whenever we let go of the fear and step into the light, then everything else in our lives and in our world falls into a different perspective as we once again open ourselves to the experience of coming home with shouts of joy. Welcome home!