This morning we're going to talk about two things. The first is a little statement by me to make myself available to the congregation, having been hired as your pastor on a part-time basis. After that we will look at some scripture that celebrates a mother’s love as a way of observing Mother's Day. Hopefully everyone will be able to somehow show your appreciation for the way your mom has supported you over the years.
I first want to mention a few things about being offered the privilege of being asked to serve you over the next year. I want to tell you that my goals for this congregation over the next year are going to be driven by three principles: Preach the Word with Integrity, Love the People, and Respect the Community.
The first principle: Preach the Word with Integrity, means that it is my intention to try to accurately represent God's love for the people by preaching the Word of God in a way that is true to our best understanding of the plain meaning of scripture. This means that all of my preaching will focus on accurately presenting the meaning of each passage in the light of the overall message of salvation that is represented in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the Greek the word for "Gospel" is euangelion, which means "good news." It is the same word we get our word evangelism from, and evangelism means preaching the “good news.” But this kind of news is more than just good news; it was the kind of news that might announce a great victory or triumph. The Christian Gospel really is the proclamation of the amazing victory of God over the power of death, sin, and corruption for all of his children. That message is at the heart of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. God has communicated that word to us through scripture; my hope is to be able to convey the astonishing love of God for you that the Bible represents. I am asking you now that you hold me to that. If I ever seem to stray from the gospel, if we reach a point where the "good news" doesn't really seem very good, hold me accountable. There are a number of guiding passages in scripture; I think the one that is most appropriate at this time is in 2 Corinthians:
5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” t made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (2 Cor. 4:5-7 NIV)
The second principle, Love the People, means that I see my primary role in this family of faith as reflecting God's love to my brothers and sisters in Christ. This is really the role of all Christ followers, to devote our lives to doing his work. But as the scripture tells us that some people are set aside to be leaders, and I have accepted that role, conscious of my own shortcomings, it is my hope that I can fulfill that role. In the gospel according to John at the scene of the Last Supper Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. Then he explained the meaning to them
13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. (John 13:13-17)
I am instructed by Jesus’ example and instruction that the mark of true leadership is self-sacrificing service. I hope that you noticed that my telephone number and my email address are located in the bulletin and I invite you to contact me with any concerns at really any time. I can't always answer my phone and I can't always respond to email right away but I promise I will get back to you as soon as I possibly can. At least for the next few weeks, starting today, I will also be available after we share lunch together to meet with you one on one. I can also make appointments for other times. I want to be open and approachable so that I can respond to your needs.
The third principle, Respect the Community, means that I see my role here as continuing the aspects of this ministry that you all are comfortable with. I have been invited into your family. I am not planning on coming in as a crusader and making wholesale changes. I have some ideas for making some changes that I think might be beneficial to the congregation, particularly in the area of Sunday School ministry, but overall my intention is to proceed slowly and make sure that I respect the values and forms that have been developed before I got here. Above all I want us all to remember that this is your congregation and I am your servant.
So moving on from that we want to turn our attention to the text for today. Today is Mother’s Day in which we honor our mothers for the love and sacrifices they have given us over the years that have so richly blessed our lives. A mother’s love is proverbial. A mother’s love is at the same time fierce and tender. We have all heard stories of mothers who fiercely protect their children, of mothers who gladly forfeit their own well-being and sometimes even their own lives for the love of their children. This seems to be a universal condition. It crosses the boundaries of culture, ethnicity, and religion. It even carries across species. Anyone knows that the most ferocious animal is the mother protecting her young.
When we think about God we often refer to God in male terms; we think about God as “father” and God’s relationship with his people as a kind of a masculine relationship of the father to his sons. And there is no doubt that there is a lot of this kind of language in both the Old and New Testaments.
But the reality is that God’s love is beyond our understanding. God does refer to himself as Father in many places in the Bible, but he also refers to himself many times in terms of maternal care, and sometimes as both father and mother in the same verse! Today’s reading is one where God compares his care for his people to a love that is even greater than that of a mother for her child.
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.
17 Your children hasten back,
and those who laid you waste depart from you. (Isaiah 49:14-17 NIV)
Let’s think about this verse in context. First, it is prophecy. Two weeks ago we heard from the prophet Haggai and we mentioned a couple of things about prophecy then. When we think of a prophet, we often think of someone who can predict the future. And there is that sense of prophecy, the section of Isaiah we are looking at today, as we will see, has a future fulfillment. But as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago the main role of the prophet is to speak God’s word to the people. So even though sometimes prophecies have a future fulfillment, they always have an immediate relevancy. They speak directly to the situation of the people being addressed by the prophet.
If you were here two weeks ago you recall that the prophet Haggai was speaking to the people who had returned from exile in Babylon and urging them to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Today we are looking at a prophecy spoken to the people before they went into exile in Babylon. One of the major themes of Old Testament prophecy is warning Israel to return to the life they agreed to live when they entered into covenant with Yahweh.
Whenever we consider scripture it is important to keep in mind the larger biblical story. That story starts with the Creation in chapter one of Genesis and concludes with the triumphant reign of Christ in the last chapter of Revelation. In between we find the story of man’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, the accompanying corruption of the Creation, and God’s plan for restoring both man and the Creation to full relationship with him in Jesus Christ. The story of that restoration begins with God’s promise to Abraham that he would make him the father of a great nation. Abraham became the father of Israel, literally his grandson Jacob, who fathered the twelve sons who would come to be what we know as the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
After the death of Israel his offspring were enslaved in Egypt, and many years later God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt by his servant Moses. The Israelites entered the desert between Egypt and Canaan which is where modern day Israel and Palestine are, essentially in the Sinai desert, and there the people of Israel entered into a covenant with Yahweh to follow His law and be a holy (“set apart”) people whose purpose was to draw all people to God, thus fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham. This would be accomplished by Israel living by the Mosaic Law, contained in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.
A covenant is a deal, and the deal included both blessings and curses. The blessings of keeping God’s law were that God would give them the land of Canaan and bless them with prosperity. The curses included withholding prosperity and ultimately the loss of the land and exile. The historical books of the Old Testament tell the story of the Israelites in the Promised Land and from them we learn that the Israelites could never keep the covenant. Not only did they not keep the commandments of the Mosaic Law, at times they forgot they even had them.
This was the reason God sent prophets. The prophets were sent to warn the people to live by the law or face the consequences. For many years the Israelites suffered hardship in the land, and finally God executed the final judgment against Israel when the Assyrians burned Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and dragged the people into exile.
Isaiah the prophet lived probably about a hundred years before the destruction of Jerusalem, and the prophecy we read today is part of a warning of what will happen to the Israelites in their future if they do not change their ways and return to the covenant. The verses we read sound an ominous note: “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me” (Is. 49:14) which reflects the despair of a people in exile.
But if we look at this passage in the context of the larger prophecy of the 49th Chapter of Isaiah we see that the message contained here is one of comfort. In fact the verses immediately preceding the one we read speak not of the doom of Jerusalem and the people of Israel but of the bright future God promises for the restored Israel, the people he will deliver from slavery and exile:
8 This is what the Lord says:
“In the time of my favor I will answer you,
and in the day of salvation I will help you;
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people,
to restore the land
and to reassign its desolate inheritances,
9 to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’
and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’
“They will feed beside the roads
and find pasture on every barren hill.
10 They will neither hunger nor thirst,
nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.
He who has compassion on them will guide them
and lead them beside springs of water.
11 I will turn all my mountains into roads,
and my highways will be raised up.
12 See, they will come from afar—
some from the north, some from the west,
some from the region of Aswan.”
13 Shout for joy, you heavens;
rejoice, you earth;
burst into song, you mountains!
For the Lord comforts his people
and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. (Is. 49:8-13 NIV)
Isn’t this a lovely image? If you believed the prophecy here applied to you, wouldn’t you be filled with joy that this was to be your destiny? But the next verses, the ones we read at the beginning, the ones that start with “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me,” (Is. 49:14) speak to a people who do not see the miracle of their deliverance but the hardship of their predicament. When the people are released from exile and allowed to return to the Promised Land, they will find the land occupied by foreigners, their old lands taken by others, the city of Jerusalem destroyed, the walls ruined, the Temple a pile of rubble. For them, this promise by God of peace and prosperity seems too good to be true. But it isn’t.
That is the central message of our passage today. God assures the people of his passionate love for them. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! (Is. 49:15 NIV) Remember we talked earlier about the universal understanding of the nature of a mother’s love. It is both fierce and tender. If any of you are mothers you know what kind of love I’m talking about, or even if you are a parent. It is the kind of love that never gives up. It is the kind of love that ferociously protects its children. It is the kind of love that sacrifices itself for the well-being of the child. And here God is promising through the prophet Isaiah that his love is even greater than that! Even though a mother may forget, he says, he will not forget his children.
Now let’s go one step further and wonder how God intends to accomplish this miracle of restoration. The key lies in the verses preceding the promise of restoration:
5 And now the Lord says—
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength—
6 he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
7 This is what the Lord says—
the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—
to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation,
to the servant of rulers:
“Kings will see you and stand up,
princes will see and bow down,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.” (Is 49:5-7)
Isaiah Chapter 49 is one of the sections of prophecy that is referred to by Biblical scholars as the “Servant Songs.” They are prophecies that directly predict the coming of a Messiah. In Old Testament times there was some disagreement among Jewish scholars about what was exactly being referred to here. Was it the restored nation of Israel? Was it a single individual, a powerful leader like Moses or David? It was these verses that led the people of Israel in Jesus’ time to expect the Messiah as a political redeemer; someone who would overthrow the Romans and bring back David’s kingdom. But these prophecies plainly predict that the Messiah, the “Redeemer and Holy One of Israel,” will be one who suffers and is despised, and who ultimately redeems Israel by his own sacrifice. Thus in New Testament times the followers of Jesus will see that the fulfillment of this prophecy is in Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice on the cross. And even more than that, that God’s promise to Israel would extend to everyone, and be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Taken all together, the verses in Isaiah 49 assure the people of Israel of God’s great love for them. It tells them that even though they will have to suffer the consequences of their rebellion and disobedience, of their sin, that nevertheless God will in the end deliver them to a destiny of amazing brilliance. The fulfillment of God’s promise will be much greater than prosperity in a particular geographical location; it will be a newly restored Creation in which all of the corruption and sorrow caused by man’s sin is wiped away and forgotten and God lives in the midst of his people. This promise will extend beyond the Old Testament nation of Israel to include all of God’s children. And it will all be accomplished by the atoning sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the euangelion, the “gospel,” the astonishing “good news” of God’s great victory over death and the corrupting influence of sin.
And so we come back to this love that we started with. The love of a mother for her child, and we see it perfectly represented in the love of God for his children, which includes you and me. We see a love so great that it willingly endures hardship and ultimately sacrifices itself for the well-being of the child. When we see Jesus suffering on the cross to atone for our sins, we see the reflection of the great love a mother has for her child.
And so on this Mother’s Day I think it is appropriate to reflect with gratitude on the kind of love that never gives up on its children no matter how badly we screw up or even take that love for granted. God himself, particularly in the person of Jesus Christ, is the representation of the greatest self-sacrificing love there is. And that love is reflected in the love of a mother for her child.
I know that there can be difficult relationships and that none of us is able to live up to our calling to love each other in a perfect way. But if you’re fortunate enough to still have a mother you can be in touch with today, reflect on the things we have talked about here and think about how you might show gratitude for the love that is reflected in motherhood. And every one of us would do well to remember our calling as Christians to live out that self-sacrificing love that is displayed on the cross. May our lives be marked by demonstrations of that love toward all of our fellows. Amen.
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