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Scripture Readings: Isaiah 43:1-7, Acts 8:14-17, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Sermon Notes
What is the most often repeated phrase in Scripture?
Hint - It isn’t, “Thou shalt not. . .”
It’s, “Don’t be afraid”
Or, as we’ve heard it today
Twice in seven verses from Isaiah
Do not fear
“Do not fear,” says God
to his people through the prophet
God’s people, Israel, are under the thumb
of the Babylonian Empire
Some of them have been carried off
to live as exiles in Babylon
Some have been scattered into dispersion in other places
And some the Babylonians deemed
not worth of trifling with
They were left behind to eek out a life
in the promised land left wasteland
in the wake of the Babylonian invader
Over the years other folks
with no place else to go have settled there
And there has been some mingling
between the newcomers and the left behind Jews
Mingling that results in a new and unsettling
kind of ethnic group
A mix of Jew and Gentile
Known by the epithet Samaritan
Through Isaiah, God announces good news
The time of exile and dispersion is near its end
Remember, my people
I created you
I formed you
So, don’t be afraid
For I have redeemed you
God says he is the redeemer of Israel
In the ancient near east to be a redeemer
is to play a critical role
One that is borne out of love and loyalty
In the course of life a family may lose a piece of land
Perhaps as payment for a debt
But the land is what gives that family
its sense of identity and belonging
in the larger community
To lose a parcel is to lose part of the family
And so the family looks forward
to the day of redemption
When some family member can pay the price
to buy back the land and restore the family holdings
Sometimes what needs to be redeemed
is not land, but people
Someone in the family has gone into servitude
in order to pay a debt
Or worse yet, been hauled off into captivity
by a bellicose neighboring tribe
In such a case, the redeemer pays the price
to rescue the enslaved or captive family member
I have redeemed you, says God to his people
I have paid the price
Your land will again be whole
Your people, all of them, will again be gathered together
God does this because,
as God tells them through Isaiah,
“You are precious in my sight,
and honored,
and I love you.”
The news of being redeemed from exile
is indeed good news,
but the people to whom God speaks through Isaiah
are still exiles in Babylon,
even though God speaks as if
redemption is already accomplished.
Didn’t God say, “I have redeemed you?”
But here we sit, by the waters of Babylon,
still singing the Lord’s song in this strange land.”
What God means in saying, “I have redeemed you”
is that it’s as good as done.
That’s why God speaks in
what we would learn in English class
as the Present Perfect tense,
which indicates that something that started in the past
continues in the present
and will continue into the future.
“I have redeemed you” means I started to redeem you
way back in the days of creation
when I brought you into being.
I continued to redeem you
throughout all the episodes of your unfolding story.
Even when disaster,
like this Babylonian captivity, strikes,
I am still redeeming you.
And whatever the future may hold,
I will keep on redeeming you.
And that is the reason for God’s second “Do not fear.”
Because, says the Lord, “I am with you.”
No matter where you are.
No matter how far and wide you are scattered.
North, south, east, west, I am with you,
and I will gather you back to myself.
I am with you.
God is with us.
God with us.
Our Emmanuel,
whose baptism is a way of saying to us,
“Do not fear, for I am with you.”
His immersion in baptismal water
is a sign of his immersion in our humanity.
He comes to be with us in the fullest possible sense.
And he comes to redeem us,
who have lost a part of ourselves, the best part,
the part that just trusts God
without worry, without pride, without fear
He takes all of our lostness upon himself
He pays its price
He takes it to the place of the dead
He leaves all of our lostness there
and returns in risen life to gather us to himself,
to heal us with his wholeness,
to feed us with the bread of heaven,
to wash us in the wine of his blood,
to breathe into us his new life,
life that knows no end,
life that passes through death
and comes out the other side into LIFE
of such scope that is beyond the capacity
of our words, our music,
our art and architecture to begin to describe.
Do not fear
But there is so much that invites fear
A global pandemic
Economic uncertainty
Societal dis-ease
Rogue nations on the rise
In every household there is something
Fear is at the door, waiting to gain entry,
planning its takeover, which is always hostile
But we, who are washed in baptism,
sealed by the Holy Spirit
and marked as Christ’s own for ever,
we have the vaccine, the antidote,
the antibodies, the herd immunity from fear.
We have it in the Present Perfect Promise of God.
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.
From the very beginning,
in the midst of whatever you’re facing now,
and in the face of come what may,
I have redeemed you.
Do not fear, for I am with you.
From the very beginning,
in the midst of whatever you’re facing now,
and in the face of come what may,
I am with you,
because you are precious in my sight,
and honored,
and I love you.
Thus says the Lord.
