Voice of Exile (Isaiah 40:21-31)

I am a voice of exile . . . I was born in Babylon, and my mother was born here, too . . . her mother carried her in her belly from the smoking ruins of Jerusalem, caught up in Nebuchadnezzar’s last deportation, his final solution to the Hebrew Problem.  My grandmother was lucky: a sympathetic Babylonian soldier noticed that she was with child, and she got to ride in a wagon; there were many who had to walk.  I guess I was a lucky one as well—she would have otherwise lost her child, my mother, and I would not have come into existence, or I would be someone else, perhaps . . . I don’t know, it’s all so confusing.

All I know is who I am now: I am Joshua, named after the great hero of legend.  The name means “savior,” but I’m hardly that, just the son of a courtesan.  If I had been born a girl, I might be one as well; as it is, my mother’s master had sold me to the kitchens.  I am lucky: my mother was one of his favorites, or I might have become a common laborer, carrying rock, building roads or keeping the gardens in repair.

I am a voice of exile, a voice of my people, who have been strangers in this foreign land for over half a century.  Far from their roots.  Far from their families.  Far from their God. We have tried to keep our faith, our traditions, our Hebrew-ness, but it has been hard, and many no longer make the effort.  They have become like our captors, assimilated into this foreign culture, worshipping their foreign gods, forgetting the old ways.

The rest of us have held on, we continue to go through the motions, light the candles, celebrate the festivals in quiet, dark corners of the city . . . But we have lost hope.  The word of the Lord was not just rare, as it was in the days before King David, but nonexistent, and visions never came.  We have lost hope in salvation from the Lord God Adonai, and simply go through the motions, holding on for the sense of community it gives us.

Now, even that is fading with the defection of our brothers and sisters; as their numbers grow, they have eclipsed the faithful ones like me. But I cannot blame them, really . . . Who could, when hope is as distant as afternoon thunder, as rare as desert rain.

But now, suddenly, there is a prophet about, there is a word from the Lord.  Or at least, many of us choose to believe it is one.  The preacher is one Jerusiah, but most of us call him, “Second Isaiah,” because he claims descent from the original court prophet of King Hezekiah, over a century before.  I do not know if this is true, but it could be so.  The original’s career was long, nearly sixty-five years, and he had many children.  Or perhaps he claims symbolic descendant, as  could have Jeremiah, prophet to the last kings in Jerusalem.

Be that as it may, his preaching is sewing hope, at least among the young and gullible, who have bought into his prophet-hood.  Me?  I’ll wait and see, though his message, purportedly from the Lord God Adonai’s own self, is certainly attractive.  He preaches comfort, redemption, an end to exile.  He preaches forgiveness, that Jerusalem’s punishment has come to an end, that its penalty is paid, that it has indeed received from the Lord’s hand double for all its sins.

But the Lord, says Second Isaiah, is aware of their doubt, aware of their weariness.  The Lord is aware that many have lost hope, that many complain, that many are saying “Our way is hidden from the Lord, and our right is disregarded by our God.”  Many exiles in the land of Babylon have concluded that God has abandoned God’s people.

And through the voice of Second Isaiah, the Lord says “Have you not known?  Have you not heard?”  God bids us to think on what we already know about God’s ways, what we have already experienced.   “Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?”   We have been told this all along, from the beginnings of our formation as a people, and from even before: from the beginning of the world itself.  The Lord bids us to look back on our dealings with God, on God’s dealings with us.  In other words, God is bidding us to remember.

And what is it that we are being asked to recall?  Only the nature of god’s own self, that’s all . . . God is all seeing, all encompassing.  God sits above the circle of the earth and the stars, God looks down on us, and we are like grasshoppers.  God stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.  God brings princes to naught and kingdoms to ruin . . . If any nation considers themselves great, if any consider themselves sovereign, they should think a second time.  We are to remember that the Lord alone is supreme, the Lord alone is sovereign, and we are but grass.  And the grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

And yet, we are also to remember that that same God knows each one of us and calls us by name.  That same God will feed us—who are God’s flock—like its shepherd.  That same God will gather the lambs in her arms, and carry them in her bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.  Though the Lord is the almighty God, though the Lord is the everlasting God, the Lord nevertheless knows and calls each of us by name.

Haven’t you known?  Haven’t you heard?  God sees our grief, God feels our weariness . . . weariness so deep that even our youths will faint and be weary, our young will fall exhausted to the ground.  But God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. And those who wait for that Lord—those who follow and believe and rest in the stillness of God’s arms—shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

 

I have come to believe that sovereignty is not just overarching power, as we have been led to believe by our elders.  It is not just distance, it is just not unsearchable transcendence, it is not just greatness.  Earthly kings, earthly rulers emphasize their greatness, do they not?  They ride their white horses, sit on their mighty thrones—and there is always a great distance from where the people are to the throne, a great carpet or something, isn’t there?  But they emphasize the transcendent, almighty-ness of their positions, they are always out—on their white horse, of course—they are always out watching their mighty armies march before them, unassailable in their greatness.

 

But our Lord is both unsearchable and intimate, both transcendent and immanent.  As it is written by King David, your “knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it,” and yet “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; and discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.”  And that is what Second Isaiah bids us remember—both God’s transcendent power, God’s ability to bring whole nations to heel with just a flick of the  wrist and God’s intimate knowledge of each and every one of us, calling each of us by name,  tenderly shepherding and lifting us up when we grow weary.

 

Jerusalem’s hope is borne on eagle’s wings, on wings of remembrance, on remembering this paradox, remembering the things that God has done for us in power, and those things God has done for us in infinite compassion and care.  Our hope is borne in remembrance, and yet we often forget.  We often forget what God has done for us, and run after all matter of things that are not, by nature, God.  We let ourselves be caught up in a whirlwind of life, we worship power and things, and forget the One who has given it to us all, who has given us life itself.

 

As I sit here in Babylon, awaiting the sure redemption of our Lord, I often wonder what it would be like if God embodied the other side, if God made manifest the intimate, shepherding care and compassion for all created things?  I do not know exactly how, but maybe God could become somehow physical, so we could see the compassion, feel the empathy.  Maybe God could become—just for a time, you understand—human.  What if God was one of us?  Amen.