Fifth Sunday in Lent

Richard Davenport April 3, 2022 - Fifth Sunday in Lent Isaiah 43:16-21 Growing up in the northern suburbs of Detroit wasn't too bad. The communities were peaceful and had few major problems. Some areas were much wealthier than others, but, for the most part, everyone had enough to get by. Even the small town we lived in, which was a little poorer perhaps than its neighbors, provided everything we needed. You didn't go down to Detroit very often. Everyone knew it was bad, but every so often something would take you down there. You heard the stories, the history of how it used to be a bustling metropolis, a thriving center of industry and innovation. But, even in my youth, those days had long since gone. You saw the commercials from time to time, usually from one of the Big Three American car companies, or maybe the United Auto Workers union, depicting Detroit as a vibrant, prosperous city, but it didn't really fool anyone. There were areas that weren't so bad, the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Detroit Science Center were places I remember going when I was little. I remember walking through them and taking in everything they had to offer and seeing them both more than once. Going back many years later and you could see the toll time had taken on them. My memories of the DIA were not as clear, but the Science Center looked run down, disused. There was nothing new to see in the 15 or more years since I'd been there last. Checking it out online recently I saw that the Science Center is closed entirely, probably for COVID, but their website has almost no information and I wonder if it will ever reopen. The University of Detroit-Mercy was where I got my bachelor's degree. It was right downtown. It was along one of the major arteries of the city, so it was reasonably safe driving down there, but the campus still stood as an oasis in the middle of a relative wasteland. I was always curious what the city would have looked like back in the '20s, '30s, '40s, and '50s. I'm sure it was the industrial hub everyone remembered. Not anymore. Huckster mayors, one after another, siphoning off funds needed to build up the city and restore life to it. Drugs and gang violence on every street corner. But even that fell short of the surreal nature of the buildings. Whole city blocks that used to hold factories, theaters, restaurants, and every other sort of business a bustling city needed, all left smashed and abandoned, a ghost town right in the center of the city, empty and lifeless. It was so bad that some entrepreneurs tried to buy up a couple of blocks of real estate for a giant zombie survival theme park. But that too was turned down and the land remains vacant. What struck me the most about Detroit wasn't really the poor neighborhoods or the danger. Even poor neighborhoods can be full of vibrance and life as people rejoice and give thanks for what they do have and work to support one another. Even in dangerous places, like warzones, you can find points of light where courage, compassion shine forth, where the love of ones friends and comrades is joined by the love of ones enemies. But those aren't the things you see in Detroit. Detroit is like living in a desolate, monotonous wasteland where nothing improves and life just continues on, day after day as it always has. If there are any changes, they are for the worse as the community around you continues to decay and fall apart. I found myself reflecting on my own life when reading through the passage from Isaiah and it reminded me of Detroit and of the time in my life that felt very much like that wasteland, where that same sort of crushing monotony seemed like it was all I knew. I was ok for a while. I had a job that paid the bills, but I didn't really know where I was going or what I was doing with myself. When I got laid off from that job, I was back to having nothing. I managed to get another job, but, though it paid a little better, the environment was worse, to the point of becoming rather scary to work there. That job dried up too and after all was said and done I was worse off than before. I still had no idea where I was going or what I was doing. I had no good job and no real means to get one that was going to pay the bills. I was having to start from square one, but even then, I still didn't know where I was supposed to go from there. There's the old expression, "You look how I feel," and that's what came to me as I looked around at Detroit. It was a place that was supposed to have vibrant life and endless potential, but it sure didn't look that way anymore. There was nothing to look forward to. Just more and more of the same dismal existence. Nowhere to go and no expectation of change. It isn't much different for those who heard the message of Isaiah either. These words of comfort and consolation were obviously intended for those who still listened to God and wanted to follow him, but nothing they did seemed to make much difference. The nation had gone the way of all the nations around it and was whole-heartedly running off into paganism and all sorts of bad behavior. It wasn't a fun place to live. At a national level, those few who still held the faith were watching as the whole rest of the nation drove itself straight into hell and they were stuck going along for the ride. The doom and gloom were very real and there was nothing on the horizon that looked to change. More of the same, day after day. That deep, depressing monotony where every day is tinged with hazy gloom, where it looks like nothing matters and there is nothing worth caring about, those days after your spouse or child has died, after you've burned off your initial anger and now there's nothing left but that empty void where the light and warmth of love used to be. Those dark and toxic days when it seems everyone hates you, reviles you, when no one wants you around but you have to deal with them anyway, where you have to put yourself out there where you know they will spew their venom at you, but you don't have any choice. A parent who never thought you were worth anything and is all too eager to let you know at every opportunity. A boss who knows you need this job and uses that knowledge to grind you into the dirt. Those dark and meaningless days where nothing has any purpose at all, where you would love to be active and doing something but you find every path blocked. The sin here isn't in being depressed, in feeling lost or frustrated. You can't always help the fact that you don't know where your life is going or what you should be doing. Here, the issue is our assumption that the crushing gloom of life will continue on forever. The sin we face isn't depression, it's hopelessness. As we live through these periods in our life, at some point it starts to look like that's all life will ever be. That's when the message brought by Isaiah starts sounding far-fetched, unbelievable. I talked before about promises, making promises we can't keep and what that says to others when we end up breaking those promises, even if it wasn't our fault. If a promise is broken once, if it fails once, you start to think that all you will ever see. It's as if you can look ahead and know what your life will be, just more of the same, or maybe a little worse somehow. Whether you're a faithful Israelite watching the slow decline of your country into pagan idolatry and all that goes with it, whether you're a modern day Christian watching much the same happen, or whether you're just looking at your own life, in each case, that gloomy, impenetrable darkness covers everything and seems to go on forever. It is into this darkness that God speaks. He calls us to look back at the Exodus. Note what the prophet says, "Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick." God parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to escape, but he also brought out the soldiers and chariots of Egypt against them. He brings out Pharaoh's armies, bearing down on the huddling, terrified Israelites rush across the dry ground that has appeared and then, inexplicably, Pharaoh and his armies are washed away. Everything Israel feared turned to nothing. They saw it with their own eyes, as they had been doing for some time. The plagues would afflict everyone around them terribly, but they would always be kept safe. Even now, as the mightiest man in Egypt threatens to destroy them all, they are kept safe. God knows what dangers you face. He knows what afflicts you and torments you. With his eye-in-the-sky view of your life, he knows where you are going even when you don't. It is to you God says, "Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." He is speaking of places like war torn Israel and how it will be made new. He is speaking of how the people themselves will be made new. Where they see themselves going is not where they will end. "Behold, I am doing a new thing." I picture a place like Detroit thriving and vibrant again. God did it once, he can do it again. A place, a world, a people made new, revitalized, given new life. This is the promise contained in his words here. All may look hopeless here, but God is doing a new thing. God became man to take away the sins of the world, a new thing the world had never seen before. He came to save you, to start drawing you out of this life of sin and darkness. The incarnate God rose from the dead to put an end to death, another new thing the world had never seen before. He conquers death to ensure that darkness will never be your end. Now God promises to make the world new again, along with all of those he formed for himself to declare his praise. That means you and me. However hopeless things may seem, they are not your end. Put your hope and trust in the Lord, because the time will come when you see this new thing he is doing. He's doing it just for you.