Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 John 1:6-8, 19-28 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
On June second of 2022, seventeen-year-old Ethan Liming, the son of United Methodist Pastor Bill Liming, was beaten to death during an altercation at a basketball court in downtown Akron. This week we were notified that another of our East Ohio Conference colleagues, Beth Wilterdink, with whom Mike Greiner and I have served on the conference committee on camps and retreats, is mourning, with her husband and family, the loss of their barely two-year-old daughter Cora. I can read about these things, but I can’t begin to understand the pain and the grief that these families must feel.
But many of us have experienced our own kinds of loss. Some of you have lost children, many of us have lost parents or siblings. We each understand grief in our own way. And so, we have some insight into the lives of the people who heard God’s message through his prophet Isaiah. These were the people who had lost everything. They had lost sons, daughters, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, parents, and grandparents, they had lost their nation and their freedom and had been carried off into captivity in Babylon. They were filled with grief. But God speaks to them through the writings of Isaiah and tells them that in the midst of their grief, there is good news. We hear these words in Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11…
61:1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.
8 “For I, the Lord, love justice;I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”
10 I delight greatly in the Lord;my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.
God says that there will be healing for the brokenhearted, release for prisoners, comfort for those who mourn, and God promises to transform the ashes of their grief into a crown of beauty. God promises to rebuild, restore, and renew, and to bring justice and faithfulness to replace their despair and loss. And in the end, God will use the nations of the world to raise up gardens of righteousness and praise.
In no way does God, or Isaiah, diminish the pain, loss, and grief that we experience today, God does not tell us to “get over it,” but God does promise that he will, one day, transform our grief into joy.
But, because John the Baptist had been quoting from the words of Isaiah, the priests and the leaders of Israel came out to the wilderness in John 1:6-8, 19-28 to ask if he was a resurrected Isaiah that God had sent to fulfill the promises that had been written so long ago.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
19 Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
22 Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
26 “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
But John says that he is not Isaiah, nor is he Elijah, nor is he the promised messiah. Instead, he has come to point to the Messiah, to announce his arrival, and to proclaim the fulfillment of God’s promises in Isaiah in the person of Jesus Christ.
But, knowing that Jesus is the Messiah, as we do, what does that mean for us today? What does that tell us about our grief, and our pain, and how we are to live our lives in the twenty-first century? In his letter to the church in Thessalonica, contained in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, Paul says this:
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil.
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
Paul says that God’s will for us is to live in anticipation of God’s final and ultimate victory. We are to live as if Christ has already returned, and God has already fulfilled his promises of rescue, rebuilding, restoration, renewal, and transformation. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, test the prophecies of God to prove their truthfulness, reject every kind of evil, but hold on to all that is good.
In this world, we know that we will experience suffering, pain, grief, and death.
But one day God will transform our mourning into joy.
Until then…
…reject every kind of evil and…
…hold on to what is good.
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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com . All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
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