Changing the Landscape

Written by Pastor Ed

To listen to the sermon, click on the following link:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46934662/Dec%204%20sermon.mp3

Changing the Landscape

Advent II – December 4, 2011

 

Psalm 85: 1-2, 8-13

Isaiah 40: 1-11

 

“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” (Is. 40:1) perhaps some of the best known words from the prophet Isaiah.  We sing them in hymns and hear them, or sing them, in Handel’s Messiah.  They are the words that open the second part of the book of Isaiah, seen as addressed now to the children of Israel who have been carried off into exile to Babylon.  We know of their state of mind from other writings, like Psalm 137 “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.”  They were captured servants, torn away from their homes and the sacred site of Jerusalem and the temple. 

And so the first words of the prophet to them from God are words of encouragement: “Comfort.”  They had been warned by the prophet, before their exile, that God was not pleased with their ways.  They distorted justice, paid no attention to the poor, and worshiped other gods.  But now God says that their punishment for their sins is over, they have paid the price.  Now they can receive encouragement.

So what does that mean?  Well, if their punishment is over, then it must mean they can go home, right? So, prepare a way!  “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.”

There are two images here that the people listening would have recognized immediately.  First of all there is the wilderness.  And the word used here for wilderness refers to a specific wilderness that people would recognize and be able to picture.  It was the Arabah, a rift valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba; a wild and desolate area with rocks and hills and few inhabitants.  This was the kind of wilderness through which a road could run to take the exiles home.

But it was not just any road.  It was a road built for kings and gods, sometimes called a processional highway.  Babylon had such a highway.  It was the grand boulevard where the triumphant kings road coming back from battle, or where the gods were displayed in great processions.  It was the Champs Elysee in Paris, Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington D.C., or the Mall is London.  (I’m not sure Ottawa has one!)  Even Stonehenge has a grand avenue leading from the river to the circle itself.

If the penalty is paid, then obviously God would be coming soon to rescue them and lead them in a triumphant procession back to Israel.  And for that they would need a grand highway through the wilderness.

So what would that take?  Well, I’m not an expert on such projects, but thankfully we have such a person here this morning and I’ve invited Kevin to give us some insight.

Kevin, you’ve handled major building projects.  When you look at a picture of this wilderness and think about building a major highway through it, what are the first thoughts that come to mind?  How would you begin such a project?  What would you need?

  1. 1.       My first thoughts are what is the most efficient design - the smallest quantity of work (at the lowest cost) and the least disruptive method. With that we can quantify the volume of work and establish a price. In doing that you also look for technical challenges and other obstacles (logistical) might need to be addressed.
    After quantifying the work you can determine the time it will take, or the resources you would need to do it. Sometimes you work to other time constraints - seasonal, contractual or political/public desires? Then you design/plan/schedule/execute the work. This would include obtaining the resources you need - labour / materials / equipment .

 

I did do a project many years ago that was like moving a mountain. Oldman river dam was a major water management project near pincher creek Alberta. It involved moving 25 million cubic metres of rock, dirt and gravel materials to construct an 8 million metre multi-zoned embankment dam and was highly controversial at the time.

You’re currently building a rail line – the West LRT project and from the looks of it, you’ve had to do a lot of digging and filling.  Do you have any idea how much dirt you’ve had to move?  Can you give us some sense of the scale of such a project?

2. On the west lrt we moved about 1 million metres of earth to construct the lrt tunnels, u/g stations and a major interchange. It is a $700 million project that required about 4 million person hours of work.

I suspect the people calling for this major highway were only looking at the end results, and weren’t thinking too much about what it would take to build, or how disruptive the construction might be.  Is that a usual attitude that you’ve run into before? Do you get complaints about that?

3. We often (always) need to address complaints! Projects - even remote interact with the public in many ways. Inconvenience, disruption, traffic, noise, change to status quo, or philosophical / political opposition. Even those who aren't necessarily opposed do not want it in their back yard. (nimby!)

The people in exile were torn between the despair of their situation, and the hope they had of God’s doing something unexpected.  They longed for that highway to take them home, and yet felt it wa a hopeless cause.  They wanted the end results, but weren’t sure about all the disruption and what would come between. They were encouraged to “Cry” or perhaps more properly, “Preach”, but their despair often overcame them and all they could see was the finiteness of humankind and the futility of their situation.

And yet, they are encouraged to proclaim, so that all could see, “Here is your God!” v. 9.  But the God they proclaim is not the mighty warrior, the triumphant king, but rather the shepherd – the one who gathers the lambs in his arms and gently leads the mother sheep.  It is an image reflected in Psalm 85 of steadfast love and righteousness meeting, of the one who speaks peace to his people.

So where do we find ourselves in this text?  We haven’t been ripped from our homes and carried off into exile, although certainly some of you can identify with those feelings, I’m sure.  And yet, as I noted last week, we live in a time and society where, as Christians, we constitute a minority.  And being in such a place, we often are torn, like the exiles between feelings of hopelessness and hope.

On the one hand we long for a return to the way things used to be, to go home in a sense.  We’d like to have a grand processional highway that we could boldly parade down and show people the glory of the Lord.  We want to be the triumphant ones.

But that takes a lot of work it seems.  It’s a major construction project, and we’re not sure we’re up for all the disruption and work.  Maybe it would take too long, or it would upset our normal routines.  There are always more costs than we thought, and unseen problems that emerge.  And we know that after such a project, things won’t be the same and may not even turn out like we thought they would, as we saw last week.

Yet the word still comes to us, “Cry!” “Preach!”  Tell the world that our God is coming.  Prepare the way of the Lord and proclaim, “Here is your God.”  A God who comes in unexpected places and ways.  A God who comes, not in vengeance and anger, but a God who comes as a shepherd, in gentleness and with words of comfort for a people suffering for their sins.  Those grand processional highways don’t just build themselves, they take some hard work on our part.  There’s a lot of dirt to be moved and we can’t just sit around and wait for someone else to do it.  God’s coming requires some preparation on our part.

But, we are assured, the word of our God stands forever.  God will surely come in those times and places where we may least expect.  And we, with the exiles, are encouraged not to abandon hope but to accept the good news proclaimed to us by the prophets, the angels, and by Jesus Christ himself. 

The glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.  May we be part of that preparation and rejoicing when God comes among us.