The Jordan River, from the Israeli shore. Photo by author, January 2020.
The problems of the world seem to be relentless.
It isn’t that we are grappling with a worldwide plague, but that it seems to be endless, one month rolling into the next, the infections map turning red, then orange, then briefly yellow, and back to red again.
It isn’t just that violence and insurrection are on a steady rise, or that economic injustice is tearing our cities apart, or that the alarming effects of climate change are in the news. It’s that it’s all just relentless.
It’s like a river.
And so it is that today Jesus steps not into an indoor font, or even a still pond. He steps into a muddy river, flowing endlessly, moving relentlessly, carrying life along its banks, but threatening floodwaters, too.
This image resonates deeply with us in the Pacific Northwest, of course, since we know about relentless rain, floods, and landslides. And it resonates with us here at Grace Church. I’ve heard it said that Grace Church’s beautiful building is doing fine but is in need of a “50,000-mile check,” now that it is almost two-thirds as old as this 30-year-old congregation itself. Eric has monitored standing water on our property (in keeping with this morning’s water metaphors), and he has set in motion the needed repairs. We’ve dealt with water leaks here and there throughout our time in this building. The rains always return, and so it is that we relentlessly and faithfully tend to the upkeep and refurbishment of this “place for Grace.”
And on it goes.
Ours is a faith of rivers and floodwaters, of muddy streams and waterfalls, of sliding land and avalanches. Our faith, and our Savior — they move with the water. Relentlessly.
Today we find another group of people relentlessly on the move, heading back to their homeland this time, in the midst of relentless political upheaval. The prophet Isaiah assures them that God is with them, but in our hearing, Isaiah’s words might be off-putting. His joyful reassurance of God’s people sounds to us like it’s coming at the expense of other people.
Isaiah has God saying this: “I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.”
This is the only time in Scripture that God – who usually comes across as the strong, silent type – actually says to God’s people, “I love you.” We may want to find this passage warm-hearted and reassuring, yet it clangs in our ears because it sounds like God loves one group and hates (or at minimum doesn’t care for) the others. God gives up Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba so that Israel might be saved. That’s not good. But it’s worth looking more closely at these words, translated across language and time in such a way that their true meaning is clouded.
Here is what this means, and why it matters to us. At the time these words were first proclaimed, the first listeners would have understood it to mean that while these earthly powers fought with one another, God was providing for Israel a back way out of danger and into their homeland. The Babylonian King Cyrus was helping the Israelites go home as part of a larger political strategy, moving them to safety while positioning his own nation for political engagement with its formidable neighbors. And so this is the teaching: while the world relentlessly goes on, one era of calamity and upheaval followed by another, and then another, God works in, with, and through people to rescue them, to preserve them, to secure their future. God does this work through all people — not just obvious prophets like Isaiah, but even through a world-wise Gentile king like Cyrus. And so it is that not only Israelites are saved: God — who promised Abraham that all nations will be gathered as one people — God is present to everyone, in all times and places, with encouraging news of salvation.
Isaiah also says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.” Notice that it’s when, not if. Isaiah is not a pie-in-the-sky prophet. The Holy Spirit doesn’t spin a happy tale. We will pass through the dangerous waters. We will find ourselves in the rushing currents of rivers. But God will be with us in the river, and the waters will not overwhelm us.
Here’s another way to look at it.
The world’s problems are relentless? So am I. They’re strong? I’m stronger. And you are too. We praise a Savior who locks arms with us and steps into the whirling muck of a dangerous river. He allows himself to be submerged with us in that river, and we all rise up: we rise up in strength, we rise up in confidence, we rise up in courage, to meet the moment. God brings the people home. God moves with events. God empowers and God emboldens. And then God splits the heavens apart and proclaims who Jesus is, and who we are as people baptized in the river with Jesus. God calls Jesus “Beloved” — another “I love you.”
The singer of today’s psalm is delighted about all of this. We said their psalm a few minutes ago. The psalmist, yet another unnamed person of faith, is fascinated with water, rivers, and floods, and shouts out this song from the river: “Adonai sits enthroned above the flood; Adonai sits enthroned as Sovereign for evermore. Adonai shall give strength to God’s people; Adonai shall give God’s people the blessing of peace.”
God reigns above this muddy flood we seem to be stuck in, relentlessly. God reigns above it all, and will give us strength, and the blessing of peace. And God in Jesus wades right into it, and Jesus is stronger than the relentless forces of ignorance and evil and fear that rush around us and threaten to drown us. Jesus gives strength to us, and with that strength we become relentless too.
I will never give up. Bring on the variants: I will mask up and sanitize and take antigen tests (I tested negative this morning); I will zoom and email and text; I will jog into the street if I see you on the sidewalk; and I will get up in the cold and dark to do it again. It’s all a pain and a drag, but I do not care. We are not only going to get through this together, we are getting through it. We are not just surviving; we are thriving. We baptize our new members and we bury our dead; we marry couples and bless our graduates and confirm our youth and teach our children and support our staff; we cook meals for our neighbors and give tired mothers a morning retreat; we listen to the anger of those harmed by privilege and patriarchy, and respond to them; we care for the earth and for the sacred ground we stand on here on this verdant island. I will never give up. We will never give up. So you, you, can rejoice and be glad, because no flood can carry us away from God, and no river can drown our hope in Jesus, and this earth will see the end of war, and the end of violence, and the end of ignorance, disease, and despair.
We know this because it is happening here, right here, in this building in need of a 50K tuneup. Here, right here, in your homes and workplaces. Here, right here, in our zoom meetings and cards to the home-bound and our myriad prayer shawls and our countless ways of connecting, embracing, holding, and empowering one another, and our neighbor.
But we also know this because we have heard it from God, who is more relentless than any created being, any human wrongdoing, any grief or grievance. God, who reigns above the floodwaters, speaks to us, and countless others, when God says this:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and [because] I love you.”
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Preached on the First Sunday after the Epiphany (The Baptism of our Lord) (Year C), January 9, 2022, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Works consulted:
Cory Driver wrote here on the political context behind the Isaiah 43:1-7 passage.
A character on the television program The West Wing said this line in “Game On,” episode 4.6: “They’re strong? I’m much stronger.”