God's Delight

Isaiah 65:17-25
Easter Sunday
April 17, 2022

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,

and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord— and their descendants as well.
Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

I knew a woman who grew up in central Pennsylvania. Her family belonged to a small church in the country. The sanctuary stood among the cornfields. The congregation didn’t stand on much ceremony. There was never a lock on the door. When it was time to sing, no organ, no piano, just the blending of human voices in rough four-part harmony.

And the most exciting moment came when it was time for the sermon. Not because of the content, but because nobody knew in advance who would be preaching it.

Since they had no paid preacher, the custom was to write down everybody’s name on a thin slip of paper. These names would be inserted in the pages of the pulpit Bible. At the proper time, the leader of the congregation led the flock in a long, silent prayer. After the amen, he drew one of the slips and announced who was preaching.

My friend said it could be hit and miss, a potluck pulpit, and you got only whatever somebody else had brought. There were a few clunkers, but most were surprisingly good. Everybody was capable of saying something. Everyone brought their A-Game because nobody knew if it would be their turn.

Now, I have not told you if I wrote down all your names today and inserted them in the Bible. But if I had, what would you say? On this day, of all days? If you were preaching on Easter, what would be your sermon?

First up, of course, would be a familiar call and response that has already been put into the air. A man told me how he kept in touch with his father, long after he had moved away. Often on Sunday mornings, wherever they were, one would call the other to announce, “This is the day the Lord has made,” and the other would respond, “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” When Easter came, the call was made, and the words spoken, “Christ is risen,” and his father replied in a deep Welsh voice, “He is risen indeed!”

The year the father died, my friend could not dial that number. He could still say, “Jesus Christ is risen from the dead,” but he longed to hear his father say once again, “He is risen indeed.” And what is the sermon he would offer? “One day we will be reunited, and both of us shall say those words again.”  Wow, that’s a sermon. What kind of sermon would you give?

Or a nurse practitioner tells how weary she is after the past two years. When the pandemic hit, the medical practice folded. She lost her job. But it didn’t slow her down. She had been volunteering to serve a tough neighborhood in a nearby city. She dug in, set up online health classes, taught people how viruses work, why safety precautions are necessary, wear your masks, wash your hands, get your shots. And her public health work has been exhausting.

What keeps her going? Her Easter sermon. As she said to me, “They tried to get rid of Jesus because he was always doing the right thing. They thought they had done it when they put him on the cross. But God sent him back to us. If he can keep going, keep doing the right thing, so can I.”

I think that’s an amazing sermon, too. Makes me curious what you would say. Not merely the clichés, the Peeps and chocolate bunnies, or the bumper sticker stuff, but the real message at the heart of it all. What is Easter all about?

Today we could pull the slip of paper with the name of Luke, the Gospel writer. We have heard what he wants to say. He tells us the story: dawn, the women, the burial spices which would never be used. The tomb was cracked open. The stone was rolled to the side. What really confused them was the body of Jesus was not there. Their final act of devotion was interrupted. Suddenly, two men dazzled them inside that dark hole in the ground. They shined bright as the sun and said, “Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember what he told you?”

Told them what? “That it was inevitable that he would fall into the hands of sinners, who would kill him. And on the third day – today – he would rise and return. Don’t you remember?” And they remembered.

This is Luke’s Easter sermon. Easter is remembering the Word of Jesus and confirming that it’s true. It’s remembering that everything he did he’s going to keep doing. It’s remembering he was rejected then, and he will be rejected again, yet he has returned to call us back to God. With the power of the prophet, Jesus is calling us home, to return from the far country, to remember the Father’s generous love, to welcome the Samaritan who tends to our wounds, and to listen to the women that have too quickly been dismissed. It’s all there in his Easter sermon.

But the name that I’ve drawn today is Isaiah. His name is inscribed as our preacher. So you are off the hook, at least for today, especially since Isaiah is a most unusual choice. I can hear the objection during the Easter egg hunt: “He isn’t even Christian!” And that’s true; Isaiah is not a Christian, but neither is Jesus. What’s important is what they share, this remarkable Jewish hope that God is up to something. Something big!

It’s bigger than Mary Magdalene. If we had picked her name, she would tell us about discovering the empty tomb, hearing her name, and identifying the Gardener. Now, that’s a significant Easter message. It’s moving and personal. But what Isaiah says is much bigger.

His substance is more conclusive than Mark, the Gospel writer. If we pulled his name, he would report on the trauma of finding the tomb open. It was terrifying. Like the ground had been ripped apart, just as God ripped open the sky that day when Jesus was baptized. Mark says the Easter women ran away in frightened silence. It’s a shocking sermon, but not particularly helpful.

Oh, what Isaiah sees is a whole new world! A holy intervention in our tired, worn-out world! And to hear him on Easter, this moves Easter from a small, personal experience to something far more cosmic. God knows everything here is broken – so God is taking the world in for repairs. That’s what Isaiah says.

Yesterday, in a South Carolina shopping mall, parents took their kids for pictures with the Easter bunny – and gun shots rang out. This is not the way it’s supposed to be. Back in his own day, Isaiah knows it. In God’s Easter world, “no more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days.” Every child will thrive in safety. And in that new world, if you don’t make it to a hundred years old, something’s wrong. No more tears. No more distress. No more pain of any kind. This is Isaiah’s Word for us.

In this old world, too many precious things have been torn from us. Build your dream house – and now someone else lives there. Plant a vineyard – and somebody else is drinking the wine. Oh no, says Isaiah, this was never God’s intention. God will bring continuity. You’ll see your kids, and their kids, and their kids, and all of them will be flourishing.

This is what the prophet sees. Everybody will share in the abundance of God. No more will Christians keep all the bread and wine to themselves when there are folks outside who have nothing to eat. Communities will be rebuilt. Fear will be replaced by gladness. And no one will ever question how much the people of God are loved. All of them. All of them.

In the ancient words of the poem:

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox,

while the deceiving serpent shall eat nothing but dust.

Nobody will be hurt or destroyed on God’s holy mountain. 

Now, how is this an Easter message, especially from Isaiah the Jew, who wrote all this down five hundred years before Jesus? Very simply, it reminds us of the scope of God’s work and the grand purpose of Easter. God comes to repair everything broken and redeem everybody lost. God is about the work of healing, not breaking; truth-telling, not lying; sharing, not hoarding. And the work is enormous. Of course it is. We don’t worship a small, personal God. Our God is the creator of heaven and earth, the One who comes to repair what is torn and broken.

The word for this work is “salvation.” It is God’s rescue and salvage operation. This what Isaiah announced. This is what Jesus was doing, before he was so rudely interrupted by the cross. This is what Jesus has returned from the dead to keep doing. And it’s big, really big.

The way Isaiah sees it, salvation is not some small experience, between me and the Lord – but something communal, something held in a web of relationships, something embodied. For those who may feel tempted to reduce salvation to a small spiritual moment, I pause to remind them that when salvation comes, there are going to be other people there. Because we are in this together.

And the saints around us will ask how you’re doing. Are you keeping up? Are you part of God’s work? Is there evidence in your life that God is creating a new heaven and a new earth?

Three weeks ago, some of our church folks went down to a tough part of town. Ten of them went to serve meals that nineteen others had prepared. They had Irish stew, soda bread muffins, and butterscotch apple cake. They served one-hundred-seventeen meals, and for many of the recipients, it was the best meal they’ve had in a while. And after collecting food from all of you, our friends took along twenty-seven large bags of groceries to give away.

Why did our people do that? Because they believe in Easter. They want to be part of what the Risen Christ is doing.

And this is what gives God joy. God says, “My Easter people give me nothing but delight.”

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.