Musical Prelude and Service.

Isaiah 40:1-11 & Mark 1:1-8
When we reflect on the word Peace, what do we see? What is brought to mind when we take time to think about Peace?
Like so much of what we reflect upon, there is a personal and a communal aspect to tis word; this idea.
We yearn for peace in the world. We pray for an end to hostilities in Ukraine in Gaza, on our streets and all over the world.
Peace can also be closer to home. It can be personal. Our lives, our emotions, our thoughts, can be in turmoil. We can struggle to create peace for ourselves.
When I think about peace as it is discussed in scripture, I have little doubt the authors of these readings, when they discuss peace, were talking about the world in which they lived.
Israel lived with war and conquest on a regular basis. In the time of Jesus, Judea was occupied by the Romans. They regularly engaged in revolts and rebellions which were brutally suppressed by the Roman legions. A desire for a true peace; not just an end to violence, but a peace based on justice and compassion and liberty was a dream and a hope.
And so, today we reflect on God’s promise of the gift of peace leaves us with these considerations; what kind of Peace do we pray for? What kind of peace is God offering us?
The first scripture reading this morning from Isaiah is essentially the opening words from the second part of Isaiah, as I discussed last week. The prior 39 chapters were the prophetic words of Isaiah, warning about the consequences of the national sin if Israel. The growing injustice, the greed and brutal treatment of the poor and the hungry. The exploitation of those who had little, meant the people of God had lost their connection to the God who liberated them from slavery and sheltered and fed them when they were wandering in the wilderness.
The prophet warned them that they stood to lose everything, including their homes and their standing.
Chapter 40 picks up with the leading citizens of Israel now in exile; dragged from their homes and their homeland; yearning to return. Praying to see their homes and their place in the world restored. They cry out to be remembered by the God of their ancestors, who seems to have forgotten them.
And Isaiah, begins with these words, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.”
He proceeds to urge people to prepare for the coming of God. Those words are echoed at the beginning of Mark’s gospel. There are of course differences in the texts. Is the voice crying out found in the wilderness, or is the voicing crying out for us to prepare the way of God in the wilderness?
In either case, scripture is urging us, God’s people, to get busy and get to work in preparing for God’s work.
Comfort my people.
Again, here we read of the need before the people. Isaiah is writing for a people who are lost. Not literally, but they are away from their home. They have no idea of they can ever return. They are separated from all they have ever known. They are strangers in a strange land. They struggle to hold on to a memory of who they once were. Heartbreak, displacement; loneliness and a sense of
abandonment must have been overwhelming. How easy must it have been for these people separated from their homes, to give into the temptation of despair?
And into that despair, Isaiah writes that God call on him and others to comfort God’s people.
By contrast, Mark starts this gospel by announcing that John the Baptist is calling on people to prepare for the coming of God’s promised salvation. Judea, the people of Israel, live under Roman occupation. They live with the regular threat of violence. There may not be everyday violence, but they are subject to foreign laws, brutal taxes, and the ongoing colonization of their lands and their traditions.
If they resist, they do so with the knowledge they face brutal reprisals; including the promise of execution by means of crucifixion.
Prepare the way of God.
God offers comfort. God offers compassion and mercy. Even when we have forgotten our place in God’s world, God has not forgotten us. Even when we have lost our place in a world that is often violent and indifferent to the suffering of the weakest and smallest among us, God still hears us when we cry out.
Comfort my people.
Our world; whether we view it from a global perspective or focus on matters closer to home, offers us pictures of division and conflict. We can see little in the form of unity, unless it is to pick sides in an ongoing conflict which insists we cannot show mercy to those on the other side. We are in fact all too often urged to dismiss the humanity of those we are told are our enemy.
Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain laid low. The deserts made plain.
The wilderness through which we have journeyed shall no longer be a barrier. God has not forgotten us, and God promises us a better tomorrow.
God hears our cries.
And God offers us comfort.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.
Where we may be tempted to see a cold and indifferent God who responds to our transgressions with punishment, Isaiah tells us God is loving and comforting. That when we are ready to see and hear God. When we are ready to listen and work, God is their offering comfort and mercy. God is there showing love.
But. There is always a but.
We do have work to do. Prepare the way of God. Mark tells us John the baptizer is urging people to repent; to be baptized. To recommit to the work God puts be fore us. To change the direction of our lives; recognizing that the paths we took before were not leading to God. We need to take a new direction.
A path of justice, of mercy and compassion. One of love.
Isaiah notes that God offers us comfort. God leads us to nourishment and helps smooth the path in front of us.
But also tells us, Comfort, O comfort my people.
Peace is an elusive thing. Whether it is the call for a world where we all live in harmony; not giving in to historical grievances, greed and anger. Or whether it is closer to home; struggling with our own anxieties, anger, and jealousies; peace is difficult to achieve.
Standing here this morning I am certain of one thing. I cannot say what is necessary to bring about peace in Gaza or Ukraine. I cannot point to the solutions to the problems of violence and conflict in countless hot spots all around the world, never mind the injustices and cruelties that are so evident closer to home.
But how we as a community of faith; how we as individual people of faith respond to the turmoil around us, is under our control. We can welcome those who are suffering from anxiety, who are displaced and hungry and alone and feeling lost.
We can respond with the knowledge – with the awareness that God responds to our cries with comfort and love, with mercy, and a desire for justice and for peace.
We can choose to remember that in our time of need, God answered with comfort. That when we cried out, God cloaked us with comfort, and we can choose to respond to other’s cries with that same comfort; that same love; that same desire for justice and peace.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
Rev. Warner Bloomfield

Music provided with permission through licensing with CCLI License number
2701258 and One License # A-731789