Do Not Fear
Preacher: The Rev. Andrew Van Kirk
Passage: Isaiah 43:1-7
Thus says the LORD, he who created you, O St. Andrew’s, he who formed you O Church: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. (Cf. Isaiah 43:1).
Look, friends, I’m willing to take a few liberties with the text of Isaiah today, because I want you to hear this passage, this word of hope, this good news as good news for you specifically.
I know it wasn’t written to you like this.
It was written to the people of Israel, at a time that seemed hopeless. The Southern kingdom, and Jerusalem its capital, had been conquered by the Babylonians. The people who survived had been taken from their homeland and brought into Babylon, and from there they were scattered across the ancient known-world.
This whole passage, this word of God, was written first to them. But they way the Word of God works is that it speaks to those who read it, and hear it, through words spoken originally to someone else. Scripture is a testimony to what God has done, a guidebook to what God is doing, and a promise of what God will do.
Here, God is speaking to people who are suffering and who have been scattered. And I don’t think you have to squint too hard these days to see that we are suffering, and that we have been scattered.
I heard from at least 20 people this week that they had COVID or had been exposed to COVID; they’re suffering. You can see it in our attendance this morning; we’re scattered. You can see it in the faces covered by masks.
It is to suffering, scattered people that God says, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
I want to show you two things in this passage for us who bear the name of the Lord; two things that are true whether you’re in-person or online, sick or healthy, scared or defiant. These are two reasons not to fear.
The first is this: though the world be remade, God our Savior remains.
Take a look at the second half of verse 1 and verse 2 with me. We start with the first “Do not fear:”
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.
Isaiah’s metaphor works with two primal forces, water and fire; rivers and flame. When we look around this earth, water and fire are the primary means by which creation has taken shape.
Take water: How many of you have ever had awe-inspiring experience of coming up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and staring down at the silvery-thread of the Colorado River below and thought to yourself, “Damn, Paul Bunyan, that was a mighty big axe!”
Mountains and valleys, lakes and rivers, canyons and forests — all these have been shaped by the forces of molten rock, plumes of ash, glaciers and rivers — fire and water.
And yet, these forces are also deadly. That’s why they show up here as fearsome forces God’s people must pass through: “through the waters,” “through the rivers,” “through fire and flame.”
Because of the difference in scale between geological time and human time, we don’t get to see the creative side of water and fire as easily. Canyons take a long time. Wildfires are the closest example we get to see; terribly destructive, they also open up new life. A few years later, we can see a whole new ecosystem bloom and grow.
But whether the change is rapid enough for us to notice or not, creation is still being created. The Earth is not done; God has not stepped back to admire his work. He is still creating and remaking through water and fire.
The means of creation are also potentially the means of our uncreation. Not too long after I first saw the Grand Canyon as a child, I went to the funeral of my first grade teacher, Mary Goodloe, who drowned in a flood along Turtle Creek.
God is still taking forces that can kill us and using them to make and shape this world. Water and fire are still doing their thing, albeit too slowly for us to notice most of the time. But there are other forces of remaking.
One of the ways the world is being recreated today is COVID. Like a raging inferno or a roaring flood, this too is deadly. But when the pandemic subsides, when it goes from epidemic to endemic, when the flood of public health officials on TV finally recedes, the world will not look the same as it did. Things will never be the same.
Whether that’s a threat or a promise remains somewhat to be seen. But I just want to remind you not to underestimate God in this. Not as the author of evil and death, but as the one who can turn all things, even the bad, to his purposes.
Specifically: will you let God remake you? Will the experience of loneliness fashion a longing for true community? The time away from family remake your appreciation for the gift of loved ones? Will suffering and sickness burst the illusion that your life is yours, rather than a gift?
Will we perhaps learn…ehhh, never mind. I was going to say; well, the very first child born of human will got this wrong and we’ve struggled with it ever since. But I was going to say, perhaps we will learn that the answer to the question Cain posed, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is “Yes!”
Undoubtedly, COVID is remaking our world — as surely, and about as violently, as floods or fires or the Babylonian empire remade the world of the Ancient Near East in which Isaiah wrote. But…God can work with that. Do not fear: Though the world be remade, our Savior remains. And he can and will do good things, even out of bad.
So that’s the first reason. The second reason not to fear is in verse 5 and 6:
Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, “Give them up,”
and to the south, “Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth—
God will gather his people again. This, this scattered, virtual, time-shifted, experience we’re all living; these empty chairs that used to embrace the backsides of our friends and brothers and sisters; these chairs will once again return to embracing. To borrow from our Children’s Sermon passage: for these chairs there is “a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” And for some of these chairs, this is a time to refrain from embracing. But it won’t stay that way. God will call us back together again.
Because God knows that to be the people he has called us to be, we must be gathered together. Because our bonds are bonds of love rather than flesh and bone, we can stand a period of social distancing. But in the long run, for the Body of Christ to be forced apart is the equivalent of a human body being drawn and quartered. Hard to survive that.
Which is why God won’t let it be forever.
And here’s what that’s going to be like. You know how in Star Wars (y’all, you haven’t had to put up with a good Star Wars analogy from me in a long time!), in the original Star Wars movie, after rescuing Princess Leia from the Death Star, Han Solo and Chewbacca load up the Millennium Falcon with their sizable monetary reward and fly off, leaving Luke and Leia and R2D2 and C3PO to fight the Empire and destroy the Death Star. With Han and Chewy leaving, the community is scattered.
Dutifully, but against all odds, Luke flies off in his X-Wing to try to destroy the Death Star, and he’s about to fail. Then, at the last moment, Han Solo comes back. He shoots Darth Vader’s wingman, Darth ends up flying off uncontrollably into space, and Han yells, “You’re all clear kid, now let’s blow this thing and go home!” Then Luke fires his two proton torpedos down small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system, setting off a chain reaction. Boom!
Oh man, it’s so great when Han comes back. When the whole gang is back together again.
It’s going to be so great when our Han Solos and Chewbaccas come back.
We can’t be the people God has called us to be scattered all over the place. Thus says the LORD, “I will say to the YouTube, ‘Give them up,’ and to the Facebook Live feed, ‘Do not withhold.’”
Maybe not today; probably not next week either, given the way the case count graphs look. But it will happen; though the day tarries, do not dismay. Do not fear; God will gather everyone who his called by his name.
Here, we’re in verse 7 now, “Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, who I formed and made.” We are, my brothers and sisters, God’s people. We are his people, and he is our God. And he will not give us up. Thanks be to God. Amen!
