The 3rd Sunday of Lent, 2016 - Woodlawn Christian Church, Lake City, IA

Last Sunday the Scripture that I selected to preach over from the Lectionary was Isaiah Chapter 55.  The 55th Chapter of Isaiah is believed to have been written during the last years of the Exile Period in Babylon. The Persians have come in and conquered Babylon and Cyrus the Great has told the Israelites that they are free to return to Israel.  Here in Chapter 55 we find God using the Prophet to call His people back home.

The Israelites didn't return immediately and they didn't all in fact return at all.  Many (perhaps even most) of them remained behind in Babylon.  We have to wonder why in the world they would have decided to remain in exile when they were free to go back home.  Well, we need to realize that they had been in Babylon for nearly sixty years at this point.  By far the majority of the Israeli people living in exile at the time Cryus gave permission for them to return to Jerusalem had been born in Babylon and had never seen Israel. Most likely, a great many of them were even the second generation born in exile.  The people had adopted a culture while in exile and their religion had been vastly influenced by the Zoroastrian religion, the Judaism that came home from Babylon wasn't the same Judaism that went into exile.

So, some of these people no doubt were hesitant to go home, their whole world, their whole understanding of life is there in Babylon.  Certainly, they had been told stories for their entire life about 'back home', but to them it was an idyllic story.  It's one thing to dream of going to ones homeland, it's another to suddenly be able to go, especially when going means tearing up everything you've ever known in your lifetime.

To return to Israel or not, was no doubt for many of these people a traumatic decision, a horribly difficult decision.  In light of this, God calls to his prophet that wrote these words in the second portion of Isaiah, these wonderful words of calling, words of reassurance and comfort.

If you've ever strayed from the church, perhaps then you can understand these peoples hesitation.  It's much easier to stay where we 'know' and where we are 'known'.  We can't completely grasp this entire uprooting of our lives for most of us who come back to belief still live in our same communities and still retain our same friends, but we do have to turn our backs on certain aspects of our lives.  Many of these activities have become routine and comfortable, but if we're going to come home, we have to abandon these involvements.

For us believers, we can see a parallel with the Prophet in that we are called to be God's voice here on earth, His voice calling to his lost children to return home.  There's an old saying that "your life might be the only Bible that some people will ever read", well we have to know that all of us will at sometime or another be called upon to be God's voice calling to one of His lost children.

Let us ever be alert for this calling, when God calls to us to speak on His behalf and invite His lost back home.  In this time of the most holy season of Christianity, this time coming up to Easter, what better time is there for us to invite someone who has never been to church, or who may have wandered away from God, to come to church and worship with us.

Bringing someone home to church is certainly being a blessing to them.

Be a blessing to someone today! (Invite them to church!)

In His Joy, Love & Grace,

Roy 

Isaiah 55 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

An Invitation to Abundant Life

55:1 Ho, everyone who thirsts,

    come to the waters;

and you that have no money,

    come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

    without money and without price.

2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

    and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,

    and delight yourselves in rich food.

3 Incline your ear, and come to me;

    listen, so that you may live.

I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

    my steadfast, sure love for David.

4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples,

    a leader and commander for the peoples.

5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know,

    and nations that do not know you shall run to you,

because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,

    for he has glorified you.

6 Seek the Lord while he may be found,

    call upon him while he is near;

7 let the wicked forsake their way,

    and the unrighteous their thoughts;

let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,

    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so are my ways higher than your ways

    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

    it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

12 For you shall go out in joy,

    and be led back in peace;

the mountains and the hills before you

    shall burst into song,

    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;

    instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;

and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,

    for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.