Looking Forward / Looking Back

Looking Forward / Looking Back

Isaiah 63:7-9

In the ancient calendar used by the Romans, from which our calendar was created, the name of each month had a meaning. For example the month of February was so named because that was the time of the year for a feast called Februa. Some of the months were named for the false gods that the Romans worshiped. March was named after Mars, the god of war. May was probably derived from the goddess Maia. June was named after the goddess Juno. The months July and August were named, respectively, after Julius Caesar and his successor, Caesar Augustus. September, October, November, and December were named for the numbers seven, eight, nine, and ten in the Latin language. That was the order in which those months fell in the Roman calendar. 

One month in the ancient Roman calendar that had an especially descriptive name was January. The Latin word janua means a door or window from which a person may look both ways, in other words, in and out — forward and back.  Historians say that January is also derived from the name Janus, a common household god among the Romans.  He was often depicted facing in two directions.  Basically, he was looking forward and back.  As we stand at the doorway to the month of January and a new year it seems a good time to reflect on the past year, and to contemplate the future.  We look back to where we have been and forward to where we are going.

And even if we wanted to avoid doing this,  we probably can’t at this time of the year with the newspapers and television and their features that highlight the past year’s events.  And in a few days time people will be making New Years resolutions about the future,  or praying for something to happen or not happen in the future.  So today we stand at the door looking both backwards and forward.

And it was in a similar context that the prophet Isaiah speaks in our text for today.  Now while it wasn’t a new year that Isaiah the prophet was speaking into, it was a new beginning.

Put yourself in the picture.

The once glorious people of Israel, had been prisoners for some time in the foreign land of Babylon.  There were basically two problems in being forced to live in Babylon for the Israelites.  They were away from the place where they could worship God, and secondly they were encouraged to worship other gods.   Now they have returned home.

They had just been released and have returned to the area where they had been take from.  However their home looks very little like it was.

Instead of being active and bright, it is gloomy.  The people have scars from their time as slaves.  The city needs a good renovation, a visit from Public Television’s “This Old House” team would be handy.  There is rubble, and cracks all over the place.

Once prosperous families are now struggling, but glad to be back home. 

Ever been in that situation?

Found yourself going back to something that was once marvelous but is now not so good?

Well there is another part to the story.

And we get a perspective of this story from Isaiah.

It would have been easy for the Israelites to focus on the negative,  however the prophet Isaiah and the Israelite community focused on something else.

And I invite you to open your bibles to Isaiah 63:7-9 and lets examine it together.  Isaiah encourages the people to ...

Look Back and remember what God has done,

Look Around and see the people God has saved,   and

Look Up and worship the One who redeems us

1. Body
1. Looking Back
1. and remember what God has done
1. This begins with a prayer of remembrance
1. This type of prayer invokes a continual renewal of redemptive love
2. It all about relationship
1. The structure of the Hebrew of v. 7 is noteworthy. The word "remember" or "recount" appears as the middle word of five; literally it runs, "mercies"/"of the Lord"/ "recount"/"praiseworthy acts"/"of the Lord." The word "recount" or "remember" anchors the entire thought.
2. That Hebrew word used for “remember” is gamal, "benefitted" or "recompensed."   As commentator John Oswalt says:  "This verb (gamal) is profoundly relational, expressing the idea of treatment in response to an action" (Isaiah 40-66), p. 605.
3. One other appearance of this word is in Ps. 116:7: — “Return, O my soul, to your rest,  for the Lord has dealt bountifully (gamal) with you.
4. The word at each end of this sentence is also relational  -— steadfast love = “hasadim” — His loyalty to covenantal relationship
3. So the people are called to remember what He has done
1. He has given freely to them (us)
2. He has trusted them (us)
3. He has saved them (us) from danger
4. The image of God lifting us up and carrying us are among the most comforting Biblical images. They remind us of the striking description of God in Ex. 19:4, — “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself."Look Around
5. and see the people God has saved
4. His people
1. "Because God said, 'They are surely my people, children who will not deal falsely' (or perhaps "who will tell no lies"); so God became their savior in all their distress" (63:8-9a). God's hopes for the people were that they would be truth tellers, trustworthy children for whom God would be a savior in all occasions of pain or struggle.
5. Another way to translate “deal falsely” is to say, “those who abandon the covenant.”  God desires to remain in relationship (covenant) with us.  So much so that…
6. He saved us. — “He became their Savior.”
7. When Jesus came to earth He made it His business to know what we were struggling with.  Isaiah says in verse 9, “In all their distress, he too was distressed.”  He took their pain personally.  Isaiah tells us in 53:4 “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows...he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities (willful deliberate sins).  He knows our current needs and knows what to do about them even when things look impossible.
8. Story —  A North Dakota blizzard was howling outside Dr. Thompson’s office one night.  About 9:00 the phone rang.  A man said, “Doc can you come out to my place?  My boy is running a high fever and is unconscious.  It’s impossible for us to get in to see you.  Do you think you could make it out to us?”
9. The doctor said, “Tony, I’ll do my best but I never saw a storm this bad where I came from and it sure scares me.”
10. On his way out of town he stopped at the local bar and asked three men if they would go with him to help shovel.  About halfway the men became exhausted because the snow drifts were getting so deep.  The doctor left his car with the men and got a farmer to saddle a horse for the rest of the trip out to Tony’s.  The boy was so sick that the doctor knew that if he didn’t get him to a hospital in intensive care soon that he wouldn’t make it.  He thought of Ed the County Commissioner.  He called him but the commissioner said, “Don’t think I can do anything, but I’ll try.”
11. At sunrise the doctor got his patient down to the main road, and to his surprise, he found his car running and waiting for him and to learn that the road all the way to town had been cleared.
12. The doctor called the county commissioner to thank him. 
13. “Don’t thank me. I had nothing to do with it.”
14. Surprised the doctor said, “Who did then?”
15. The commissioner said, “Well, you’ve got to know the people around here to understand what happened.  When they heard you call me on the party line, they knew something must be wrong.  They all listened in and every able-bodied man and boy along that road went to work shoveling and plowing snow.  We live out here in God’s wide-open country where the coyotes howl and the wind blows free.  When anybody’s in trouble, we all pitch in to help. We call it “putting love on the line.”
16.   I think that we can say that Jesus put “love on the line” for us.
17.   Paul said in Romans 5:6,8, “Just at the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  But God demonstrated his own love for us in this.  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.“

C. Look Up

1. and worship the One who redeems us
1. He was distressed  
1. We are reminded that even when things looked bad in 2019 God was with us.  In verse 9 we are told, "In all their affliction he was afflicted."  God was distressed with us in our distress.  Through all the trials and troubles we faced this past year God was with us.  It always makes us feel better when someone knows what we are going through, when someone understands.  
2. That is a reason to celebrate God’s grace.  Our God felt the pain we felt. When we were shedding tears of sorrow our God was watching us and caring about us - even crying right there along with us.
2. God’s own face (or presence) saved them — v. 9 (NRSV) — “… It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them…”
1. not a “messenger” (prophet), 
2. not an “angel”
3. God, Himself — as in Peterson’s “The Message,” — “He didn’t send someone else to help them. He did it himself, in person.”
1. “saved” (protected) them, 
2. “redeemed them” and 
3. “lifted them up” to him
3. Verse 9 concludes, "In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old."  Through everything God was there. As we celebrate God’s grace into this New Year, we look back with appreciation for God’s protection.  
1. The Lord said through Isaiah in 46:3-4, “I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” 
2. From our youth to our old age God promises to be with us.  From year to year God will sustain and help us.  Through good times and bad times the Lord carries us.  As we look back at another year of God’s protection and love may we look back at it in appreciation.  May we celebrate God’s grace!
3. And what reason did the Lord have for allowing troubles into our life this past year?  He used all the things that we would call “bad” to draw us into a closer relationship with Him.  They also served to remind us that the Lord is our strength and our only way out of trouble.
4. to redeem = kinship relationshipConclusion 

1. Look back and remember what God has done
2. Look Around and see the people God has saved
3. Look Up and worship the One who redeems us