When our boys were small, we gave up television for a while… and I never really got back in the habit… until the pandemic. In those days in which we were forced to isolate, I found myself practically binge-watching an Old British sitcom, “As Time Goes By.” Set in the beginning of World War II, a time before social media and cell phones, a young soldier promised to write to his beloved as soon as he was able. And he did. But the letter never arrived. As days became weeks and weeks became months and then years, they each assumed that the other had neglected to write because they found someone else and had forgotten all about them… until, decades later, they met again… and not only discovered their error - but also that they were still in love.
After a different war, many many years earlier, the people of Israel were losing hope. Many had died on the long journey to Babylon. Those who survived were enslaved. For over a generation, they had been exiled from the land they called home. They self identified as a people who were “deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, a slave of the rulers.” They had broken their covenant with God and felt forgotten, isolated, abandoned by God.
But God had not forgotten them. To remind them of his love, God, through the prophet Isaiah, writes a love letter to his people. Like any love letter, it is personal… It is written “to you.” But it is not an ordinary love letter.
After acknowledging the pain and suffering that his people have endured, God reminds them that he is the one who created them, who formed them. And then God proclaims, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”
Notice that God does not say that he will redeem them or that he will call them by name or that they will be his in the sweet bye and bye. Instead, God proclaims what God has done already. God declares, “I have redeemed you.
In the days of Isaiah, redemption meant paying a debt, a ransom, often to free someone from slavery. It was costly. God says to the enslaved Israelites: “I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. “
I’ve often wondered about why God would give up other countries for the sake of the people of Israel. Doesn’t God care for them too?
The short answer is that God does care for them. But one of the challenges of reading mail that was first addressed to someone else in a different time and place is that we don’t always understand the context. In those days, those three countries were rich and prosperous. And so people may have assumed that those were the countries that God favored.
But instead, God chose to keep God’s covenant with the people of Israel - even though they had not kept their end of the covenant. But God works in ways that we do not always understand. So, when the three countries mentioned as “ransom” went to war against the Persian empire, they became the focus of the empire’s ire instead of the Israelites and then God softened the heart of Cyrus, the Persian king of the Babylonian Empire, towards the Israelites so that he not only freed them, but also gave them resources to rebuild their temple and their community. 1 This is how God worked through unlikely people to free and redeem his people.
But not only does God free them, but God claims them as God’s own. God calls them by name as a parent calls a child. No longer are they to be called “slaves” or “those people.” Instead, God knows their names - and calls each one.
Why would God do this? In this love letter, God tells them and all the world, “Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” God’s great love is why God redeemed his people.
And God’s love did not stop there. The love letter continues - and expands. For while God’s people had broken their side of the covenant, God found a way to restore them and keep the covenant through them - by sending his Son, Jesus to redeem not only the Israelites, but the whole world.
Redemption still carries a price. But out of his great love, Jesus paid that price with his body and blood. Out of his great love Jesus forgives us our sins. Out of his great love, Jesus welcomes ALL of us - Israelites, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Europeans, Africans, Asians, Americans, Australians and everyone else. Jesus came to redeem the whole world.
Why does Jesus do this - it is out of love.
The other day someone asked if they could buy one of our prayer shawls. I told her no, they were not for sale — these were the work of our prayer shawl group who made them for those who were in need of comfort and care. She looked disappointed. But then, I quickly told her that while they could not be bought, I would be happy to give her one. And I did. She was delighted.
That’s the way it is with redemption too. You cannot buy it or do anything to deserve it. But you have been redeemed. The price has already been paid by Jesus.
Why would Jesus do this? Again, it’s all about love. For at your baptism, you were named and claimed by Jesus. You were marked with the cross of Christ and proclaimed a child of God…. forever. God’s love letter is now addressed to you too. Why? God gives the answer: “Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”
Brothers and sisters, friends in Christ, you are God’s beloved child, you are precious in God’s sight, and honored and God says to you, “I love you. “ Amen.
Faith-Lilac Way Lutheran Church January 9, 2022 Pastor Pam Stalheim Lane
1 Cory Driver, Director of Graduate Studies and Professor Evangelical Theological Seminary of Cairo, Egypt with reference to Rabbi Kimhi, 13th Century workingpreacher.org 2022