Isaiah 51:1-6

            {Prayer}

            Throughout the service so far, we have had a lot of mentions about rocks. We had verses about rocks in our opening Time to Praise. We had a mention of rocks in our prayer and even in our Time to Confess. You could say that our worship service so far this morning has been off to a rocky start.

One thing you may not know about rocks is that rocks have a pretty sedimentary lifestyle. Okay, I know, bad dad joke, but it’s true! Rocks don’t move or eat or reproduce. Rocks don’t even breathe, evolve, or need energy. They don’t produce waste. Rocks can grow and be made smaller and move, but not under their own power. Even though rocks can’t technically be considered dead because they were never living, they sure do act like their dead. Rocks are pretty sedentary.

            Isaiah in our Old Testament reading, he is talking to the Israelites who are living in exile, who are living in Babylonian captivity, who have hit rock bottom and believe that they have been forgotten about by God and that may never get to go back home again. In the very beginning of our section of Scripture that I read earlier, the Israelites are told to look back to their past and remember what it was that had happened.

            And what is it in their past they are supposed to look back to? Isaiah says a rock. “Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn” (51:1b). Now this isn’t like, oh, look back to the land from which you came from, kind of looking back. To us, and especially to those of us who don’t really know anything about our family lineage, looking back from where our families came from isn’t going to provide any sort of comfort or peace.

This would be like telling someone who has a life sentence in prison to remember where he came from. Looking back, remembering how good things were before he was found guilty of a serious crime that he had committed isn’t going to provide him any comfort or peace while sitting in his cell.

            So what’s the point of Isaiah telling the Israelites to look back? He says, “Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah who gave you birth” (51:2a). The Israelites, who are suffering, being abused, tormented, and thinking they are going to die in a foreign land, are told to look to their ancestors. What good is that? What kind of comfort does this bring?

            Well, you may remember that there is something special about these two people, about Abraham and Sarah. If you don’t remember, let me tell you a little about them.

            Abraham and Sarah, they are both like a rock. Actually, when Isaiah says to look to the rock from which you were cut … Isaiah is talking about Abraham. When Isaiah says to look to the quarry from which you were hewn, he is referring to Sarah. In their own way, Abraham and Sarah are a rock.

            The beginning of Hebrews 11:12 says, “Therefore from one man {Abraham}, and him as good as dead”. Abraham is considered as good as dead because he’s old! At the age of 99, Abraham is well past the age of having children.

            Sarah, she’s not much better. Not only is she way past child bearing age, but she is barren, she’s not able to have kids, period. In Old Testament times, because she couldn’t have children, Sarah would be considered as good as dead as well.

            But like I said, there was something special about these two, about Abraham and Sarah. Despite laughing, despite looking at their physical age, despite trying to take matters into their own hands at times … Abraham and Sarah, are like a rock in their faith. They believed God. They had faith. Hebrews 11 says that “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man {Abraham}, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore” (11:11-12).

            So what good does it do for the Israelites in exile to look back to Abraham and Sarah?  Looking back to their roots, looking back to the man who believed the promises of God through faith alone will help them recall their past and return to the roots of their faith, to the “rock” and the “quarry” from which their nation came. God’s promises of grace to Abraham formed the bedrock upon which Israel was first built, and Sarah was the cavity from which Israel was born.

            God is having the exiles look back to the miracle of Abraham’s offspring being multiplied beyond imagination to give them hope. Looking into the past will empower the exiles to face their future with resilient hope. So when Isaiah is saying “Look to the rock”, “Look to Abraham”, “Look to Sarah”, he wants the people to “Look confidently and remember what it is God has done.”

            Once their done looking back and remembering, Isaiah points them to look forward. “The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing” (51:3). The LORD chose the offspring of Abraham to be His people, He’s not going to turn His back on them. God is working in the background to bring His people up out of the land of exile and back to the land that He promised them. In other words, they will not stay in their uncomfortable and rocky condition forever.

            And this is where you and I come in. Right now, you and I are living in a time of exile. We are living in a time when individuals hit rock bottom, a time when some question and even believe that because of their suffering, because of their condition, because of their place in life that God has abandoned them. But not only are you and I subject to the present sufferings of our individual lives, the creation, the world around us is also subjected to frustration.

           Paul says in Romans 8, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (8:22-23).

           Isaiah told the Israelites to look back, to look back and remember the rock from which they came … you and I are called to do the same. However, we aren’t looking back to the dead rock of Abraham, but instead to the Living Rock of Jesus Christ. We are called to confidently look back and remember what it is that Jesus has done for us through His perfect life, His miserable suffering and death, and through His victorious resurrection from the dead. Christ is our cornerstone. Christ is the Rock on whom we build our lives. As the one hymn says, “My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; No merit of my own I claim But wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand” (LW 368 vs 1).

           As the Israelites were waiting for the day they would be set free from captivity, we do the same. Like Israel, we live in this tension, in this time of anticipation of what is yet to come. The rocky situations and conditions in which we live is not how it is always going to be. As we groan inwardly, we wait for the day when Christ comes again. On the Last Day, Christ will “transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). Then at last, God will fully make the wilderness of our lives like the garden of Eden in the new heavens and earth to come.

           As living stones, hewn from the Rock of our salvation, we are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5). Being built together on the cornerstone of Christ, may we remember confidently what Christ has and is doing for us as we offer our prayers, our praise, and our thanksgiving to God. May all we say and do, be done to bring God the glory and honor, forever and ever. Amen.

           The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.