A NEW THING
a sermon based on Isaiah 42:18-25 & Mark 2:1-12
by Rick Thompson
 

“I used to love professional sports,” states a long-time fan, “but now it’s all about money. They don’t seem to care about the fans; all we’re good for is paying those fat salaries. It’ll never be the same again, and I don’t care if I ever go to another game.”

“I wish I were as healthy as I was 10 years ago,” a man sighs. But, after 3 surgeries, and living now with severe restrictions, he knows that will never be the case.

After listening to the latest news report about wars and violence in the Middle East, and the threats posed by North Korea and Iran, and the murders in her own community, a woman laments, “I don’t feel safe in my own home any more, and I doubt if I ever will again.”

“Twenty-five years ago, all you had to do was put up a new church building, and people would flock to it,” comments a long-time church member. “But, now, the church just doesn’t seem important to very many people.”

They were all looking for better days, brighter days. But there didn’t seem to be any real hope. Tomorrow only promised more stress and anxiety and disappointment. The glory days all seemed to be in the past. Why couldn’t they go back to the way things were? They knew exactly what people meant when they talked about “the good old days”.

So did the ancient people of Israel.

They were in exile. For hundreds of years, they’d tried to live in their own land, but their neighbors, stronger and mightier, kept overrunning them. The Israelites wanted to believe God’s promises about how they would be blessed to be a blessing to all nations, but it seemed pretty absurd, now. They figured the best they’d ever had it was when God had liberated them from Egypt and brought them to Israel the first time. Now, their land was in ruins and the ones left behind were poor and hungry. Even if they weren’t in their own land, they were better off in exile. They lived in security, and were making a pretty good living. So what was the big deal if they never went back to the land? God didn’t care about them anyway! They glory days of Israel were all in the past—there was no reason to hope for any brighter future.

That’s when God raised up a prophet.

God raised up a prophet, who spoke God’s new word to a new time. It was rooted in the ancient word, but shaped to meet the needs of a new situation.

“Do not remember the former things,

or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing;

now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

It wasn’t that God’s mighty acts in the past were no longer relevant. It was right for the people to remember their deliverance from Egypt, their life in the promised land. It was helpful to remember the faithful and gracious acts of God in the past.

But they couldn’t go back there. Israel’s sinfulness, and God’s resulting punishment, had changed the relationship between God and people. God would have to find another way to give them life! God would have to find a new way to show God’s power in the lives of God’s people!

And that’s just what God was about to do, the prophet announced. Their best days were yet to come! It would be like the Exodus from Egypt, only better! The people would go home again! They’d go right across the desert, and they wouldn’t have to worry about their hunger and thirst in the wilderness! God himself would feed them and give them water! And when they got home, they would praise God like they’d never praised God before!

“God is about to do a new thing!” the prophet proclaims, “and you won’t believe how wonderful, how incredible it will be! Trust me. Or, better yet, trust GOD!”

But they didn’t. Their lives weren’t all they hoped, but it could have been worse, they thought. It certainly couldn’t ever be as good as it had been centuries before!

Have you ever heard of the African impala? You may have seen one in a zoo. The impala is in the deer and antelope family. It can jump to a height of over 10 feet, and cover a distance of over 30 feet in one jump. But when they’re put in a zoo, a 3-foot high wall will hold them. Why? The impala won’t jump it it can’t see where its feet will land, can’t see what’s on the other side of that wall.

That’s what had gotten the best of Israel, too—fear.

And that’s what gets the best of us. That’s what convinces us that it will never get any better, that the best days are long behind us. That’s what convinces us that God can’t do what God promises—fear. Fear, which goes hand-in-hand with lack of faith.

Yet Isaiah promises that God is doing a new thing. Isaiah promises that it will be better and more magnificent than anything God has done in the past. God has delivered before, and God will do it again! In fact, in Christ God has done it again! God has delivered the people—delivered us!—with such power that we never need to doubt God’s intentions. God has provided such a deliverance that we can trust God in all things and live with hope even in dark, dark days!

That’s what we’ll discover if we dare, unlike the impala, to jump! That’s what we’ll discover on the other side of the wall. That’s what we’ll discover: God is a promising God. God makes amazing promises, and we can believe and trust them!

So what might happen if we do?

Well, we just might discover that God gives water to the thirsty. God gives food to the hungry. God gives hope to the hopeless. What God has done in Christ—defeated evil, destroyed death, and healed diseases—God can do again and again and again!

God gives us the power to live our lives in hope! God is in the business of setting us free from fear and hopelessness and despair!

In fact, God will even forgive our sins!

Just imagine that: all our failure to trust God—forgiven!

all our reluctance to take the leap of faith—forgiven!

all of our doubt, all of our despair, all of our refusal to allow God

to do what God can indeed do—forgiven!

All of our clinging to the past because we see no future—all of that

forgiven!!

Just like God promised to an undeserving Israel, just as Jesus gave to a man powerless to walk, in a world certain the poor man suffered because he had sinned. This is God’s word over them and over us—I forgive you all your sins!

And in forgiveness, there is healing and there is hope.

Even in dark days for our world and challenging days for the church, we can live in HOPE because of the promises and healing, forgiving power of God!

Preacher William Willimon tells of a woman who was stricken with a paralyzing illness in midlife. She needed to use a wheelchair, would never walk again, and appeared to be at the end.

“We’ve done all that we can do,” the doctors told her. “There’s nothing else to be done.” (They might as well have told her to give up hope.)

But she didn’t. “I wonder what God has in mind for me now,” she wondered. “Now that I can no longer use my legs, God must be calling me to do something else. I’ve got to figure it out!”

She took a computer class, and learned to design new Internet web sites. She wanted to help charitable organizations, and became very successful at it, though being successful wasn’t her real intention.

Some said it was a miracle. Not a miracle of physical healing, but a miracle neverthesless.

“I think she did get a miracle,” Willimon concludes, “the miracle of hope, the miracle of faith. When I think of faith healing, I always think of her first.”

That woman, who was unable to walk, took a leap of faith, and discovered that God was on the other side. God was there, with a hopeful word and a rich measure of faith. God was there, and she had brighter days ahead!

People of God, we too can live with hope! God has done a new thing in Christ, and God continues to do that same, wonderful new thing in our lives, in our world.

So we dare not be surprised. We dare not be surprised, even if we’re languishing in hopelessness, to find God doing something new.

God may just forgive our sins, tell us to get up and walk—or even leap like an African impala—and then send us into the world to share the news that in Christ, and Christ alone, there is hope. In Christ, there is hope indeed!