Fifth Sunday in Lent 3/25/07 “A New Thing”

Isaiah 43.16-21

“Thus says the Lord . . . ‘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?’”

God is doing a new thing. It is a simple concept, one that the book of Isaiah reiterates over and over again. And yet it is a concept we don’t seem to understand very well. On this fifth Sunday of Lent, as we prepare once again to celebrate the passion and death and resurrection of our Lord, it will be worthwhile for us to reflect on just how and why God is doing a new thing.

Let’s look first at the meaning of Isaiah’s passage from which these words about “doing a new thing” actually come—a little Old Testament history lesson. The people of Israel were in exile in Babylon. Their nation had been ransacked, their religious institutions had been destroyed, their political leaders killed. They were in a situation of despair and trouble, and were little better than slaves.

In the midst of that dark time, the Lord sent the prophet to speak words of hope and comfort. He brought with him a promise that God had not abandoned his people, that he was still with them and that they were about to be rescued from their troubles. It is in that context that this morning’s passage must be read. “Thus says the Lord,” Isaiah writes, “who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters . . .” And of course what he is talking about here is the most precious memory that Israel has, the recollection that God brought them out of slavery in Egypt, into the promised land, leading them through the sea, making a path in the mighty waters.

Then he says, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing.” Now the idea here is that Israel should stop thinking about the mighty things that God did several centuries ago, and open their eyes to see the mighty things that God is doing in their midst right now! Israel, you see, has that very human tendency to long for the good old days. But Isaiah tells them that too much attention on the past will keep their eyes from seeing what God is doing now, in their midst, even as they complain about their desperate situation. As he once made a way in the sea, so now he will make a way in the wilderness in which they find themselves.

Now what does this word from 25 centuries ago have to do with us? Well, the sense of being in exile is still very much alive in our world. There are the obvious examples, of course—refugees of one sort or another, cut off from their home by civil war or natural disaster. But it goes deeper than that, for exile is not just a physical reality, but a psychological and spiritual reality as well.

Who are the exiles among us? Anyone who feels trapped by a situation over which he or she has no control. An elderly person confined to a nursing home, with no friends and no family to visit and care. A young person, laughed at and ridiculed because he is somehow different, and so he takes refuge in alcohol or drugs to help him feel part of a group and to ease the pain of being alone. A woman, finding herself alone at home now that her children have gone, wondering if there is anything important left for her to do in the world. A person whose race or national origin leads her to feel isolated and alone in a community where she is a distinct and obvious minority. The list could go on forever. The experience of being in exile, of being trapped and unable to get out, is one that comes to many in our world, many among us.

Yet to the exiles, the prophet brings a word of hope. “I am about to do a new thing! You don’t need to feel that you are alone, that no one cares. You don’t need to feel that there is no way out. There is a way, and I can open it to you.” What a welcome word that is to us exiles, for it assures us that we are not forgotten, and that even now God is working for us, opening a way for us, bringing a new way of looking at ourselves and our situation that will mean freedom for us. God is about to do a new thing . . . offering hope to those who are in despair, release to those who are trapped by their situation.

We get another perspective from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians. “This one thing I do,” writes Paul. “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Notice that phrase, “forgetting what lies behind.” What Paul meant by that is that his own past had some pretty difficult and unsavory aspects. Paul had been a persecutor of the church. He opposed the Christians because he felt they were dangerous and stood for everything he, as a good Pharisee, abhorred. The Book of Acts even tells us that he cooperated with those who put Stephen to death.

With a past like that, Paul might well have spent a lot of time worrying about himself. Would God really forgive him for what he had done? How could he manage to face each day, knowing the truth about himself? And yet we hear none of that in Paul. In Paul, God was doing a new thing! And that new thing meant that Paul could be forgiven and given a job. For Paul, it meant that he could simply let go of the past. He could forget about it because God had forgotten about it in the moment that Paul was forgiven. So Paul could now spend his time, not worrying about what his past life may have been, but pressing on into the future, living for Christ and serving Christ.

What does Paul’s struggle have to do with us? I suspect there are more than a few of us here who have things in our past that we would just as soon forget. Perhaps it is something from long ago, or perhaps it is harsh word we spoke just this morning. And yet sometimes we can’t seem to forget. We become almost paralyzed by yesterday, convinced that we cannot change and that we cannot do any better. How often that happens in our relationships! We spend so much time nursing past hurts and troubles and problems, fretting about the ways we have hurt others or stewing about the ways they have hurt us. That kind of brooding has no future; rather it chains us to the past.

But God is doing a new thing! He tells us that we are forgiven, and that the past does not bind us anymore! He tells us that today is infinitely more important than yesterday, and that we have the freedom to live for him today, to serve him today. He assures us that even as we’ve been brooding and stewing about the past, he has been at work healing and renewing, and that if we will just turn our eyes to him, we will be set free. We don’t need to be tied to the past. God is doing a new thing . . . offering freedom from yesterday’s sins and troubles, freedom to step out into today as a new person.

But I have saved the best for last. God is doing a new thing, and the most incredible aspect of that truth is also one we see in Paul’s beautiful letter: “Christ Jesus has made me his own.” It is just this verse that Luther incorporates into the Small Catechism, when he explains the second article of the Creed: “At great cost he has saved and redeemed me, a lost and condemned person. He has freed me from sin, death, and the power of the devil—not with silver or gold, but with his holy and precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. All this he has done that I may be his own!”

Next Sunday we begin once more the week we call “holy,” the week when we remember, in Luther’s words, “Christ’s innocent suffering and death.” But we do not walk through that week as through a museum, remembering, studying and reflecting on some events long past. We walk through it knowing its purpose, knowing that Jesus did all this “so that I may be his own,” knowing that in fact “Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

In these events, you see, God is doing a new thing . . . offering himself, in Jesus Christ, that we might be his own, and that we might know the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! He is doing a new thing . . . doing it for us, doing it with us, among us. Giving waters in our wilderness, rivers in our desert, giving drink to us, his chosen people, the people whom he formed for himself, that we might declare his praise, giving himself to us in bread and wine, gathering us, freeing us, loving us, making us his own. I think the 17th century poet Samuel Crossman said it as well as anyone:

Here might I stay and sing—

No story so divine!

Never was love, dear King,

Never was grief like Thine.

This is my friend, in whose sweet praise

I all my days could gladly spend.

And that wonderful friend is about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?