Homily for 5th Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
5th Sunday of LentMarch 21, 2010
Is 43: 16-11
Christian Brothers, Iona College

“Thus says the Lord: Remember not the events of the past…; see, I am doing something new” (Is 43: 18-19).

The 1st reading this evening comes from that part of the book of the prophet Isaiah known as 2d Isaiah, ch. 40-55, which contain the prophecies of an anonymous prophet who, apparently, belonged to some Isaian school or who resembled the original Isaiah closely enuf that the scribes who preserved the sacred writings linked his inspired messages with those of Isaiah.

Whereas the 1st Isaiah lived and prophesied in the 2d half of the 8th century B.C., his unknown disciple was at work at the end of the Babylonian Exile, in the mid 6th century B.C., possibly in Babylon. The great theme of his prophecies is the downfall of Babylon and the liberation of Israel. Among his texts we also find the four poems of the Suffering Servant that will form much of our reading during Holy Week.

Our passage this evening is one of those announcing Israel’s imminent redemption, using allusions to Israel’s 1st liberation, when Moses led them out of Egypt, thru the Red Sea, and into the desert of Sinai toward the Promised Land. “The Lord opens a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters” (43:16): 2d Isaiah reminds his audience of captives in Babylon of what God did for Israel when Moses lifted his staff over the sea. “The Lord leads out chariots and horsemen, a powerful army, till they lie prostrate together, never to rise, snuffed out and quenched like a wick” (43:17): God leads Pharaoh and his mighty troops into a trap to destroy those who thought to destroy Israel.

But the prophet recalls these events that forged Israel into God’s people only to tell them to forget all about them: “Remember not the events of the past; the things of long ago consider not!” (43:18). What God is about to do for his people will be something else again: “See, I am doing something new” (43:19), something almost enuf to make them forget their history. God is their savior now: “Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (43:19). If they don’t realize that their salvation from their Babylonian oppressors is at hand, they will know it very soon. The Lord will lay low another army when conquering Cyrus the Great descends upon and crushes Babylon. Soon enuf “the Lord will bring back the captives of Zion,” who for 50 years and more have only dreamed of going home to Jerusalem; and their mouths will be filled with laughter, their tongues with rejoicing, in the great things that the Lord has done for them (Ps 126:1-4),

This new redemption will resemble the old one in the defeat of Israel’s enemy and in another journey thru a desert, they Syrian desert, as they return home to Judea from Babylon: “In the desert I make a way” (43:19). But there will be no miraculous passage thru a sea, no parting of the waters; instead, God will raise up waters to ease their journey: “I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink, the people whom I formed for myself” (43:20), even as he had enabled Moses wondrously to provide water for the people from the rocks of the Sinai.

So there will be new exodus of God’s people thru the desert, from captivity to the Promised Land, with a saving presence of water. There just might be a Lenten and Easter theme here?

Well, of course. God’s mighty works weren’t done with on the borders of Egypt, nor were they done with in Mesopotamia. They continue. God’s chosen people, all those who have received his “upward calling, in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14), pass thru the water of Easter, the water of Baptism, and join Christ Jesus, who has laid low their enemies: sin and death, and the armies of Satan. In the desert of our present existence, of this world full of distractions, temptations, and dangers to our well-being (all those things that Paul considers as so much rubbish [Phil 3:8], or worse), God has marked out a safe path for us: in the desert he makes a way, the way of Jesus. God is saving those preparing for Baptism 2 weeks from this evening; God is saving us who have already been baptized and who continue to come to the Word of Jesus and his body and blood. “Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.” With the sacraments and with the Scriptures he continues to water and feed us, as if from oases.

2d Isaiah also speaks of creation’s praise of its Lord: “Wild beasts honor me, jackals and ostriches” (43:20). But after he has set his people free once more, they are to join these creatures in “announcing his praise” (43:21). There’s the purpose in God’s coming to our assistance: to praise him in his works, to praise him for freeing us from the bondage of our sins, from the chains of death, from the doom of Satan’s grasp. Christ Jesus wants to “take possession of” us, as he did Paul (Phil 3:12), wants to give us “the supreme good of knowing” (3:8) and being known by him so that we may be with him forever in the presence of his Father. If God delights in the jackals and ostriches of the desert, how much more does he delight in the brothers and sisters of Jesus!