1 But now, this is what the LORD says-
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
3 For I am the LORD , your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush [1] and Seba in your stead.
4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life.
5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east
and gather you from the west.
6 I will say to the north, 'Give them up!'
and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.'
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the ends of the earth-
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."
"When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned..."
Today, at an undisclosed location in Florida, a company is manufacturing synthetic yellow diamonds that rival nature's best. They have DeBeers, the diamond cartel running scared. It takes two separate tests, with expensive equipment, to distinguish the synthetic diamonds from the naturally occurring ones. The method they use is actually a simulation of the conditions occurring 100 miles beneath the surface of the earth, where the nature's diamonds are made.
From Wired Magazine: "Put pure carbon under enough heat and pressure - say, 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit and 50,000 atmospheres - and it will crystallize into the hardest material known. Those were the conditions that first forged diamonds deep in Earth's mantle 3.3 billion years ago. Replicating that environment in a lab isn't easy, but that hasn't kept dreamers from trying. Since the mid-19th century, dozens of these modern alchemists have been injured in accidents and explosions while attempting to manufacture diamonds."[1]
Regardless of whether your diamonds are natural or synthetic, the conditions under which they were made were assuredly quite intense. Those conditions produce one of nature's grandest wonders, the diamond.
In our scripture today, Isaiah is reminding the people of the southern kingdom of Judah of their identity. He was reminding them of who they were. When this passage was written, the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah had been split for many years. They were making alliances with neighboring nations for protection against other neighbors. These alliances later proved disastrous in themselves, particularly for the northern kingdom of Israel. These were difficult and trying times. The people were tempted to forget who was on their side. Many of them, at many times, did just that.
Isaiah gave witness to another way of thinking about their situation. He wanted them to know that God was with them. He wanted them to place their confidence in God rather than foreign alliances. He wanted them to live up to the identity that was theirs in God. And in many other passages in this book of prophecy, he encouraged them with prophecies about the coming Messiah.
Can we take encouragement today from these words of Isaiah? In a word, yes. But there are conditions, and as much as I might want to move beyond the conditions to the message of hope contained in Isaiah, the conditions are essential to the hope that would be ours. The promises in this passage are for the people of God, in the context of this scripture, the people of Judah. Can we claim them for us too? We can if we are in Christ.
In Christ we become the Children of the Covenant. We become the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham of offspring "as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore". We become heirs to the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures, today's passage in Isaiah, and the blessings of life in Christ.
And what blessings those are.
We will know that we have been created by God, redeemed by God and named by God, as a parent names his/her children.
1 But now, this is what the LORD says-
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
We will know that we are precious, honored and loved by God.
4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life.
This verse raises a question that is troubling for some. Does God play favorites? In the time of Isaiah, God intervened to preserve his people. Egypt, a would-be enemy of Israel fell before Assyria. Later, Assyria would find their army decimated when, in the record of II Kings 19, we read that an "angel of the lord" struck 185,000 of them overnight, leading to their retreat from the complete conquest of Judah. He did this to spare His people, to protect His children.
Yes, God plays favorites. It is a natural expression of love to his children to favor them over those who don't know him. It is not to be a source of pride to us that we might have his favor. The favor of God is grace at work. We don't merit it and it is best appreciated when we use God's favor to seek to bring others into relationship (covenant) with God. This brings us to verse 7 where God's children are referred to as:
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."
As His children, we are created (then recreated) for His glory. We best glorify Him by expressing the life of Christ in us, becoming who he has called us to be, which will inevitably result in the drawing of others to Him.
This process of becoming, of being recreated, can be painful. Another word would be excruciating (a particularly appropriate word, me thinks). When we come to Christ, as we said last week, it is only a beginning. Life as a Christian has moments of rest and rejoicing, respite and relaxation, and these are to be fully enjoyed, however transient they may be, for in them we receive glimpses of Heaven. But if God is truly working in us there will be struggle as we move towards what Wesley expressed as "being made perfect in love". Obeying God sometimes means choosing to walk through the fire. Sometimes "fire and flood" come to us through no choice of our own.
I do not know the present circumstances for all of you. I do know for some of you, and I know that some are "walking through the fire". I want you to know that God is with you. I want you to know His promise for you, that you yourself, the diamond within, will not be set ablaze or destroyed. I want us all to rest in God's promise that even in the final moments of our lives, he is with us. I want us to always fix our gaze on Him, in good times and in trying times, for in doing so, we affirm our covenant relationship with him and our place as those who receive all of His promises.
[1]http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond.html; Wired, "The New Diamond Age", Joshua Davis, Issue 11.09 - September 2003