Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11
How did these communities do this? How could they look up and find hope? In Isaiah's place they are in captivity, in Babylon. They are not home, the customs are different, they are not with their familiar people, places, or things and they are assured they will make it back home. A highway will appear, they won't starve in the desert because this wonderful blooming of things will take place after it is watered. Then to top it all off no one will struggle in getting home because all the things which take time, effort, and guidance will be cured. No one will struggle on the path, everything will be idyllic.
Then Jesus speaks these same words to the followers of John. Maybe Jesus didn't take the path John thought he should take. Maybe John, having been put into prison, is truly wondering why Jesus hasn't freed him. Set things right for him so he doesn't have to suffer. Yet the message he sends back is the one of healing and setting free and raising from the dead. Maybe just maybe this hope is for all people who stand in the way of people who oppress.
Rome was not a gentle conqueror. They expected full compliance with a conquered people or they killed you. Are the Romans blind, can they not hear the cries of those they are oppressing, do they injure the people to the point of crippling themselves? Then is Jesus statement a political statement? So often we think Jesus soared above all the politics of the day. It is just not so, it can't be because Rome is the one to put him to death, a traitor of the states death.
This is the thing about oppression, it likes to steal all the joy or hope right out of those who it rules. Yet these wonderful prophets and Jesus speak these words which bring joy and hope to a people who are in the darkest days they ever thought possible. It makes me wonder at the way they try to be that light despite the fact others want to snuff it out.
In the past few years I have read a lot of World War II novels. Each one of them has people of hope, who find joy in the midst of great struggle and oppression. They will not allow their lights to be snuffed out. Whether it's a monk, who is forced to marry because they have stripped him of his order and the charges of children he cared for, who then decides every step he takes after is a step of resistance and he finds people and his new wife who help in this. Or the girl who was saved by her mother and shipped off to England because she is Jewish, where everyone oppresses her because she's German and she finds the ways to resist falling into despair and finds love.
The point is that even in the hardest circumstances, when we feel we have lost it all. God is there and Jesus speaks these words to us. Dares to speak these words to plant hope. To give us a beacon in finding our way through the darkness, so we may too become lights to the world and plant hope to those who have none.
How did these communities do this? How could they look up and find hope? In Isaiah's place they are in captivity, in Babylon. They are not home, the customs are different, they are not with their familiar people, places, or things and they are assured they will make it back home. A highway will appear, they won't starve in the desert because this wonderful blooming of things will take place after it is watered. Then to top it all off no one will struggle in getting home because all the things which take time, effort, and guidance will be cured. No one will struggle on the path, everything will be idyllic.
Then Jesus speaks these same words to the followers of John. Maybe Jesus didn't take the path John thought he should take. Maybe John, having been put into prison, is truly wondering why Jesus hasn't freed him. Set things right for him so he doesn't have to suffer. Yet the message he sends back is the one of healing and setting free and raising from the dead. Maybe just maybe this hope is for all people who stand in the way of people who oppress.
Rome was not a gentle conqueror. They expected full compliance with a conquered people or they killed you. Are the Romans blind, can they not hear the cries of those they are oppressing, do they injure the people to the point of crippling themselves? Then is Jesus statement a political statement? So often we think Jesus soared above all the politics of the day. It is just not so, it can't be because Rome is the one to put him to death, a traitor of the states death.
This is the thing about oppression, it likes to steal all the joy or hope right out of those who it rules. Yet these wonderful prophets and Jesus speak these words which bring joy and hope to a people who are in the darkest days they ever thought possible. It makes me wonder at the way they try to be that light despite the fact others want to snuff it out.
In the past few years I have read a lot of World War II novels. Each one of them has people of hope, who find joy in the midst of great struggle and oppression. They will not allow their lights to be snuffed out. Whether it's a monk, who is forced to marry because they have stripped him of his order and the charges of children he cared for, who then decides every step he takes after is a step of resistance and he finds people and his new wife who help in this. Or the girl who was saved by her mother and shipped off to England because she is Jewish, where everyone oppresses her because she's German and she finds the ways to resist falling into despair and finds love.
The point is that even in the hardest circumstances, when we feel we have lost it all. God is there and Jesus speaks these words to us. Dares to speak these words to plant hope. To give us a beacon in finding our way through the darkness, so we may too become lights to the world and plant hope to those who have none.
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