Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, February 7, 2010, Solemn Evensong
by the Reverend Stephen Gerth

Year 2: Isaiah 57:14-21; 2 Timothy 2:14-21;Ephesians 2:11-22

When it comes to writing sermons, I feel most comfortable writing for Sunday Mass. I’ve preached on Sunday gospels almost entirely since I was ordained. The four gospels continue to push me in new directions. If there’s one book in the Old Testament that I have that kind of relationship with, it is Genesis, which we read this time of year – this year at Morning Prayer, next year it will be the first lesson at Evening Prayer. If there’s one book in the Old Testament that I should have a better relationship with, it’s probably the Book of Isaiah – or perhaps, the book of two Isaiahs, perhaps three.

Isaiah is quoted in all four gospels, in the Acts of the Apostles, and in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. The thought of the prophet helps shape the New Testament narrative – all four gospels quote Isaiah, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.’”[1]

Tonight’s first reading is ascribed by many to Third Isaiah. Some of you will know of the Anchor Bible Commentaries, a major series of studies by Protestant, Catholic and Jewish now published by Yale University Press. I don’t know the whole story, but Isaiah had three volumes written on it in the late 1960s in this series. There are another three volumes completed at the beginning of this past decade.

In the twelfth century the Spanish-born scholar Rabbi Ibn Ezra suggested that what we know as the first 39 chapters of Isaiah were written by one author before the exile – because that’s what they are about – and the rest were written by someone living during the Babylonian Captivity – because that’s what they are about.[2]

In the eighteenth century two German scholars took up the argument for a Second Isaiah convincingly. At the end of the nineteenth century, a scholar at the University of Basle in Switzerland, argued in a commentary for a further division, a Third Isaiah – for chapter 56 through the end at chapter 66.[3] Third Isaiah quotes Second Isaiah. First Isaiah prophecies the light that the people who walked in darkness will see.[4] Third Isaiah calls the people to arise for the glory of the Lord has risen upon them.[5]

Our passage begins with the words, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s way,”[6] which echo Second Isaiah’s, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned.”[7] The passage continues with a verse that is familiar to some through its use as an opening sentence at Morning Prayer, “Thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”[8] 

The word “dwell” used by the prophet is the word used to describe how God was present in the tent when he traveled with the children of Israel in the wilderness.[9] It is also the word used at the end of the Revelation to John, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them.”[10]

In all of this, from the pre-exilic period through the restoration in Jerusalem, life was very hard for God’s chosen people, even the most faithful of them. God was not absent and he spoke through his prophets to reassure his people that his light would continue to be with them.

In our own time, with the darkness that afflicts too many in our world, First, Second and Third Isaiah’s words speak of God’s judgment and his providence. I think they remind us of God’s call to be bearers of Good News in our lives and to be faithful to the voice of God that speaks most often as “a still small voice.”[11]

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.