Last week, on Ash Wednesday, we heard God call Himself “your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” And that’s where our Old-Testament reading for today begins: “The Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
But then God gets wistful and reminisces. We hear Him speak some of the saddest words in any language: “You might have had” but no, that’s no longer true for you. “If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” Israel’s unbelief had caused them to forfeit the lavish gifts of having God’s peace and righteousness. They had let something other than the one, true God become their god.
Oh, Israel could have had peace, righteousness, and an enduring name, but they didn’t. Why not? They wouldn’t draw near to God. And that was crazy for them, for their most basic creed that every Israelite memorized and quoted and soon as he could speak was the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). God had first called His people to listen.
“Hear, O Israel.” That’s the first thing God calls you to do, for that’s how God comes to His people: through the spoken Word. It’s just like the Apostle Paul said for God’s people in the New Covenant: “Faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes from the Word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).
But, God’s people were too proud to hear the voice of God through His prophets. So, it was only downhill from there. And downhill it went! In 587 BC, the southern kingdom of Israel, known as Judah, collapsed. Enemies had overrun God’s Temple and the monarchy. The kingly line of David looked to be forever gone. The land became a wasteland, dismantling and destroying what little hope the Israelites had left.
“If only you had paid attention,” said the Lord. And then a massive aftershock followed defeat: Israel became an exiled people, 700 miles from home. And the Prophet Isaiah tells his people, “Get out!” “Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians!” Isaiah’s message is urgent. He used six imperative verbs, verbs of command, in verse 20 of our Old Testament reading. This was not a time to be complacent!
Ah, but that’s much easier said than done. As year after year passed by, and only the old folks could remember living in Judah, could remember the Temple, the Babylonian god, Marduk, seemed more and more powerful. The Holy One of Israel, their God, seemed to have become a second-class god.
Slowly but surely, the exiles began to adjust to life under a foreign king in a foreign land. And, as the Israelites adjusted, some of them started to become stunning financial successes. We know this because archaeologists have unearthed some economic documents near the Tigris River, saying as much. For many Israelites, it was easier to live comfortably in a place of false worship with false gods than to contend for the truth. After all, it’s hard to go against the currents of the dominant culture. It’s always easier to fit in. That’s still true today.
The Israelites had fallen prey to the boiling-frog syndrome. If you put a frog in hot kettle, it will jump out, because it gets scalded. But, if you put the frog in lukewarm water and gradually heat it, the frog slowly overheats and boils to death. Many of the Israelites are seeing their Babylonian exile and confinement as their new normal. They’re in hot water! If they don’t get out soon, they will spiritually die! As Isaiah had called out, “Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians!”
Isaiah tries to awaken Israel from their spiritual torpor and sloth. So he announces, “The Lord will show his holy power to all the nations” (Isaiah 52:10). “The glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together” (Isaiah 40:5). Rest assured, says Isaiah, that “those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31). For He “will not break a bruised reed, and he will not put out a smoldering wick” (Isaiah 42:3). And in Isaiah 51:17 and 52:1, the Prophet cried out: “Wake up! Wake up!”
But the main point that Isaiah makes is in our Old-Testament reading for today: “Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians! Declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth.”
And how do you think Israel responded? They did nothing! They wouldn’t leave! The lights, the sounds, and the religion of Babylon coaxed most of them to stay there! Wealth and comfort meant more than being faithful to God.
That’s why throughout Isaiah chapter 48 the prophet calls them stubborn, unyielding, headstrong, inclined to idolatry, deaf, deceptive, and stubborn rebels from birth. All that was because they had become hard of hearing and hard-hearted. They refused to listen to God’s prophet. It was such a problem that we find Isaiah use the word “listen” 11 times in chapter 48.
Imagine the people responding to the prophet. “But Isaiah, haven’t you heard? Babylon is the superpower, not Israel! This is the land of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! Why should we go back to that little backwater that used to be Judah? Besides, what a huge hassle it would be to get rid of our assets, pack our bags, and pull up stakes just to move back to a land that famine and warfare had brought to ruin. Get out of Babylon? Have you lost your mind?”
This is like a thirsty person choosing to drink sewage runoff instead of water from the tap. Isaiah’s poetic claims, alarming narrative, and stunning doxologies fail to move the Israelites. Convenience and the pleasures of the flesh have lured them to put the Lord into a tiny corner of their lives, only bringing Him out on their terms.
Ah, the boiling-frog syndrome has such hypnotic power! Sure, at first, it’s a strange place to be in, a place where our way of life seems to be no more, where even our God seems powerless. Yes, it’s crushing to have the weight of our collapsed hopes and shattered dreams weigh us down. But in time, we’re used to living in this place of spiritual destruction and death. Now, it doesn’t seem so bad.
Each day, it becomes easier to deny that I am addicted to stuff that kills and destroys. We’re in hot water! That’s why God says: “Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians! Declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth.”
It’s in God’s heart to call people out of darkness into His marvelous light. He called Abraham to get out of Haran because it was the center of moon worship. He urged Lot and his family to get out of Sodom because it was a hub of sexual perversion. He called Israel to get out of Egypt because that society was suffocating their trust and knowledge of the Lord, their God. It would take 40 years of wandering in the wilderness to remove the Egypt from the Israelites. In Israel’s experiences, we see the Lord always calling His people to be free from spiritual decay, decadence, and death.
We also heard that in our Epistle reading. Paul called the Corinthians not to “be yoked together with unbelievers.” After all, “what does righteousness and wickedness have in common?” God has called us to be holy. He has called us to be His people, where His norms shape our lives, not the norms of our culture. He, too, calls us to be free from spiritual decay, decadence, and death.
And what is our response? Too often it’s like the Israelites of old: nothing! We don’t listen to the Gospel of our salvation. We are hard of hearing and have hardened hearts. We refuse to listen to God, and when we hear something we don’t like, we say, “Well, that’s just pastor’s opinion.” And if you see something in the Bible you don’t like, you say the translation got it wrong (as if you would really know!) or that it was something cultural that no longer applies to us today. And we all drink the Kool-Aid.
In Isaiah chapter 30, the people of Israel said what they wanted to hear from God’s prophets: “Don’t prophesy the truth to us. Tell us what we want to hear… Rid us of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 30:10-11). Yes, listening to what we want will eventually rid us of the Holy One of Israel.
But deep down we’re famished, not for what our culture can give us, but for what only God can give us. We hunger for healthy vegetables even while we eat the junk food that is sending us to the grave. We’re thirsty for a clean conscience, a fresh start. We need a strong and loving hand to reach into our spiritual exile, where we’ve let our culture take us captive, and rescue us from the quicksand of accommodation.
And guess what: that’s what God said He would do for His people, Israel. Isaiah chapter 40 through 55 is full of what God does to save His people. It’s not all warning. A warning lets us know that something is wrong, but it doesn’t give us the power to correct it. And so, we are thrown back to God and what only He can do for us!
And so, hear these words from God, “I, I am the one who sweeps away your rebellious deeds… and remember your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25). “I have swept away your rebellious deeds as if they were a cloud, and your sins like the morning mist” (Isaiah 44:22). These precious promises are found, fulfilled, and come to fruition in the Servant whom Isaiah had prophesied: Jesus, our Lord.
Jesus is the One who comes to you in your darkness and sin. He comes to rescue, release, and free you from guilt, shame, and regret. And He can do that because He took all your sin and had it die with Him on the cross.
And what’s our response? We leave our Babylon. And we can declare this with a shout of joy. We can proclaim it and send it out to the end of the earth. For in Christ, we are whole once more, forgiven, healed, and restored. Amen.
