After this past week, the past year, I needed that passage from Isaiah (65:17-25). I needed to be reminded that no matter what happens in the world, no matter who wins an election, no matter what…God is still in charge. God still has a plan for us.

But let’s look back a little bit in Isaiah to see what is going on.

We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
⁷ There is no one who calls on your name,
or attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have delivered^[g] us into the hand of our iniquity.
⁸ Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
⁹ Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,
and do not remember iniquity forever.
Now consider, we are all your people.
¹⁰ Your holy cities have become a wilderness,
Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem a desolation.
¹¹ Our holy and beautiful house,
where our ancestors praised you,
has been burned by fire,
and all our pleasant places have become ruins.
¹² After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord?
Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely? – Isaiah 64:6-12

Humanity is crying out to the Lord for forgiveness to which God responds:

I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask,
to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that did not call on my name.
² I held out my hands all day long
to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices;
³ a people who provoke me
to my face continually,
sacrificing in gardens
and offering incense on bricks;
⁴ who sit inside tombs,
and spend the night in secret places;
who eat swine’s flesh,
with broth of abominable things in their vessels;
⁵ who say, “Keep to yourself,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” – Isaiah 65:1-5

That sounds very familiar doesn’t it. That seems to be a tale that humanity has been doomed to repeat over and over and over again. “God, why have you forsaken me? God, why have you abandon me?”

To which God always responds: “Here I am, here I am,” For it is never God that walks away from us. It is never God that quits listening to us. It is never God that quits loving us. It is never God that quits trying. That blame always falls on us. But God doesn’t stop. Ever.

And that my friends, is very, very good news.

Isaiah continues in today’s reading:

¹⁷ For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
¹⁹ I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.

“Be glad and rejoice forever”.

“no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.”

That is the amazing Grace that we are promised as children of God through Jesus.

That is the Good News.

We know this. Even in the times and days that we too easily forget it, God still loves us. God still has a plan for us. God has got this.

Of course, saying something like “Don’t worry. God has got this” is a trap that we have to be careful not to fall into. Because if ‘God has got this’ then we can just sit back and wait for God to “create a new heaven and a new earth”.

But that isn’t what God calls us to do.

That is not how we as Christians are supposed to respond to God’s Grace. That is not how any of this is supposed to work. We have to be the change that want to see in the world. We have to be the Love that we want to see in the world. We have to put in the work to create ‘a new earth’. It is in our hands.

Personally, I am guilty of standing around with my hands in my pockets far too often. I feel like I have not lived up to my calling as a child of God, a follower of Jesus. This past week has made me feel doubly so.

Our nation is more divided now more than any other time since the Civil War. I heard or read that back a few months ago. I’m not sure if it is actually true. I’m not sure how you would actually go and judge a thing like that.

I do feel that our country is greatly divided right now. There are people on both side of the political aisles that feel hurt and pain and loneliness. They feel like God has abandon them, has forsaken them to a world that they no longer understand.

And that is the time that we need to take our hands out of pockets and offer them a helping, loving hand. That is what God calls us to do. That is the appropriate response to God’s Grace.

But it’s hard sometimes. To make that first step. To hold out that helping hand. It isn’t easy when the world tells us ‘We don’t want your help’.

God never said it would be easy.

God never said it would not be hard.

But we have to keep moving forward. Always.

We were having a discussion during Sunday school last week after church. The topic was brought up “As a church, as members of the church, how do we evangelize to people?”

“We don’t” was one comment.

“I’ve never met anyone who has not heard the name Jesus before” was another.

Both comments were accurate and fair.

My response was this: We have to figure out a way to do it. The congregation of mainline denominations have been shrinking for decades. The church is always one generation away from dying and we have to figure out a way to change things. If we don’t, then the church is doomed to die.

Of course, we didn’t solve the problem that day. And I haven’t come up a magical answer since then either.

I think an important first step is to look at how we tell the story of Jesus. If we tell the story of Jesus as only a Lord and Savior, whose only goal was to secure a place in the afterlife, then why should we care what happens in this world?

I don’t think that is the story that we need to tell. I don’t think that was the only goal of Jesus. I think the story of Jesus we need to tell is the one in which Jesus is an active participant of the change that He wants to see in the world.

He fed the hungry.

He healed the sick.

He comforted the distraught.

He surrounded himself with social outcasts.

He loved the unloved.

That was the active participant Jesus was in his world. That was how he moved things forward.

And I think that is what we are called to do. Maybe that’s how we evangelize to people who already know the name Jesus. To people that may have been hurt by the church. To people that hurt too much to care anymore.

We feed them.

We heal them.

We love them.

That is what God calls us to do. To keep moving things forward. Never backwards. Always Forward. Always.

Amen.