Disrupting Our Ordered Lives

Sunday March 17, 2013                  Isaiah 43: 16-21

Carson Salyer

The liturgical seasons provide the framework for our life together as Christ’s Church.  Advent blue flows into Christmas and Epiphany white, and before we know it, we are walking in the purple shadows of Lent.  It’s all so orderly, so predictable, so comforting and comfortable.  We know what to expect.  We’ve walked this path before.  Birth leads to revelation which leads to transfiguration which leads us down the mountain into the valley on the way to Jerusalem and a sure and certain death of the Lord whose birth we celebrated only weeks ago.  We’ve been here before.  And we know that Christ’s death leads to his resurrection which leads to Pentecost and the birthday of the Church, which leads us into the green of ordinary days when we prepare to begin the whole cycle all over again. 

Into our well-patterned lives, the prophet Isaiah startles us with a resounding word from the Lord our God:  “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” 

Those words rang out boldly to God’s chosen people – a people scattered and living in exile.  Yahweh would make a path in the wilderness to bring them home, redeemed and restored, to the land and the life which God had given them and from which they had been torn. 

Into the wilderness of our lives, with all their losses and failures and pain and confusion – God is doing something new – transforming us and our vision, helping us see with new eyes and hear with new ears.  Peter and James and John stayed awake on the mount of transfiguration, so they were able to see the radiant vision of Christ in their midst and to hear the voice of God, declaring that Jesus was the beloved Son.  Even now, as we move with that beloved Son down the path on the journey to Jerusalem and the dark days that will follow – even now, God says to us, “I am about to do a new thing.  Do you not perceive it?”

Prayer and Daily Challenge: On this Lenten journey, may we stay awake and alert to the ways God is transforming our understanding, healing our brokenness, comforting us in our losses, showing us new possibilities for living the life of faith, redeeming and restoring us to newness of life, so that we might declare God’s praise anew.