It's All Right -- August 15, 2010
IT’S ALL RIGHT
Isaiah 43:1-7
In the first scene of Robert Browning’s poetic drama “Pippa Passes” Pippa sings:
The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn:
God’s in his heaven –
All’s right with the world!
But what if it isn’t . . . all right, that is? What if everything seems to be all wrong? What if your business is failing or you’ve lost your job, your health or that of a loved one is poor, your children are in trouble, your family has had to face separation or death? What if the reality of your life is tragedy, pain, struggle, disappointment, loss? How then can it be all right?
Tom Dooley, the young doctor who organized hospitals, raised money, and literally poured out his life in humanitarian service to the afflicted peoples of Southeast Asia in the 1950’s, knew how. His relationship with God motivated him to abandon a soft career in the United States for a desperately difficult ministry overseas. Listen to the letter he wrote on December 1, 1960, just six weeks before his death at the age of 34:
Dear Father Hesburgh:
They’ve got me down. Flat on the back, with plaster, sand bags, and hot water bottles. I’ve contrived a way of pumping the bed up a bit so that, with a long reach, I can get to my typewriter . . .Two things prompt this note to you. The first is that whenever my cancer acts up a bit, and it is certainly “acting up” now, I turn inward. Less do I think of my hospitals around the world, or of 94 doctors, fund-raisers, and the like. More do I think of one Divine Doctor and my personal fund of grace. It has become pretty definite that the cancer has spread to the lumbar vertebra, accounting for all the back problems over the last two months. I have monstrous phantoms; all men do. And inside and outside the wind blows. But when the time comes, like now, then the storm around me does not matter. The winds within me do not matter. Nothing human or earthly can touch me. A peace gathers in my heart. What seems unpossessable, I can possess. What seems unfathomable, I can fathom. What is unutterable, I can utter. Because I can pray. I can communicate. How do people endure anything on earth if they cannot have God?
How, indeed? In today’s Old Testament passage, the prophet Isaiah is addressing a people who are in dire need of deep comfort and assurance. They’re a people whose despair is driven by truly earthshaking concerns. Their country has been conquered and occupied by a powerful enemy; they are exiled to a hostile, foreign land. With their nation broken and scattered, their homeland, community, and families – even their very lives – are in danger. Their world has fallen apart. It’s anything but all right. BUT – they have God.
Through the prophet Isaiah, God says that when they pass through raging waters and walk through scorching fires, God’s presence will be with them. God will protect and restore them, for God is the one who has created and formed them – the Lord their God, the Holy One of Israel, their Savior. “Do not fear,” says God. “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” Here is deep comfort for a hurting and hopeless community. Even in hard times or when death is looming, God says, I am with you. It will be all right.
Not that there is nothing to be afraid of – there are things that threaten to consume us. People are walking through fire every day – through the flames of family conflict, financial difficulties, and disease. These are the kinds of problems that ravage and waste away our souls. These are the fires of life: the burning, searing pain that seems beyond bearing. Daily people are passing through deep waters – through the raging and overwhelming rivers of divorce, death, depression, and disillusionment. Stress, perhaps from multiple sources, slowly rises like a flood, until there is scarcely any breathing room left. Peril, problems and burdens conspire to overwhelm us.
When there is fiery destruction in our lives, and we feel as though everything has turned to ashes . . . or when the waters of calamity flood our lives, making us feel as if we’ll just about drown – the words of the prophet Isaiah remind us that there is a way through fires and waters, there is strength and comfort in the face of trouble. God is nearby. The fire won’t consume us. God is with us. We will not be overwhelmed.
God created you, insists Isaiah. God formed you. God called you. God redeemed you. God is always with you. God is for you. Nothing is going to change this connection we’ve been given. We can’t be pulled down from our position as created, called, and redeemed children of God. Raging water can’t do it. Neither can fire. “You are precious in my sight, and honored, and loved,” says God through the prophet. That’s a permanent commitment from the Creator of all that is, in heaven and on earth.
So many people have counted on their relationship with God to sustain them through a variety of raging storms, and they haven’t been disappointed. Tom Dooley, was one; Dietrich Bonhoeffer was another. He wrote a journal while in prison, speaking convincingly of the power of prayer and love to overcome the power of fear.
The promise in Isaiah is a powerful one. When you pass through the fires, I will be with you, says God, and they will not consume you. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, says God, and they will not overwhelm you. I will be with you to bring you new love, new life, new opportunities, new hope. God is always working to bring peace out of conflict, good out of evil, and life out of death. Isaiah reminds us that even when it’s not all right, we will be all right.
It was in a car wash of all places that a woman named Joanie Yoder really began to understand his prophetic message. If you have avoided drive-through car washes all your life as I have, then you, too, will appreciate how deep insight can come from what seems a trivial situation. This is what she wrote:
I’ll never forget my first experience using an automatic car wash. Approaching it with the dread of going to the dentist, I pushed the money into the slot, nervously checked and rechecked my windows, eased the car up to the line and waited. Powers beyond my control began moving my car forward as if on a conveyor belt. There I was, cocooned inside, when a thunderous rush of water, soap and brushes hit my car from all directions. What if I get stuck in here or water crashes in? I thought irrationally. Suddenly the waters ceased. After a blow-dry, my car was propelled into the outside world again, clean and polished. In the midst of all this, I remembered stormy times in my life when it seemed I was on a conveyor belt, a victim of forces beyond my control. “Car-wash experiences,” I now call them. I remember that whenever I passed through deep waters my Redeemer had been with me, sheltering me against the rising tide (Isaiah 42:3). When I came out on the other side, which I always did, I was able to say with joy and confidence, “He is a faithful God!”
Robert Browning looked around him, saw a bright and beautiful spring day, and declared: “God’s in his heaven – All’s right with the world!” Isaiah looked around him, saw nothing but destruction, darkness and despair, and yet declared: “God is with us. God is in this for us. God is faithful. It will be all right.”
Yes, thanks to God, we will be . . . all right.