And His Name Shall Be Called: Mighty God

Reformation, Media

Larry V. Smoose

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. How many times have we heard that song?  But it was not the most wonderful time of the year for the Israeli Exiles in Babylon.  Every New Year’s Day, the Babylonians, who had captured them and destroyed Jerusalem, had a big festival to honor their god – Marduk.  We might call it ”Marduk Gras.”  It was a big party, with parades and floats that would process down the main street of Babylon – sort of like Benjamin Franklin Parkway, or the Champs Elysee in Paris.  It would show off the power and might of the Babylonia, who had conquered so many nations and enslaved their people.  It was the most wonderful time of the year.  But NOT for the exiles, living in refugee camps or the prisoners of war from other nations, kept in concentration camps. 

I can remember talking to a member of my congregation in Newtown who had been on the Bataan death march.  The march began on April 9, 1942 as 75,000 prisoners, including nearly 12,000 Americans, were forced to march 90 miles over 5-6 days.  Nearly half of the total number died or were killed along the way, often in horrible fashion.  Those who survived then were taken to prisoner of war camps.  When army rangers freed the prisoners at Cabanatuan Prison Camp in January 1945, only 511 men of the several thousand in that camp, had survived, and they looked like the pictures we have from Nazi concentration camps.  When Gil talked about his first Christmas in that camp, the abuse and torture that was so common, he said that ever since, Christmas is not the same, because he still has nightmares of those days.  He said it was hard to believe that God would let this happen.  We kept praying that God would help us, and it seemed as if our prayers were meaningless.  It was not the most wonderful time of the year. 

That’s what makes today’s reading from Isaiah so amazing.  It is a message written while the exiles are still in the refugee camps; while the soldiers are still in the concentration camps; while the people at home are still struggling in destroyed homes and a devastated land.  “Strengthen the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees.  So to those who are of a fearful heart, be strong, do not fear!  Here is your God.”  Here is your God – what the enemy is saying is “Where is your God.”  What the Roman soldiers at Calvary said to the followers of Jesus as he hung on the cross was “There is your God!” 

It is always at the point when life is lowest, when the future seems most bleak, when the world seems so messed up, when darkness seems to be enveloping us, that our faith is most tested and our God seems so impotent.  That is precisely when we need to remember that His Name Shall be Called Mighty God.  That is precisely when we need to recall the power of God who is able to do all things.  It may not happen as quickly as we would like, it may not occur in the way we would fashion it, we may be stretched to the limit of our endurance and beyond but:

• The God who freed his enslaved people in Egypt
• The God who enabled David to kill Goliath
• The God who put Queen Esther in the right place at the right time to save her people
• The God who saved Daniel from the Lion’s mouth and the Hebrew Children from the fiery furnace

Will save you – Isaiah says.  Isaiah wants the exiled people to remember what a mighty God they have – a God who will save them.  Yes, Isaiah knew that the Jewish people had to endure much over the centuries.  Even today, they have their times to remember – like Hanukkah -- a time to remember how a small group of Maccabean guerrilla fighters conquered the Syrian army and were able to re-dedicate the temple in Jerusalem with an eight day festival, or passover, when they remember being freed from Slavery.  They know that His name will be called: Almighty God.

This is the God that we celebrate at Christmas.  So that an infant, born in a stable in Bethlehem, with all of the weakness of human flesh, became the Lord who with the power of our mighty God opened the eyes of the blind, unstopped the ears of the deaf, allowed the lame man to pick up his bed and leap for joy; loosed the tongue of the speechless and strengthened those who were weak.  Again, Isaiah’s vision leaps across the centuries for a fulfillment beyond his own expectation.  This is the God who from his vulnerable throne on the cross, was raised to new life as the Lord who would conquer sin and death and become the Holy Way for God’s people in exile in every age. 

I guess that is why, in that concentration camp, on the bleak Christmas of 1942, and again in ’43 and ’44, one of the soldiers had some old stale, moldy bread he had saved, and a bit of water, and some of the others clustered together to share a make shift sacrament and try to sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”  Even in that bleak setting, where hopes and fears merged in a personal way, they were trying to remember what God is able to do, by remembering Jesus, on the night he was betrayed . . . because as they were going through their own Friday of torture, they also knew the ending of the story and what our mighty God could do.

And, we do too, which is why at this time of the year we follow patterns that are familiar and travel through traditions that are established because of the memories they provide.  There is a verse in that Isaiah passage that I especially like that helps me understand why we follow these patterns each year – it begins at verse 8 “A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; . . . it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. . .”  No one, not even fools shall go astray – you won’t need mapquest or a GPS system, or even a road map. 

The way is so simple, so obvious that no one shall go astray – For Isaiah, this was image of irony – he was in a sense saying – that road used for the Marduk Gras, that great Avenue that celebrates the victory of the oppressor – it shall become a Holy Way, and you shall dance down that highway, all the way to Jerusalem, straight through the desert, cutting through the mountains, passing by whatever dangers or obstacles might be in the way.  The exiles will return with singing, sorrow and sighing will pass away.  Those who think they are so mighty, will be put in their place and God, the Mighty God, will assume his place of power. 

For us, Jesus is the Holy Way and truth and life.  When you follow that way, you cannot get lost.  It is a road that goes from Bethlehem to Jerusalem to the glory of Easter.  And if you listen carefully, you can hear the song of victory sung by those who travel that Holy Way -- their voices join the song of Miriam at the Red Sea and the song of Mary in Nazareth, magnifying the Lord, who has done great things; it is the song of the exiles returning from Babylon and the prisoners freed from concentration camps;  it is the melody of all those who have been able to see the oppressors destroyed, empires fall and the powers of darkness defeated and the victory of our Mighty God.

They are the songs we sing at Christmas and at Easter, when our voices sing the melodies about Jesus and our lives become the harmony as we give gifts to strangers, provide help for refugees, share food baskets with the hungry and give hope to the despairing.  These are the songs and actions that make it the most wonderful time of the year, for they are songs about God’s victories over all the forces that try to defeat God’s purposes in the world, and the song is a part of us.

These are the songs we memorize, the traditions we maintain so that when we become the ones in exile, when were are the ones enveloped in darkness, the melody persists, hope endures in the midst of despair,  light shines in the darkness; and we can share a bit of crusty bread and drink a bit of wine or water, try to sing the familiar songs and cling to the one whose name is Mighty God. 

Amen.