The Holiness of Hard Things - Week 3: Come, Listen and Live

It’s the Third Sunday of Lent 

Lent is a season of preparation, reflection, and repentance.  It’s also a season when we can learn what it means to discover the holiness of hard things, which is our Lenten sermon series title. 

Today, we will read ancient words from the Hebrew prophet Isaiah and find a vision for a world made right for all of us. 

Have you noticed that people seem a little more on edge than usual?  I notice it all over the place.  We're all ready to go from 0 to 60 in less than 6 seconds regarding conflict.  

I have been reading that there are more people walking around with varying degrees of depression, anxiety, and unresolved trauma than at any time in US history.  

We're all dealing with stuff.  We always have had to deal with stuff, but when the environment around us is charged with negative energy and worry, it's hard not to internalize it. 

When you are going through difficult times, dealing with hard things, it's hard not to let that bubble over isn't it?  And it doesn't help when even people who want to help don't really know what to say, so they say the wrong things.   

What NOT to say to someone who is going through hard things. 

“It could have been much worse.”

“I think you should just carry on with your life.”

“It’s been almost a month now. You should stop being depressed like this.”

“You’re not the first person to go through this. Everyone loses something at some point.”

“It’s just a job; you’ll get another one.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll find someone else.”

“Everything happens for a reason.”

The impact platitudes have on struggling people can't be underestimated.  

What would be the absolute worst thing to tell someone?  

To give them a hopeful, impossible vision that has no chance to come true.  It's just cruel. 

But that is exactly what the prophet Isaiah did to a group of people who needed to feel hope again.  

The prophet Isaiah speaks to people who have been through hell and presents them with an impossible vision of heaven on earth.  

NO MATTER HOW HARD THINGS SEEM, GOD INVITES US TO TRUST THEY WON’T STAY THAT WAY

Isaiah 55:1-9

The historical context of this passage - 2nd Isaiah  

1 Hear, everyone who thirsts;
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread
    and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
    and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
    listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
    my steadfast, sure love for David.
4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
    a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 Now you shall call nations that you do not know,
    and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has glorified you.
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake their way
    and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

People are hungry, thirsty, and poor—this is the material reality, but there's another level to their post-traumatic reality. 

But they are also hungry, thirsty, and poor in a spiritual sense. They've lost their ability to hope, dream, and trust in God.  

They have been robbed of both material and spiritual abundance and have begun to live materially and spiritually with a sense of scarcity. 

The main points of the prophet's words are Come, Listen, and Live.  He invites them to exchange a spirit of scarcity for one of abundance. 

The Gospel comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

Post Traumatic Growth

Lessons from Isaiah and Post-Traumatic Growth 

1. Strength - discovering the strength within and in the community 
2. New Possibilities - live into a new vision with help from the Spirit
3. Relationships with Others - healthy attachments, leaning on one another. 
4. Appreciation of Life - self-care, discipline, meaning and purpose. 
5. Spiritual Change - increases our ability to grow and change.  

NO MATTER HOW HARD THINGS SEEM, GOD INVITES US TO TRUST THEY WON’T STAY THAT WAY