Isaiah 63:7-9 Commentary

How Can I Keep from Singing?

The Sunday after Christmas is, especially for those who have (mostly) kept Christmas at bay with Advent hymns, a chance to sing all the Christmas carols that wouldn’t fit into a Christmas Eve or Christmas morning service.  Unfortunately, once we get to January, people have turned the calendar page. The second Sunday in Christmastide often lags BUT we aren’t there yet and so this Sunday is our chance to sing our favorites “one last time” as it were.

The Hebrew Lectionary text for this week helps us enormously as it seems to be doing the same thing.  Isaiah can’t keep from singing.  After all the warning, all of the dire prediction of affliction, after all the comfort extended to those in exile and commiseration with the afflicted, Isaiah praises God with something that looks an awful lot like a Psalm.  Like the book of Psalms, this hymn of praise is sandwiched between two other songs — one detailing God’s vengeance on the nations and the other a judgment on those who practice idolatry.

Psalms of praise can be sung in various keys.  Psalm 63:7-9 is more precisely formulated as a “prayer of yearning,” according to The CEB Study Bible. It traverses several genres of the psalms as it recollects the past, praising God’s faithfulness there while also naming God’s seeming absence in the present. It is longing and lament.  At the same time, “The ancient story of divine redemption is recalled. God’s mercy, the poet ruefully recalls, was complicated by Israel’s rebellion, which in turn was quelled by recollection of God’s deliverance…Remembering God’s graciousness in the face of past distresses helps the community to pray with hope in the present.”

Isaiah’s vibe here is, again, a helpful reflection of the mood that often strikes us on the first Sunday in Christmastide: a desire to hold on to the “magic” of Christmas a little longer, while also fighting the melancholy of nostalgia, or the disappointment that God is not with us in quite the same way Emmanuel, God with us, was born to Mary all those years ago.  Pastorally, this text serves us well to name what congregants might be dragging with them into the pews on this unique Sunday of the year.

Kindness

The theme of God’s kindness, central to Scripture, is used to convey far more than the English word implies. In English, “kind” can be used as synonym for “nice.” I’ve never liked the word “nice.” To me it implies passivity, a willingness to not-make-a-fuss, to go along and get along, to behave properly. Perhaps, with this understanding of the meaning I assign to the word, you can understand why I don’t much care for it! But I do value compassion, courtesy, charity, a generous spirit of friendliness, which is, if I’m being fair, what some people mean by “nice.”

The better word, by far, and the one I prefer is “kindness”, which seems to me anything but passive. Kindness is a choice, which can become a habit and finally an open way of seeing and experiencing the world. Kindness is a virtue that, while it may come naturally to some people, has always felt to me like the best and most worthy sort of hard work. Kindness, as it is represented here in Isaiah 63, draws us back to the heart of God. The Hebrew word for “kindness” is chesed (pronounced with a hard “h”, like Hannukah) and it is all over the Old Testament, often accompanied by the words “unfailing” or “everlasting.”  What a gift to know that active compassion, courtesy, charity, generous spirit of friendliness are at the center of God’s own heart. “I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord…the many good things he has done for Israel, according to his compassion and many kindnesses.”

Lectionary Connection

This Isaiah text, which remembers and longs for the acts of God’s kindness in an overwhelmingly unkind world, pairs poignantly with this week’s (uncomfortable) Gospel reading. Matthew’s narration of the slaughter of the innocents is ample demonstration that Christ came into a overwhelmingly unkind world.  It is a place to draw out parallels in our world today.

But Matthew’s story also reminds us of the understated kindness of Joseph, often overshadowed by Mary who was, herself, overshadowed by an angel. Faithfully, carefully, bravely, Joseph was kind. His obedience is active compassion and, one could argue, the entire Gospel message hinges upon it. Without Joseph, Jesus would not have survived infancy and the story of our salvation would have run stuck.  Joseph’s kindness, his faithfulness to his commitment to Mary and her child, have always reminded me of the acts of Boaz, who as kinsman-redeemer to Naomi, made a commitment to Ruth, brought a son named Obed into the world who became a several-times-great grandfather to Jesus. In another place and time when the lineage that makes up the story of our salvation could have run stuck, it was the often overshadowed kindness of Boaz, like that of Joseph that keeps the story going.  And, of course, there are parallels here to draw on as well.

Worship Idea

Especially if you do not intend to hold an Old Year/New Year or Watch Night service, this Sunday might be a good time to reflect on the present moment, the provision of God in the past year and to prayerfully hope for God’s presence in the year to come. Consider an opportunity to reflect on those whose kindness has sustained us, what acts of heroic kindness have brought light to the darkest places of our world?

Consider, as well, a prayer that uses a refrain like:

In Your love and mercy, redeem us.

Lift us and carry us, as You’ve done in olden days.

Or, perhaps something more simple like: “God’s love endures forever.” As you collect people’s recollections from the preceding year and their hopes for the year to come.