Until it Rains: Isaiah 40:1-11 - Third Sunday after Pentecost

Photo by Anthony Rae on Unsplash

On June 7, the skies over New York City were the color of flames, and the air quality was the worst it’s been. Our own skies were a dusty grey during the daytime, and a golden brown at dawn and dusk.

The cause is the wildfires which have been burning across Canada since March. The root cause of wildfires is drought.

When temperatures are high and rainfall is scarce, vegetation becomes extremely flammable. Something as simple as a spark from a cigarette butt can ignite a massive inferno which scorches thousands of acres and reduces entire communities to ashes.

On Thursday, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued a drought watch for the entire state. When I see all the lawns in my neighborhood that turned from green to golden brown, and how many local farms are already experiencing devastating crop loss, I worry that we may be in for a dry and dangerous summer.

We take for granted how fragile our ecosystem can be. Water is the source of all life—and when water becomes scarce, the entire ecosystem is thrown off balance. Plagues of insects and pests destroy what little vegetation is left. Winds spread dust and make the air unbreathable. Wildfires burn. The economy tanks. When you don’t have water, you don’t have life. You have death and destruction.

The people of Israel certainly knew it, as droughts, famines, and floods were a regular occurrence.

In today’s sermon text, Isaiah is speaking to a people that has suffered devastation far worse than what nature can dish out. 

Click here to read the Scripture text

The armies of Babylon conquered Israel and burned Jerusalem to the ground. Those who didn’t die in the conquest were carried off into exile; their homes, land, livestock, and possessions plundered. God was not silent as to why all of this happened: God’s people worshiped other gods. They loved greed instead of righteousness; violence instead of peace; oppression instead of justice. And now they were suffering the consequences.

God’s people have become as grass withering in a dry field or flowers fading beneath the scorching sun. It was as though God had abandoned them to rot.

Have you ever felt like that?

You can experience a spiritual drought where you feel as though you are cut off from the grace of God, either because of something you’ve done or because of something that’s happened to you. So often in life, it takes only one failure, loss, or tragedy to start a kind of domino effect of disasters which knock down everything that brings order and security in your life. So many terrible things happen that you begin to question your most deeply held beliefs about God. You question if God is sending these disasters as punishment, but you don’t know what for.

You see everyone else living happy and carefree lives, and you feel all alone. You feel helpless. All the things you try to help yourself make no difference. You feel like you’re unsavable.

It was in this time of despair that Isaiah announces, “’Comfort, comfort, my people,’ says your God.” The truth was, God had not abandoned his people. God is moving heaven and earth to be present with his people and bring them to salvation.

Comfort comes not as the removal of the hardships, but as God’s hand to lead you through them. Salvation is not a quick fix, but rather a journey of healing and transformation. It is dying and rising in Christ.

It is important to note that Israel will never again be the mighty, prosperous kingdom it had been under David. But that didn’t mean God was any less faithful to his people, and that they could not still be a light unto the nations.

In the same way, salvation is hardly a return to the past, but a journey forward through the drought. It’s the Word of God that keeps you going when there isn’t rain, when there isn’t relief, when troubles keep coming with no end in sight. In those times when God is all you can rely on, the life of God grows stronger within you. You learn from your failures and your mistakes. You will see all the beautiful and wonderful ways that God is your bread for the journey and your water in the drought. Cling to the promises of God, and you will make it. Your struggles and your failures will not get the best of you. God will get the best of you.

But there’s one more challenge here for us. Times of scarcity and uncertainty, like we’re living in now, will always tempt you to hold tightly to what you have today, because it may not be there tomorrow. When you hold onto tightly to things that are not God, you are suffocating the life of God right out of you. In your attempts to control your tomorrow, you are missing out on what God is doing today. How can God be faithful to you if you won’t let him?

Nobody knows what tomorrow brings, but God has given you gifts today to make tomorrow better for someone else. The only way to get through a drought is together. With enough love, we can move heaven and earth. We can get through the worst of times and become better people in the process.

Because we don’t know when the rain will come and when the drought will end. But God is here today. Love is here today. Comfort is here today. God’s word is your bread in the famine and your water in the drought.