18 Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. 19 Truly, O people in Zion, inhabitants of Jerusalem, you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when he hears it, he will answer you. 20 Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 21 And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 22 Then you will defile your silver-covered idols and your gold-plated images. You will scatter them like filthy rags; you will say to them, “Away with you!” 23 He will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and grain, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. On that day your cattle will graze in broad pastures;
One of the biggest experiences of my life was traveling to Haiti for an immersion trip that lasted a week, two years ago. Haiti is one of the poorest country in the world. It is so poor that they have no idea how many people live there because they do not have the infrastructure for that. Approximately 9-10 million people live in Haiti, just like here in Hungary. In 2010, an earthquake shook the country. More than 300 thousand people died, more than half a million children became orphan and more than a million people lost their house and became homeless. On the trip I met with many people and I met with so many stories and there was a common theme in every story that these Haitian people told me, that their life or the state of their life was always overlooked, forgot and thought of as impossible to repair, but with time, with care, with hard work and with endurance something happened and the thing that was thought as impossible it became a reality.
Let me tell you a story from Haiti.
One day we visited a mother, who lived with her 6 children in a small house. It was a really small house, I wouldn’t even call it a house. The roof was made out of a mix of dust, paper and leaves. The mother, who was in her late twenties, showed us her home, where there was no furniture just a shelf and a bed. The bed was small, dirty and metal springs came out of it. It was unimaginable how six children and their mother sleep here every day. The youngest child was around a couple weeks, the oldest was around seven or eight. According to my memories only one of their wore clothing. None of those children attends a school. In their home there was no electricity, no clean water and a lot of times no food. Although the mother said that they lucky, because they can often eat, their children hair did not support that because their hair was orange colored. Orange-colored hair is a sign of starvation. Their neighbors did not help them. Some think that they are not even human because they are so poor.
We visited them with an organization who is specialized at working with poor women with children helping them out from poverty. The program chooses these women and trains them how to breed goats, pigs or chickens. How to create a business or how to produce clean water. They get resources too to fix and expand their homes with new rooms, furnitures or toilet. This program lasts for 18 months and it is remarkable how big of a change these women go through. We a visited a woman who was in this program for 9 months and she managed to build a new home for herself and family. The woman told us that her children can now have clothes, they can go to school now and she can set up a business that’s gonna last. While she was telling these plans, dreams we felt that something miraculous is happening here. Women who participate in this program now have become leaders of their community from the status of being a total outcast. People who did not help them and humiliate them now are asking for help from them. They have a vision for the future. These women are the example that the unimaginable, the most impossible situations can turn to good. It became clear to me that these stories show us that God’s providence, God’s blessing or God’s promise is not a distant, unexplainable miracle but a reality.
This reality was obvious for prophet Isaiah. Isaiah prophesized in really dark age of Israel’s history, where it was nearly impossible to find hope.
Israel was between two fighting empire: Egypt and Assyria. Their fight deeply determined the life in Israel. The people were frightened that these two empire will create a military playground for themselves in their land and they will destroy everything that the Israelites have built and protect with hard work. Not only the people were frightened of this foreign danger, but the leaders of Israel too. They constantly met with the leaders of Egypt and Assyria, trying to make a good deal with and they thought if any of them wins they can just side with them and prosper, but this did not help at all. Israel’s cities were under siege, the people were living under oppression, the economy was terrible, there were no crops, no food and Assyria even took over Jerusalem, the Holy City where God lives. It was all hopelessness and they thought that God has left them. That God is silent, not present, not helping anymore.
This is the context where God spoke through Isaiah in our reading today and he said: O people, you shall weep no more. God will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when God hears it, God will answer you. Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet the Lord will not hide himself any more. Your eyes will see the Lord. Your ears will hear: This is the way; walk in it. God will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and grain, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. On that day your cattle will graze in broad pastures.
It is not only the people of Israel that needs this prophetic message but us too, because it comforts us and gives us joy. These words are looking at the future. It shows us that the pain, the suffering, the needs, the sickness of the present will go away and heal. It shows us that there is a way out from for example poverty or the fear of oppression. There are times when we think that we do not matter, that our or our siblings’ life do not matter in the eyes of God but trough this prophetic message we can realize that this is not true. That God directly tells us that: I hear you. I am listening. You are important to me. Tell me everything that troubles you. I accept you as my beloved child no matter what and I won’t leave you. I won’t be silent and I will always talk to you. I want you to know that I want be near you. I want you to know that I’m not gone. I want you to know that it does not matter how helpless your life is, because there will be new possibilities for you to thrive and prosper. I want you to know what hurts you will be over. I want you to know that everything’s gonna be alright. I will be next to you. I will take care of you.
For me, the biggest question of this Lenten season is that can I recognize this voice? Can I realize in my life that God is taking care of me? Can I hear this message from God? I am thinking a lot about these questions and I always come back to these Haitian women whose life changed. More specifically I go back to this though that one of the Haitian people mentioned that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is in fact in all of our lives. It is not a coincidence that the most important thing of Christianity is this completely helpless situation, a death of a person that somehow turns to the opposite. Turns to life. That there is hope in the most hopeless place. I think we all – as humanity – long for this experience and I truly believe that God has provided us a clear, obvious reality in the empty tomb to embrace this feeling of what we call salvation. Jesus showed this reality an all of his life and I believe that this is truly present today. Because where Christ is present in the gospels out of hopelessness it becomes hope. Those who do not have opportunities will get opportunities. Those who are outcasts, overlooked, underestimated will find a home and find esteem. Those who are fighting with pain, with sickness will find health both physically and mentally. Those are dumb, will speak. Those who are blind, will see. Those who are deaf, will hear. Where there is injustice, there will be justice. Where there is uncertainty or a feeling of shame or a feeling being lost there will be salvation. Sadness and grief will turn to joy. Death will turn to life.
In Christ this is all reality and the empty tomb is our certainty. With this reality, we get through everything.
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