Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29:1-5a,10,11 "A New Year's Promise"

One spring when I was around twelve or so, our family took a week, during our spring break, to go sailing. This was pretty normal for us at the time, doing our sailing on my parents boat during the spring and fall, as my parents chartered the boat out for others to use during the summer. The problem with sailing in the Pacific Northwest in the spring and fall is that the weather changes quite drastically in a short amount of time. And sometimes, even when you are listening to the weather reports, you can be surprised by what it is that Mother Nature puts in your way.

We had left port and were heading out to one of my parents favorite stops. It was a somewhat breezy day, perfect sailing weather. Suddenly the weather picked up quite a bit. The wind went from twenty or so knot winds to forty or fifty knot winds; something our boat is just not made to be out in. We thought about turning around and heading back into port. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the other direction and our motor would not push us fast enough to beat the wind and waves coming against us. So, we did what we could. We put our sails up partially and headed with the wind. Let me tell you, I’ve never seen that boat move that fast… we were heading over ten knots and the rollers of the wind were still going faster than us. We have a dingy; a little boat that we trail behind our sailboat so that when we anchor or tie up to a buoy, we could row ashore. The dingy was surfing down the waves and catching up to us and then it would slow down as we went up the next rolling wave. We ducked into a harbor on a private island that we were heading towards. My dad, through his time in the Coast Guard, knew the caretaker at the island and they allowed us to stay at their dock until the weather cleared.

It was, honestly, pretty exhilarating for me… not as much for my parents who understood the danger better than I did. You see, I trusted that my parents knew what they were doing. I trusted that I was in safe hands and at twelve years old you feel invincible, so the danger never really registered to me. But the exhilaration and joy I felt was not matched by my parents, nor was it matched by my sister. For them, this was a scary and dangerous trip that we took. They knew the danger and they realized that they were not in control as they would like to be. I knew that I was not in control, but I was sure that my parents were. But that’s the great thing about the sea, it helps you to realize that you are not in control, that the control belongs to another.

I. Dangerous Waters

For many people, the New Year is a time of contemplation. It is a time where we look back at what has gone before and we look forward to what is to come. That is why I think it is so worthwhile to look at Isaiah 43 at the beginning of the year. Isaiah 43 shares with us a promise that God made to his people; Israel… one that we can see applies to us as well. His promise is that he will be with us. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.”

Water was not the most pleasant thing in those days. Open water was dangerous. People feared it. They believed in great sea monsters, like the leviathan, that would destroy them in the deeps. The leviathan is mentioned a few places throughout the Bible and is presented as a creature so fierce that humans cannot stand against it. In another place in Isaiah, the leviathan is mentioned, in chapter 27, where we are told that God will destroy the leviathan. The leviathan often in scripture is being mentioned metaphorically. It isn’t that God is going to come down and hunt sea monsters. Rather, what Isaiah is promising is that everything that the leviathan represents will be put to an end by God. So, the question is what it is that the leviathan represented to the people of Isaiah’s day. The leviathan represented the ocean, the water that it ruled over. And that ocean, that water, represented chaos and destruction. And it wasn’t just the ocean that the people feared, the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee, the two bodies of water that were in the land of Israel, were known for the great storms that came upon them. They were known to be extremely dangerous. Even the people who made their livings on the water knew the wisdom of fearing the water. They new the dangers of passing through the waters. Water represented chaos and it represented their own lack of control over their circumstances.

Let’s face it, when you are in a boat out on the water, you truly realize how much you are not in control. And it’s worse if you don’t have a boat. Currents and winds can change, the water can become something that can and will kill. I know there are people here who have been on the water in times of danger and have felt their true lack of control over their own lives.

And if you haven’t been at this point physically, I mean, truthfully, water isn’t the danger here in Iowa that it is in the Pacific Ocean, if you haven’t been at this point physically, I know that you have been at this point spiritually. There are times where you feel fully how much life is outside your own control.

II. Through the Fire

Isaiah 43 goes on and gives us another example, one different than the water. “When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” Fire, in many ways is the other extreme. Water, the floods, can sweep you away. Water can take you places you aren’t ready to go. You can drown in water. But fire does something much different. It burns you. Now, I don’t know how many of you have ever been burned. Again, I’m at this point talking physically, not metaphorically. In high school, a friend and I did some crazy things in our Chemistry class. He burned his eyebrows off the day of his senior pictures as some homemade gunpowder went up in his face… I swear I had nothing to do with that… really. Well, we were told that you could pour rubbing alcohol on your hand and light it on fire and it would burn up before it did any damage to your hand. I thought this was a pretty cool idea and convinced him to catch my hand on fire after we poured some rubbing alcohol on it from the burners we used in chemistry class. Now, just for those of you who might think this is a cool idea, like I did, it’s not. I ended up with 2^nd degree burns all over my hand. It seems that the chemistry teacher had run out of rubbing alcohol and was using something else in the burners. The point is, getting burned is not fun. It is quite painful. Walking through fire is not something I would recommend to anyone. And yet God tells us here in Isaiah that if we do walk through the fire, he will be with us.

Now, for most of us, this is a metaphorical statement. For most of us don’t walk through literal fire and need for God to protect us. Most of us do have different kinds of fires that we have to make it through. But there is a story in the Bible, in the book of Daniel, where three young men do walk through literal fire and as people look in at them in the fire the people see that they are not alone, that there is someone with them. And when they come out of the fire, it has not done anything to them.

If God could be with three Hebrew boys known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah) in a literal furnace, he can be with you in whatever fire it is that you face.

III. God’s Promise

And so, we enter the New Year, not knowing what lies ahead. We hope for great things and we fear horrible things. But, mostly, we hold onto this great promise that God gives us: He will be with you. No matter what you face, bee it fire or flood, God will be with you. He will give you the strength you need to make it through. God is greater than the chaos of the sea. In Psalm 29, which we read earlier this morning, we see that God’s voice lies over the chaos of the waters. If water represents the absolute worst chaos, if it represents everything that we do not have control over; God sits enthroned over it. God has control over it. You can trust God to be with you in the mist of it. And if fire represents the pain and suffering that we all face at different times in our lives, God will bring you through it, he will be there with you in the fire and you will come through it.

But God’s promise continues in Isaiah 43. And I want to look at it in a slightly different way. It says, “For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you. I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.”

Now I have to admit, this is talking in an Old Testament way and it is talking about Old Testament style ransoms. And it is saying that God cares for his people, Israel and will sacrifice the people around them for their own well-being. It almost seems like God is saying that he loves them more than the other people around them. This is a fair way to read this, you wouldn’t get any argument from any Old Testament scholars if you chose to read it this way. But I choose to read this verse in light of the whole story of God and God’s people. I choose to read this verse in light of the cross. God, because he loves his people, because he loves us, will give others in our place to be ransomed on our behalf. Who does God give on our behalf? Is it people who he loves less than us? No, it is his own Son that he gives on our behalf as ransom; his beloved, only begotten Son.

I think this understanding of this verse needs to be tied to God’s promise to be with us no matter what. God will be with us in the chaos. God will bring us through the pain and suffering. God was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace and he suffered great pain on our behalf upon the cross.

God’s promise isn’t that life is going to be roses. It isn’t that life is going to be peachy-keen. His promise is to be with us and be that rudder that we need when we are out of control. His promise is to suffer alongside of us and take that suffering that we cannot bear upon himself for our sake.

Take this promise from God. I will be with you. I love you. I will not abandon you. I am in control. Believe it, accept it, know it in your heart of hearts. It will bring you peace in this New Year. It will bring you strength. Amen.