It was just a few Sundays ago -- the Fifth Sunday after the
Epiphany, February 5th -- that we read from the hopeful part of Isaiah's
proclamation to the children who suffered exile away from the comforts and
familiarity of their historic home. That
reading finished with the powerful
commendation,
"The Lord will guide you
continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched
places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered
garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins shall be
rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations
of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of
the breach,
the restorer of streets to live
in." Isaiah 58:11-12
The very same commendation is ours in the smaller but
equally meaningful of repairing our properties, our historic home. The patio is a principle image for us but
let’s not forget that the same encouragement that Isaiah spoke so many years
ago identifies a continuing reality,
not a truth bound up and done with in a single moment.
We are always to be repairers and restorers!
Especially as we have adopted the use of these antique
structures: buildings, chalices, hymns, or rituals, we will ALWAYS have the
duty of repair and restoration. We will
always have the responsibility to care for places and things and even more so the people
who come to join us in using them.
Isaiah’s words also point us to a day of glory and
celebration; more Easter than Lent. He
is hoping for these words to be an encouragement because the Hebrew people's return to their
historic home is still to be accomplished.
We can use that same understanding and always look forward
to each of those responsibilities being met and accomplished.
In other words we are always repairers, always restorers, always hoping to celebrate. Not just to
celebrate the work done but to celebrate the calling to the work of returning,
repairing and restoring.
Thanks be to God we have been called! We can always look forward to celebrating
with God.
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