Yearning for Resurrection

I'm sitting here far too late to be starting a sermon on Saturday evening with an awful case of Preacher's Block. My heart is very heavy for a family with whom I've spent the last several hours in the hospital. We pray for healing and comfort, but I just don't know what's going to happen. This situation is pressing on my mind heavily, and it's hard to come up with creative and engaging sermon ideas when all you can think about is the painful effects of sin on the world in which we live. Sometimes, I think being a preacher is way too easy and rewarding of a job, and then on days like today, I feel so inadequate to my task, that I wonder what good I could possibly do. Sickness and death are such ugly things. In our struggle to walk in the way of the righteous, we truly face a terrible enemy. The effects of evil are so devastating that without becoming allies of God, there is nothing we have to face them with.

There are many passages that I like that talk about the coming of Christ. My favorite passage that deals with death and resurrection is from Isaiah. If you've never read it, I'd encourage you to read through it slowly, and really think about all that he's contemplating. It's a powerful passage by someone struggling to keep his heart right while waiting for the Lord to make all things right. Sometimes I think it's harder to wait than others. Today is one of those days.

Isaiah 26

A Song of Praise

1 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strong city;
God makes salvation
its walls and ramparts.

2 Open the gates
that the righteous nation may enter,
the nation that keeps faith.

3 You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you.

4 Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.

5 He humbles those who dwell on high,
he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
and casts it down to the dust.

6 Feet trample it down—
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor.

7 The path of the righteous is level;
O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth.

8 Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, ^[a]
we wait for you;
your name and renown
are the desire of our hearts.

9 My soul yearns for you in the night;
in the morning my spirit longs for you.
When your judgments come upon the earth,
the people of the world learn righteousness.

10 Though grace is shown to the wicked,
they do not learn righteousness;
even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil
and regard not the majesty of the LORD.

11 O LORD, your hand is lifted high,
but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame;
let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

12 LORD, you establish peace for us;
all that we have accomplished you have done for us.

13 O LORD, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,
but your name alone do we honor.

14 They are now dead, they live no more;
those departed spirits do not rise.
You punished them and brought them to ruin;
you wiped out all memory of them.

15 You have enlarged the nation, O LORD;
you have enlarged the nation.
You have gained glory for yourself;
you have extended all the borders of the land.

16 LORD, they came to you in their distress;
when you disciplined them,
they could barely whisper a prayer. ^[b]

17 As a woman with child and about to give birth
writhes and cries out in her pain,
so were we in your presence, O LORD.

18 We were with child, we writhed in pain,
but we gave birth to wind.
We have not brought salvation to the earth;
we have not given birth to people of the world.

19 But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise.
You who dwell in the dust,
wake up and shout for joy.
Your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead.

20 Go, my people, enter your rooms
and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until his wrath has passed by.

21 See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her;
she will conceal her slain no longer.

Footnotes:

1. Isaiah 26:8 Or judgments
2. Isaiah 26:16 The meaning of the Hebrew for this clause is uncertain.