I have an interesting relationship with music, my wife will ask me a lot of times what am I thinking about, and usually a song is playing in my head.
We all appreciate the value of a good song, educators will tell you that music is a way to learn new things. We learned the alphabet by singing the letters, most children’s shows have music incorporated into them.
Singing as a form of communication is deeply rooted in the African American culture. It began with the African slaves who were kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic during the Middle Passage. Slaves from different countries, tribes and cultures used singing as a way to communicate during the voyage.
Music was a way for slaves to express their feelings whether it was sorrow, joy, inspiration or hope. Songs were passed down from generation to generation throughout slavery.
These songs were influenced by African and religious traditions and would later form the basis for what is known as “Negro Spirituals”
Songs were even used in the Underground Railroad to communicate the path to freedom. Songs like Follow the drinking gourd, and people think that Wade in the Water referred to the way Harriet Tubman would take people to freedom. Song is important.
Today’s reading includes a passage (vv. 1-4) that scholars once identified as one of the four so-called “Servant Songs” in the book of Isaiah (along with 49:1-6, which repeats lines from today’s reading; 50:4-11; and 52:13–53:12). Isaiah is written to people in captivity.
Isaiah is talking to the crowd about a conversation he had with God. This crowd is suffering a disaster on two fronts, their homeland has been destroyed, and they are in exile, trying to make due in a foreign land. These people feel like God has abandoned them, and here is a man who has not been successful in trying to talk to them.
The people are held captive by the Babylonians and away from their homeland. Isaiah spend the first half of the book telling the people how this trouble is their fault, like a true friend should. Hold people accountable for their actions. After Isaiah tells the people how they got themselves into trouble, he tells them how they are going to get out of this tough time for the second half of the book.
605 BCE, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II besieged Jerusalem, which resulted in tribute being paid by the Judean king Jehoiakim.
The people of God decided to stop supporting Nebuchadnezzar and start supporting Egypt.
The fourth year of Nebuchadnezzar II's reign, Jehoiakim refused to pay further tribute, which led to another siege of the city in Nebuchadnezzar II's seventh year (598/597 BCE) that culminated in the death of Jehoiakim and the exile to Babyloniaof his successor Jeconiah, his court, and many others;
Jeremiah and other prophets warned the people but they didn’t listen.
hundreds of miles away from home. Your king is gone. Your temple is in ruins. Jerusalem's walls are destroyed and wild animals roam the streets. Many family members and friends are dead or missing. Everything you hold dear is uprooted. Where is your God?
Although the city of Jerusalem was utterly destroyed, other parts of Judah continued to be inhabited during the period of the exile. Most of the exiled did not return to their homeland, instead traveling westward and northward.
God is going to send them a savior
The savior will bring justice
The people of God where caught between a rock and a hard place Babylon and Egypt, their political situation was tough.
Rolling back rights
Banning water breaks in one of the hottest summers
More concerned about what books are in libraries when we can't keep the air on in the summer or the heat on in the winter.
Isaiah 10:1-2
10 Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, 2 to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
Isaiah 1:17
17 Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.
Proverbs 21:15
When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers.
Deuteronomy 16:20
Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Amos 5:24
24 But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.
He will not falter
I know you are tired now, but God is going to send you someone who does not get tired. His power doesn't come from some man-made source, that is why it won't fail. Only what you do for God will last.
(Interview with Russell Simmons. Where the DJ could not recall the top 10 songs from last month or year.)
He will take our hand
(Layla and I at the Dickinson Festival of Lights)
The road may get dark and bumpy
1 Time is filled with swift transition. Naught of earth unmoved can stand.
Build your hopes on things eternal. Hold to God’s unchanging hand.
Refrain:
Hold to His hand, God’s unchanging hand.
Hold to His hand, God’s unchanging hand.
Build your hopes on things eternal. Hold to God’s unchanging hand.
2 Trust in Him who will not leave you. Whatsoever years may bring.
If by earthly friends forsaken, Still more closely to Him cling. [Refrain]
3 Covet not this world’s vain riches That so rapidly decay.
Seek to gain the heav’nly treasures. They will never pass away. [Refrain]
4 When your journey is completed, If to God you have been true,
Fair and bright the home in Glory Your enraptured soul will view. [Refrain]
