The 2nd Week of Epiphany, 2022
Scripture: Isaiah 62:1-5; John 2:1-11
Key verse: Shall your God rejoice over you. (Isaiah 64:5)
Theme: My Delight
“Pastor, would you do a devotion for us since no one signed up to do it?” The president of the church council asked me at the beginning of our monthly meeting. “Sure! Let me get my Bible.” Improvising, I glanced quickly over Psalm 10 since it was January 10. Without much time to pick, I chose the first four verses for our devotion. As I began to read verse 1, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?” my heart began to sink. Then I felt that my heart was moving downward even faster and I had to pull myself together as I reached verse 4, “God will not seek out…there is no God.”
It is not too hard to find forsaking or desolate stories these days. If there was a volume mixer on Facebook or any popular social media platform with sliders that could be moved up to raise volumes, I would probably hear weeping and wailing. Some treat social media such as Facebook as their soulmates; they pour their hearts out and wait for consolation. Some treat it as either recycling bins or garbage cans by dumping their anger and frustration into cyberspace and waiting for responses or affirmations. Why? No one wants to feel desolate or forsaken. They need or want to be noticed. When there isn’t any immediate community where one has built relationships and trust, social media seems to be the place to turn to.
In 1944, my dad’s hometown was in chaos. People shouted, “Run while you can!” That was the year Japanese troops invaded the city Changsha in the Hunan Province of China. He jumped on a train on the assumption that his family had been on the same train. That was not the case. He arrived in Taiwan alone, and he was only seventeen.
The day I was on my way to be baptized in 1986, my dad questioned me and asked what it was about. I told him that I was going to become a child of God. He followed me and got baptized with me on the same day. After our baptisms, the small community gathered and we sang hymns and concluded our time together with prayers. While everyone said, “Amen”, he shouted for joy next to me, “Alleluia, Amen, Alleluia.” Everyone was so joyful that my dad was there. I certainly hadn’t expected any of that to happen. He was so happy.
One day when we were on the train to a city where he was staying, he told me that he felt forsaken and desolate. That was 1998. “All these years,” he said, “I knew when people looked down on me from the way they talked to me. I also knew when they took advantage of me when I desperately needed their help.” Then there was silence. I did not know how to comfort him. My dad was a very talented artist with a brave soul but didn’t socialize much. He kept everything to himself which made his life lonely and unreachable.
In 2000, my dad got into a car accident. One day, when I was cleaning up his apartment after the accident, I saw a slip of paper in his drawer. It was his handwriting with the passage from John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” As an immigrant, he learned a new language and tried to assimilate to the culture. In the midst of hardship, he turned to God and found a place to be.
My dad’s story is unique, but at the same time it is not. I believe that many of your parents, grandparents, or great grandparents were immigrants, or you know someone who is an immigrant, who wasn't born or raised in this country. Living in a land while feeling like you’ll never be good enough to be recognized as one of them due to your skin color, accents, or different culture is very common. There is a void that can only be filled with a sense of authentic belonging. As a matter of fact, everyone needs that.
From Isaiah 62:1-5, we can see a strong desire for a union of God and God’s people. Feeling abandoned by God and convinced that God had kept silent for too long in their exile, Prophet Isaiah assured the people of Israel that no more will anyone call them ‘Forgotten’ which also means ‘Rejected’ in biblical Hebrew, and no more will anyone call their land ‘Desolate’ which also means ‘Ruined,’ but instead ‘My Delight,’ a new name which will be given by God.
A quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt says, “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” As the people of faith, what would you say? I would say that God has made an imperishable knot with Jesus’ life on the rope before we reach the end. If I had continued finishing the Psalm 10 towards the end, the church council members would be reminded that God is attentive to the helpless. When Israel felt they were at the end of their rope, Prophet Isaiah reminded them that God hasn't forgotten them. In the midst of any hardship, please know that you are not only ‘Precious,’ but also ‘God’s Delight’ that God has loved, restored and redeemed, and shall your God rejoice over you. Amen.
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