Precious - Isaiah 43:1-7

KNU International English Church

Josh Broward

January 10, 2010

A few years ago YoungMin told us a story about Tommy Walker, a Christian worship leader. When Tommy was traveling, his group regularly visited inner city ministries that were serving poor children. They would just go and hang out with the kids.

At one ministry center, there was a little girl named Jenny. She sat next to Tommy and picked up a crayon and said, “My name is Jenny. What’s your name?”

Later, on the swings, she said, “Hi! Do you remember my name?”

Tommy said, “Yeah, hi Jenny.”

Later, while they were eating some snacks, she looked at Tommy and said, “Do you remember me? What’s my name?” He said, “Yeah, you’re Jenny. Want another cookie?” Again and again throughout the day, Jenny found Tommy and asked him: “Do you remember my name? What’s my name? Do you remember my name?”

Tommy asked the local workers what was going on, “Why does she keep asking me if I remember her name?”

They said lots of people come in and out of that ministry center. Many of them don’t really bother to learn the kids’ names since they won’t be staying very long. When they come back and they don’t remember the kids’ names, the kids feel hurt. They feel like they don’t really matter, like they’re not really important. Jenny was trying to make sure that Tommy remembered her. She was trying to make sure that she mattered.

That really impacted Tommy. He thought about Jenny and all of the other kids in all of the other poor communities he had visited. He realized that there are lots of Jenny’s in the world – lots of kids nobody remembers, lots of kids who feel like they don’t matter, lots of kids for whom nobody knows their names. He realized that he couldn’t reach all of those kids. He couldn’t love them all. He couldn’t help them all. He couldn’t remember all of their names.

But he also realized that there is someone who can. He went home and wrote the song “He Knows My Name,” about the God who loves us, remembers us, and deeply values each one of us.

I have a Maker
He formed my heart
Before even time began
My life was in his hands

I have a Father
He calls me His own
He'll never leave me
No matter where I go

He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And He hears me when I call

Israel felt forgotten. Israel had failed. Israel was defeated and deported to a foreign land. They knew they had rejected God and brought trouble on themselves. They knew they had no right to ask for help now. They knew that God had become boiling angry at them. They felt lost and ashamed and ruined.

Then, Isaiah brings them a new message from God. Let’s read it in Isaiah 43:1-7.

This passage is Hebrew poetry. Hebrew and Greek poetry works a little differently than English poetry. English poems tend to use rhyme and rhythm to develop their artistry. One of the most well-known rhyme and rhythm English poems is very simple:

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Sugar is sweet,

And so are you.

This pattern has become so popular that people freely substitute new words for the last two lines:

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Onions stink,

And so do you.

But Hebrew poetry is different. Hebrew poetry is built on frames of thought more than on frames of sound. One of the most common tools of Hebrew and Greek poetry is shaping the thoughts like an X. This is called a chiasmus. One of the simplest examples is Jesus’ saying: “The first will be last, and the last will be first” (Matthew 20:16). First --> Last … Last --> First.

A similar structure can be used for longer texts to help “focus the reader’s attention on the center of the unit, where the central idea or turning point is situated.” (Elie Assis, "Chiasmus in Biblical Narrative.") In this case, the lines before and after the center point work like a V or a telescope to focus our attention on that center line.

This is how our text works today. Let’s start from the outside and work our way toward the center. As we follow this V to its center point, let’s listen to what God is saying to Israel but also try to hear what God is saying to us today.

Verse 1 sets the whole passage in context. Chapter 42 describes Israel’s failures and defeat. God says, “Who is as blind as my own people, my servant? Who is as deaf as my messenger? … You see and recognize what is right but refuse to act on it. You hear with your ears, but you don’t really listen. … His own people have been robbed and plundered, enslaved, imprisoned, and trapped. They are fair game for anyone and have no one to protect them, no one to take them back home” (42:19-22).

Israel doesn’t deserve God’s help, and they can’t help themselves. If salvation and redemption and healing depend on us, we’ll never make it. By ourselves, we will forever be used and abused by the beasts and bullies of the world. By ourselves, we will always bow down to selfishness, and by ourselves we will always get trapped in our own sinful ways.

But then chapter 43 shouts, “But now”! That’s how it was. That’s true. You made God your enemy. You rejected God. You walked away, and you walked right into the ditch of sin and got covered with dirt and disease. That’s true. BUT NOW!

But now, O Jacob, listen to the LORD who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, “Do not be afraid for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.”

God says, “I created you, and I will not abandon you. Do not be afraid. Do not be stuck in your traps of sin and failure and selfishness. I have bought you out of that. I know you. I know your name, and you are mine. I will not abandon you.”

Verse 7 is the other outer edge of the V.

Bring all who claim me as their God, for I have made them for my glory. It was I who created them.

God affirms again that he created us, and he explains why. God made us for his glory. God created us in his image, in his very likeness. God put his glory into us. God shines his glory through us. We are made for God’s glory to live and breathe in us. We are made for the wonder and mystery of the Almighty God to take flesh in us.

So God looks at Israel on the trash-heaps of Babylon, and he looks at us in our cycles of materialism and entertainment and overwork and striving for value. Our hearts and lives are “robbed and plundered, enslaved, imprisoned, and trapped,” and God says, “Oh no! That won’t do. Those are my people. No matter what they have done, no matter what they deserve, I have made them for more than this. I cannot allow them to destroy themselves. I cannot allow them to be ruined by others. Bring them home to me. As a matter of fact, just bring anyone and everyone who wants to come. I made them all. Let everyone come on home to the Father. Let me love all my children and heal all their wounds. Come on home. Come on home.”

Verse 2 starts to narrow the focus.

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.

Now this is one of the hard parts of the Bible. It’s beautiful, but it’s hard. No matter how many times the Bible says it, we don’t really want to hear it. God doesn’t say we won’t have trouble. God doesn’t say there won’t be rivers of difficulty and fires of oppression. We are going to have to pass through the water and the fire. That’s part of life. What God says is that he will be with us. What God says is that the river won’t drown us and the fire won’t burn us up. What God says is that we’re going to make it through the trouble because he is with us.

Verses 5 and 6 form the other side of this picture:

Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will gather you and your children from east and west. I will say to the north and south, “Bring my sons and daughters back to Israel from the distant corners of the earth.”

When the floods come and the fires burn, don’t be afraid for God is with us. God is going to march into all the far off lands which have enticed away prodigal sons and daughters and trapped them in their pigsties hungry for the food they are feeding the pigs, and God will say “Come home child!” (See Luke 15:11-32.) God is going walk into all the Egypts of our world holding his people in slavery, making them build bigger storehouses for rich peoples’ grain and bigger pyramids for rich peoples’ glory, and God is going to shout out, “Let my people go!” (See Exodus 5-12.) No sin can turn God away. No injustice can hold God back. God calls to all of us, “Come home! Bring my children home!”

Now we get to the focal point of the passage: verses 3 and 4.

For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt as a ransom for your freedom; I gave Ethiopia and Seba in your place. Others were given in exchange for you. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.

The “ransom” part of this passage sounds really strange to us. We usually think of ransom in relation to kidnappers asking for money. But in the ancient world ransom was much more common. People who were overcome by their debts often sold themselves into slavery. Their relatives had the right of ransom to buy them out of slavery and forgive their debts. But it was costly, and only close and faithful relatives would do something like this. The people in trouble would have to be very important to them. (See Leviticus 25 and Ruth.)

I want to know what happened to Egypt and Ethiopia and Seba, but the text doesn’t tell us. In fact, history doesn’t even tell us. The Bible scholars say the story behind this text is unclear. But one point is very clear: Israel was deeply valuable to God. God paid a high price to ransom them out of their troubles. There is no price too high. There is no cost too great. God loves us deeply. God honors us. We are his masterpieces. We are his special gems. We are precious to him. God will pay any price to ransom us!

Now, as Christians, we can look back on this passage and see that God paid the highest price possible for our ransom. God himself came to earth and lived among us as Jesus. God himself died as a ransom so that we could live. God ransomed us and Egypt and Ethiopia and every people in every nation on earth. We are all God’s children, and he is calling us all home.

The movie Precious tells the story of Precious Jones who grows up in extremely difficult circumstances. She longs for people to treat her like she is special. She longs to be precious to the world, but her reality is different.

Her father began raping her when she was only seven years old. When she was 16, she was pregnant with her second child from her own father. Her mother abused her emotionally and physically. She grew up hearing again and again that she is worthless not precious.

But a teacher and a social worker get involved in Precious’s life. They begin to call her by name. They help Precious begin to believe that she really does have value as a person. They love her. They call her by name and show her the way out of her living exile and oppression. They hold her hand as she walks through the fires. They go with her through the deep waters. They teach her to be who she is: Precious.

We are like Precious. Some of us have had similar experiences – abuse by parents or relatives, rejection from our peers, poverty, loss, hopelessness, feelings of worthlessness. For the rest of us, those fears stalk our souls like animals of prey, and those fears drive us more than we know.

God speaks into the mess of our lives. God speaks into our fearful hearts. “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. … You are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you. Do not be afraid, for I am with you” (43:1, 5, 6). You are precious! We are precious. We are loved. May God help us to follow his voice as he calls our names.