Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD. (Isaiah 54:1)
Judah had been shattered. Isaiah 54 uses the language of widowhood and barrenness. These losses were literal, as well as spiritual. Husbands and children were dead, or gone missing. Even as they worked out ways for life to go on, the survivors felt desolation and loss of direction.
The exile sheared Jews away from their families, homes, communities, even the habits that connected them with God. Nothing was the same. Feeling secure was just a memory. They didn’t know what would happen to them next, much less what would happen to their children and grandchildren.
The word Isaiah heard from the LORD acknowledged their pain, and brought them a word of hope. The LORD cares about the desolate, and their children. He will restore them.
Without taking this word away from anyone else, we can hear it speaking to our situation today. The children of the desolate really, empirically, outnumber the children of the married wife.
Here’s what I mean: Last year, I saw (separate) reports that 72% of adults agree that Jesus rose from the dead, and 18% are in church more than twice a year.
Neither of these statistics is shocking, individually. Where I live, Sunday morning is definitely not rush hour. But a sense of reverence for Jesus is widespread, even among people who use his name as a cuss word. (There’s no oomph in profaning what isn’t sacred, right?) And if you go to Target a couple of days before his birthday, expect to wait a long time at checkout!
It’s the combination that rocks me. For every child inside the church–the “married wife”–there are three more outside–historically considered by the church to be “desolate”–who believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Where I live, people of Christian affinity living outside the church are not a minority–they are actually the majority.
Individuals and families of Christian affinity who walked away from church, drifted away from church, or had church stripped from them, are actually the majority right now. (Or where you live, maybe a plurality if not a majority.) They are not weird. They are not anomalies. There are reasons for where they are, how they feel, what they value, what they need, what they hope for and worry about.
If you’ve been a dechurched person for awhile, it’s OK to lol and smh at how recently I caught onto these facts. Maybe I sound like the guy who fell into Old Faithful and thought he invented hot water! But, sincerely, these facts have rocked my perspective and given me a new appreciation for how the children of the desolate have always been in God’s mind, and on God’s heart.
For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. (Acts 2:39)
God’s promises reach to the children of the desolate. And further.
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