Isaiah 43:1–7 (ESV)

¹But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. ²When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. ³For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. ⁴Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. ⁵Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. ⁶I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, ⁷everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

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Isaiah reminds the children of Jacob that God created everything in heaven and on earth out of nothing and that He formed Israel from being nothing into His treasured possession (1).  As Christians we know God is the One who creates the Church on earth.  In the waters of our Baptism, God re-created us and made us His “new creation” (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17), “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His own possession” (1 Peter 2:9).

Since the day man disobeyed God in the Garden, our Creator has been working to form and reform His creation to be who He wants us to be.  Looking into Scripture, we read how God is working to reform His precious possession Israel when they went astray.  God sent prophets to preach His message of salvation to the wayward people.  When Israel would not take heed, metaphorically God sent floods and fires.  Yet the Israelites were not overwhelmed or consumed by the invading armies that were destroying and capturing the people and looting their cities and crops.  When Israel came to their senses and repented, God gathered the nation from the east and the west, from the north and the south. 

The Lord continues to form those He calls by name through His Word.  Like the children of Jacob, we also turn away and try other things (Cf. Isaiah 53:6).  Like Israel, we pass through “fires” and “floods” that test our faith and try our patience.  But through His Word, the Lord gracious and merciful, continues to form us, shape us, and mold us, just as a potter molds and shapes a lump of clay.  The prophet Jeremiah writes about the potter working at his wheel: “And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do” (18:4).  When we are out of shape because of our sins, the Lord remolds us with His mercy and grace to be His people.  

Through the confession of our sins and the assurance of forgiveness won for us through the death and resurrection of Christ, the Lord reforms and renews us daily.  The Lord does His reforming work because we “are precious in [His] eyes, . . . and [He] loves us” (4).  God loves us so much that He gave up the life of His Son in exchange for our life (cf. 3-4). As the Sunday School song reminds us, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red, brown, yellow, black, and white, they are precious in His sight.  Jesus loves all the children of the world.”  The day is coming when God will call His children whom He created, formed, and redeemed “from the ends of the earth” (6), to live with Him forever and ever. 

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