Advent Week 2

Psalm: Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 

Old Testament: Isaiah 11:1-10 

Gospel: Matthew 3:1-12 

Epistle: Romans 15:4-13

Another week of Advent has come and gone, or to put it another way we are one week closer to Christmas. 

This week our theme revolves around hope.  Often when it comes to Advent and Christmas we focus on the first coming of Jesus.  We see the Nativities, hear the phrase “Jesus is the reason for the season,” and remember that we only have a Christmas because Jesus came the first time.  Of course this is reason to hope and is what we celebrate at Advent.  But our readings today, and the Advent season also remind us that our hope is that Christ will come again and God’s kingdom will be fully inaugurated.

Last week we discussed the New Jerusalem and the plans the Lord has to redeem and restore Jerusalem as a place of God’s rule.  Today I want to broaden that image and particularly the passage from Isaiah 11 invites us to do so.  Chapter 11 is a picture of what Isaiah imagines this new kingdom will look like.  The whole created order has been flipped on its head.  Righteousness and justice will rule rather than repression and inequality.  The wolf will live with the lamb and the child will not be threatened by the venomous snake.  All fear and violence disappears as the cow and the bear graze together.  Like last week the theme of Jerusalem is present and there will be no hurt on destruction on God’s Holy Mountain and all the nations will look to God’s people and God’s “resting place will be glorious.” (vs. 10-11)

I don’t know what to say about these verses.  The vision Isaiah presents seems so strange to our senses and contrary to what we can imagine happening.  But notice two things, one, creation is maintained and God’s Messiah’s Kingdom is present in and through the created world.  But notice also that creation is changed and redeemed for God’s purposes.  Continuity and discontinuity are both present.

The vision from Isaiah is what we hope for.  Our hope is that Christ will come again and restore all things and all peoples.  I’m pretty sure my audience is mostly Gentile, and this message is good news for us also.  In our readings from Romans, Paul reminds us that this wasn’t always the case.  The people of God in the Old Testament so often failed to be a blessing to the nations and draw people to God.  But in the work of Jesus all nations are invited into the people of God to glorify and praise God.

This is an important message to hear because sometimes life is hard: people get sick, lose their jobs, are hit by drunk drivers, and are born into war and famine struck countries.  In each of these cases God is present and at work certainly, but not everyone who prays for healing will get well and not every orphan in Africa will find enough food.  Life can be hard…and can seem hopeless.  It can often seem like in our present day God isn’t at work.  Yet our hope is not that God will give me or you a new car and job, or heal our loved one who is sick, or bring peace between the rebels and a county’s soldiers.  Because when that doesn’t happen we are forced to blame God.  Our hope is ultimately that God works in his time and ways to bring about the culmination of his Kingdom.  Our hope ultimately is that we will join God in the New Creation when he returns. 

Perhaps this message is not popular.  We want a God who will always reach down and rescue us from life’s difficult circumstances.  We want a God who has promised to pour blessing on us. (See my post here about Jeremiah 29:11. But to summarize, God promises that his plans will be accomplished in his people, but some of the Israelites died in exile having never experienced the promised prosperity and hope. http://alecellis.blogspot.com/2013/01/jeremiah-2911-and-introduction.html) But this is not the promise God has given us, after all we serve a God who came in the flesh, suffered and was killed.  Jesus tells us to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow him.  Not exactly an uplifting message, but the promise is that we will find life in Christ. (Matt. 16:24-25) God has promised to be with us through Christ’s Spirit during life’s difficulties and he has promised to restore all creation when Jesus comes again.  Our hope is that God still sits on the throne and has a plan for all creation.

It is in this spirit that we pray “come, Lord Jesus, come” and “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We are praying that God would come and make all things new and right.  We are praying that the vision of Isaiah 11 would be realized and that all injustice, sickness, and pain would cease.  Another quick note since we haven’t had the time to discuss it fully.  The reading from Matthew is about John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord.  That is are charge also as we anticipate and live into God’s Kingdom even now.  May we continue to feel and know the presence of the Spirit in our lives during hard times and know that God is at work to accomplish his ultimate plans.

Grace and Peace