HTC Advent 3, 11 December 2016
The horror came in the ninth and tenth years of
the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah. Babylon the destroyer struck
Jerusalem. Judah’s city was besieged and starved till it broke. The
invaders burnt it to the ground; they forced the people of the city
on a bitter march long days through desolate country into exile in
distant Babylon.
Lamed by the forced march, struck dumb by the
traumatic horrors of the siege, blinded by hunger, the exiles had to
scrape out a meagre existence amongst a cruel people whose language
they could not understand.
Our OT passage, Isaiah’s prophecy, was given as
a promise to these exiles. Babylon the destroyer would not have the
last word. The Lord God most high would bring his people home. Isaiah
said (Isaiah 35:1 and following)
“The desert and the parched land will be glad, the wilderness will
rejoice and blossom.” When the Lord of Hosts acts on His love for
His people, it is like spring in the desert. New possibilities arise
everywhere. Suddenly life seems once more worth living.
The situation itself may well remain the same.
Frustrations and difficulties may still be there. But learning that
God still loves you, that’s like spring in the desert.
The exiles would have been exhausted, spirits
broken both by the long march and by the daily struggle for existence
in a hostile pagan city. Most of all, they would have been worn down
by despair. So Isaiah said (Isaiah 35:3 and
following) “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the
knees that give way.” Their legs may feel like collapsing beneath
them, but they are to endure, to keep going. God’s love for us is
not soft, is not ineffectual. It is practical, like a family doctor
telling a man to live a more balanced life for health’s sake, like
a good teacher demanding the very best that the student can give. As
we were told at the safeguarding session last week, God’s love is
not naive.
Notice too, Isaiah mentions vengeance and
retribution in Isaiah 35:4. God’s
people were abused and tormented refugees, and they needed to know
that God was on their side. All through the Bible, we learn that God
has a special place in his heart for the refugee and alien. And God’s
love is not soft, not ineffectual, not naive. Love and judgement are
mixed together.
Isaiah continues (Isaiah
35:5 and following): the exiles’ lameness will be
repaired, their blindness healed, no longer will they have to live
dumb and deaf in a harsh and incomprehensible foreign city. Isaiah
speaks of a road, a safe protected passage home, a way back to
Jerusalem for ransomed exiles. God will rescue his people; they’ll
be overwhelmed with a sense of His love, joy, gladness.
No wonder Isaiah’s prophecy left an indelible
mark. Fast forward 600 years to Matthew 11,
and God’s people are back in their land. But still they are not
truly free. They live under the iron grip of Roman rule, governed by
a half-pagan and arbitrary king. John the Baptist has lived his whole
life by the promises of God made through Isaiah and the other
prophets, and now he is imprisoned and ready to die for his faith.
But he is troubled that it may all be for nothing. His protégé
Jesus, the one he announced as Messiah, is not leading the movement.
Instead Jesus is away up in the north country, apparently avoiding
all confrontation. John sends a message (Matt.11:3):
are you indeed the Messiah, or do we have to wait for someone else?
And Jesus’ reply is extraordinary (Matt.11:4-6).
In effect he says, look and see! Isaiah’s words, which you lived
by, they weren’t metaphorical after all. Blind are given sight,
lame walk, … people are being healed here and now in a massive
exhibition of God’s power. Not in the way John expected, not
according to John’s political programme, but according to God’s
agenda. Something new is happening: all sorts of possibilities arise.
We fast forward another 2000 years. Today we know whereof Jesus
spoke. He is indeed our Messiah, who has rescued us in a way that was
completely unexpected. It is neither a political programme nor a
military revolt. It’s not a question of whether God is on my side;
rather the question is, am I on God’s side? In Jesus, God has come
to be one of us, to live life just like us, to go all the way with us
even to a cruel and unjust death. And Jesus rises again to
resurrection life, our own boy, become Lord of all! New possibilities
spring up everywhere! And the road to salvation is right at our feet:
all we have to do is accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. Suddenly
life seems worth living!
The story continues. Because we belong to the Lord
Jesus Christ, eternal life starts for us right here, right today. We
don’t have all the right answers – indeed it’s a good day when
we can manage some of the right questions – but we do know that in
Jesus Christ we can experience God’s love like spring in the
desert, full of unexpected opportunity. In Jesus Christ, God’s love
is not soft nor ineffectual, but brings out life in all its fullness.
In Jesus Christ, God’s love is there to rescue us, to overwhelm us
with a sense of His joy and gladness.
Here and now, in the last year or so, I’ve been
part of a prayer triplet that has been praying for all of us in HTC
to be overwhelmed by a sense of the love of Christ. That’s not
something that one can work up or manufacture; it has to come from
God. But it would change everything. I know this is not just an
oddity of our prayer triplet; I’ve heard similar remarks from a
number of different people. Speaking on these passages gives me the
opportunity to ask you all: would you be prepared to pray something
similar? Maybe you could set your smart-phone to remind you every
Sunday morning first thing, to pray to our loving heavenly father
that all of us in HTC be overwhelmed by a sense of the love of
Christ. Because that’s what we really need, just like the exiles in
Babylon, just like John the Baptist, because that would be like
spring in the desert, that would truly set us free, and all sort of
possibilities would arise ...
Amen.
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