The Light of the World

If Only...

According to Ralphie, in the movie, A Christmas Story,

Christmas was on its way. Lovely, glorious, beautiful Christmas around which the entire kid year revolved. Downtown [Hohman] was prepared for its yearly bacchanalia of peace on earth and good will to men. Higbees' corner window was traditionally a high-water mark of the pre-Christmas season. First nighters, packed earmuff to earmuff, jostled in wonderment before a golden tinkling display of mechanized, electronic joy.

This morning as we are gathered for worship, we are surrounded by signs and symbols of the nearness of Christmas. Trees, candlelight, twinkling electric lights, angels and other pointers remind us that Christmas is on its way.

Earlier we commemorated the death, resurrection, and promised return of Jesus - the One whom Christmas is all about.

We lit a candle and heard some words from the Bible about promises to be fulfilled.

Christmas is on its way.

There is a prayer, voiced by Isaiah, hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus that offers clues to guide us as we wait - for the ‘glorious, beautiful Christmas’ portrayed in countless movies - yet acknowledging that the world in which we wait is darker than we’d like, more distant from God than we often realize, and a world where peace of earth seems doomed.

READ Isaiah 63:17-64:12

This prayer is tucked in between promises of victory and celebration (see Isaiah 61, 65.). In this prayer we can glean some clues helping us as we wait - in the midst of a messy and mixed up world.

First, Isaiah’s prayer identifies current reality:

What we were, we are no longer

Isaiah 63:18 HCSB

Your holy people had a possession for a little while, but our enemies have trampled down Your sanctuary.

Those to whom Isaiah had been called and gifted to speak could remember better days.

There was a time when God’s people lived according to His precepts. There was an era when God’s people were free to worship as God had described to Moses.

But, that time was now past

Isaiah 63:19 HCSB

We have become like those You never ruled over, like those not called by Your name.

God has not changed

Though we are no longer what we were, God has not changed.

Isaiah 64:4 HCSB

From ancient times no one has heard, no one has listened, no eye has seen any God except You, who acts on behalf of the one who waits for Him.

Isaiah 64:8 HCSB

Yet Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; we all are the work of Your hands.

Sin has afflicted us all

Isaiah 64:6 HCSB

All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.

These three realities still describe us in our world. We may be thousands of years removed and thousands of miles away, but none of us are what we once were. God is still unchanged. Sin still devastates individuals, families, and communities/\.Such a World

A Prayer for Such a World

Deepening a Desire for God to Act

There is a thread through these requests of longing, longing for God to do what only God can do.

I wonder if we have become so accustomed to doing the best we can that we are missing that which only God can do.

Isaiah was intimately familiar with the story of Moses and the Exodus.

Isaiah 64:3 is drawn directly from Moses’ encounters with God as recorded in Deuteronomy.

Moses had done his best to set himself apart as the one who could deliver God’s people -

Exodus 2:11–13 HCSB

Years later, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his own people and observed their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. Looking all around and seeing no one, he struck the Egyptian dead and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you attacking your neighbor?”

In his own wisdom and strength Moses simply ended up being isolated for the next 40 years as the misery and misfortune of God’s people continued.

40 years later, when God spoke to Moses in a bush burning but not being consumed, Moses was ready to listen.

Those 40 years of shepherding were important years for Moses. During those decades he learned obedience. Moses learned dependence upon God - since he was often far from family support. Moses learned to wait - to detect God’s purposes and plans.

Are we cultivating a deepening hunger for the presence and power of God?

Or are we still busily trying to develop strategies and plans that reflect the best we can do?

In vs 7, Isaiah acknowledges that among his people there are none striving to take hold of God.

This failure to strive is indicative of how deeply sin has impacted the people of God.

Those who are comfortable in their sin will not seriously strive after God because God’s presence calls them to account: to repentance and faith.

Abandoning Ourselves to God’s Purposes

Isaiah 64:8 HCSB

Yet Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are our potter; we all are the work of Your hands.

This picture of God at work in forming and creating His people according to His plan is common in the prophetic writings.

It is a vivid picture of two important truths:

a). God is sovereign.

There is nothing beyond God’s ability. God shapes history to fulfill His purposes.

During the Christmas season we read in Luke’s gospel that the census requiring Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem was ordered by Caesar Augustus. Historically that is an accurate statement.

But why then? Why at that particular point in Caesar’s reign?

Indeed, God is sovereign.

b). We must respond to His direction

What do you call clay that cannot be worked by the hand of a potter?

I’m not sure there is a technical word for that. I would call it garbage. If the clay is resistant for any reason, the potter has every right to choose another handful of clay with which to work.

As Isaiah words this prayer, one hears a hunger to allow God to do what God can do.

Expecting the Unexpected

God’s people have rehearsed the Exodus account for thousands of years.

The observance of Passover is a re-enactment of the ways in which God revealed Himself to Egypt - and His own people.

There is a powerful clue to why God acted in the early pages of Exodus.

Exodus 2:23–25 HCSB

After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned because of their difficult labor, and they cried out; and their cry for help ascended to God because of the difficult labor. So God heard their groaning, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and He took notice.

There is no real time stamp revealing how long God’s people had ‘groaned’ seeking for God’s activity.

What is significant for us in this prayer is this simple plea:

Isaiah 64:1 (HCSB)

If only You would tear the heavens open and come down—

Are we at the point of desperation yet?

If not, how much longer will it take?

RESPOND AND REFLECT

Christmas is on its way...

Jesus is coming again...

Now, we wait:

Deepening our desire for God to act

We aren’t called to ignore the world in which we live.

Are we pleading with God to act?

Abandoning our purposes for His

Waiting is a prime time for listening and learning His purposes.

Moses had 40 years of training in observation.

When the time was right, God spoke. Moses responded.

Primary to this issue: God’s purpose always revolve around making His name known - not ours.

Expecting the Unexpected

God will act in ways only He can act.

We often assume what God can or can’t do.

His purpose of revealing Himself to His people and yes, to His enemies, is a call for us to pay attention, to wait with a sense of anticipation.

In another passage Isaiah reminded his own beleaguered people:

Isaiah 40:30–31 NKJV

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.