ADVENT WEEK TWO: Decemebr 10, 2023

Elf on the Shelf.

The object is to place this elf in a different location each night and see how in the family discovers him/her first.

The spiritual version:

You take the figures of Joseph and Mary and move them towards the manger - a little closer each day.

The Advent Calendar:

Behind each date is (preferably a piece of chocolate) or some other goody.

For children the month is the longest month of the year. For parents, December is on us like a flash and the next thing we know we are celebrating Valentines Day - wondering where the time went?

Let me offer an alternative approach.

READ ISAIAH 40:1-11

Advent - the celebration of Jesus’ coming the first time and His return is not about us making our way to God.

Rather, Advent - both the first arrival of Jesus and His ultimate return is about God making His way toward us!

As we examine Isaiah’s words, I want us to rethink how we experience the Christmas event.

I wonder if we might experience the season a little differently if we look forward to how God comes to meet us.

God comes to us…

The first 39 chapters of Isaiah’s prophecy culminate with God delivering Israel from the Assyrians.

The last section of Isaiah’s writing is written as though he is speaking to a devastated and defeated people - a people in exile.

Not many years after God decisively delivered Israel from Assyria, Babylon roared on to the world stage. Though Babylon was a relatively short-lived empire, their destruction and Israel and relocating most of God’s people from Jerusalem and the surrounding areas is a massively important event in God’s dealing with His people.

God comes to us…

We would know nothing of God except that He has chosen to make Himself known.

The first words of the Bible are not - let us seek God, but rather these:

Genesis 1:1 HCSB

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The first question God asks of humans is

Genesis 3:9 (HCSB)

“Where are you?”

Isaiah 6 and Isaiah 40 both serve as a recollection of Isaiah’s call from God.

Isaiah 6:8 (HCSB)

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Who should I send? Who will go for Us?

Isaiah 40:1 HCSB

“Comfort, comfort My people,” says your God.

In both cases God is the one speaking, God is the one asking Isaiah to make God known.

First, Isaiah, using words God gives reminds us that God meets us

…at the point of our failure with His redeeming presence…;

Centuries before Isaiah and his generation found themselves drifting far from God, Moses - a significant person through whom God made Himself known - had an encounter with God.

You can read the details in Exodus, but for our purposes I want to recall how God describes Himself:

Exodus 34:6–7 (HCSB)

Then the Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: Yahweh—Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin. But He will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.

By the days of Isaiah one has to wonder…just how long can God hold off?

In the previous chapters of Isaiah, God had delivered His people - once again - from annihilation by a foreign power.

But God spoke to Hezekiah, then the king,

Isaiah 39:6 HCSB

‘The time will certainly come when everything in your palace and all that your fathers have stored up until this day will be carried off to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.

Hezekiah’s response resembles much of what I hear today:

It’s OK. Nothing will happen in my lifetime!

Isaiah knew how deeply his people were enmeshed in sin - worshiping foreign gods/goddesses is secret, assuming what is done in darkness stays in darkness. Isaiah knew that God indeed is patient.

He also knew that God had promised Moses that there would come a day of judgment.

So Isaiah’s first words describing God’s movement toward His people are words of forgiveness - words of encouragement - words of peace.

As God makes His way toward us He comes offering comfort, peace, forgiveness through His own act of sending His Son to pay the penalty for us.

God moves towards us

…at the point of our confusion with a clear revelation of His glory…;

The obstacles between us God are on our side, yet God is the one who acts to remove them.

God’s promise is that He will do all that is necessary to make certain that all humanity will see the full revelation of God’s presence.

God comes to us

…at the point of our powerlessness with His unlimited power.

Not many decades after Isaiah’s words were written God’s people found themselves carried away from their homeland.

Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed everything of value to the people of God.

Nebuchadnezzar forced all but the poorest and weakest to forsake their land and be relocated to Babylon.

There, in a land with a different language and a different culture God’s people were helpless and hopeless.

This was not the first - or - last time God’s people found themselves helpless and hopeless.

God’s movement toward His people will set them free from the captivity - just as He had done in the past and will do in the future.

REFLECT AND RESPOND

One scholar notes that all of Isaiah 40-the end of his writing revolves around to primary questions:

A. Can God reclaim what is His?

B. Does God WANT to reclaim what is His?

(Roy Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament, Gen. Ed.’s: R.K. Harrison (1968-1993); Robert L. Hubbard (1994 -)

[Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998], pp 45-ff.)

The answer to both questions - as Isaiah expresses it - is an unqualified YES!

One of the reasons we make much of Christmas, one of the purposes of calling attention to the season of Advent:

We need to be reminded that God is indeed for us.

The birth of Jesus, the promise of His return, provides all the evidence we need that God is for us!

As the season of Advent unfolds, examine your own heart and life:

God comes offering forgiveness and cleansing from sin-

Are we recipients of all God comes to give?

1 John 1:9 HCSB

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God is coming toward us..

What obstacles have we raised that only He can remove?

Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, like God’s people since, we have a desire to hide from God.

God is pursuing you - He wants to have a personal intimate relationship with you. He will make Himself known.

Are you willing to ask God to remove the obstacles?

Will you respond as He makes Himself known.

God’s power can and will overcome any distance in our relationship.

Many leading Jews thought that once expelled from their Promised Land, God would abandon them.

Isaiah, and a multitude of other OT prophets, reminds us:

We can raise our voice -

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]“Here is your God! “See, the LORD God comes with strength, and His power establishes His rule.” Isa 40:9-10)