The Joy of Jesus coming

Why Joy

The Church’s tradition is that on the 3rd Sunday of Advent that we light the shepherd’s candle, the pink candle, and celebrate the imminent joyful arrival of Jesus. 

Now I do not know about you, maybe you can easily join in with the excitement of others, but I generally need to know why the excitement.  What is it that is getting you to let your hair down, sing loudly, shout, and dance?  People can get excited over all sorts of things; an election victory; a sporting team’s success; the end of exams; the end of a war; being acquitted of a crime of which you are innocent; a wedding; the birth of a child.

For all these things it would be right to be excited, to be relieved, to be joyous, to be jubilant. 

There is a quote attributed to Blaise Pascal, the French polymath and Christian writer.  It goes “the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of…We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart.”

There is another saying which is often attributed to C.S. Lewis, and I think that it is right to hold it in tension with the earlier quote.

“The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false”

This is all very deep stuff. 

What I want to do today is to look at the why of the joy of Jesus’s incarnation and later birth.  I want to look at the why so that both our minds and our deepest hearts can be in alignment, not at odds with each other, and truly be joyful, without reservation, and to be in the truest sense – wholehearted.

In this church we have a deep belief in the unity of Scripture.  We have a deep belief that God spoke through the Apostles and prophets to his people in history, to warn them, to guide them, to teach them his ways, and to prepare them for their lives as they were at the time, and for both the hard things and the good things that were to come.

Jesus himself confirms this when he quotes from the Old Testament, the Tanakh.  One of his favourite books to quote from was the Book of Isaiah.  In fact, alongside the Psalms it is the source quoted most often by Jesus.  So, we too, as good followers of Jesus should do as he did and pay attention to what the Holy Spirit inspired Isaiah to write down.

Now we have heard first from Jonathan on the first Sunday of Advent from Isaiah 2:1-5, where Isaiah, inspired by the Holy Spirit speaks of a future where the nations of the earth, former enemies of God, would stream to the House of God so that they can learn his ways and walk in his paths. The following week, Lloyd spoke from Isaiah 11:1-10 of the shoot that shall come from the stump of Jesse, the branch that would grow from its roots. That spoke of how one from the line of David (because Jesse was David’s father) would usher in a time of incomparable peace and justice. Jesus is from that line.

This week we will look at Isaiah 35:1-10

Before we look at it, let us look at the background. 

Isaiah’s time was a tense one.  The pre-eminent power of the Age was Assyria.  Assyria was a military monster, and in many ways were a template for later powers such as Rome.  They had a highly organised, professional standing army, using iron weapons, advanced siege weapons, and using a combination of cavalry, chariots, archers and infantry, and engineers to overwhelming effect against their enemies.  The imperial administration enabled advanced logistics with supply depots and transport columns that enabled large armies to be supported wherever they needed to be. They also utilised terror in their campaigns and had a reputation for unmatched cruelty in dealing with rebels or cities that would not surrender at first inflicting horrifying mutilation on survivors and selling cities into slavery. They would destroy the land and deport entire populations.  Not only that but by the time of Isaiah they had been doing this for several centuries.  So that is the world in which Isaiah exists.  Judah, the land of which he is part is a vassal state of Assyria.  They pay tribute to them. In many ways this is a time that is similar to the time of Jesus. In both cases, you live in a time where you are under the thumb of the greatest military power in history and there is nothing you can do about it.

Isaiah speaks to that reality in chapters 1 to 39.   He prophesies that the reason that Assyria and later Babylonia control Israel and Judah is that they have been unfaithful to God.  The details of that infidelity are given in 2nd Kings 17:15-17

  “They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.”

Regarding Judah, Isaiah 30:1-7 and 31:1 he says it is because Judah courted Egypt’s help rather than relying on Yahweh.  Assyria’s success was a wake-up call to Judah and caused Hezekiah, King of Judah to seek the Lord’s help. 

So, in the first 39 chapters of Isaiah the evil that Israel and Judah have done is pointed out, God is shown to punish Israel and Judah through Assyria and later Babylon.  But there is something else going on.  IT is not all doom and gloom.  For God’s heart is always to cleanse sin because of its horrific consequences and to restore shalom (where everything is as it should be), and to bring a solution which only he can bring.

Isaiah 35:1–10 “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

God’s solution is not some generic peace, or some new governmental system with better representation, or firmer laws, or to trust to human beings apart from himself to pick themselves up and work harder.  God’s solution is to bring about this new hope with a man, but a man who is also God. 

Isaiah speaks in chapter 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

At or near the beginning of the first century AD, Judah, now known as Judaea is a land under the control of the most brutal and effective human empire since the Assyrians:  ROME.  Into this land is born Jesus, son of Mary, a descendant in the royal line of David.  He is born in Bethlehem as prophesied in Micah 5:2

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”

And Isaiah speaks again of the coming of this great hope of the nation and of the world

In Isaiah 9:

1a But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.b

2c The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. 3You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. 4For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. 5For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. 6For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upond his shoulder, and his name shall be callede Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

So, this is what the faithful followers of God were waiting for in that first century as they twitched under the Roman yoke.  They were waiting for the one who would bring the dawn, for the one who would make things right, who would fulfil the prophecies of centuries, who would bring the Kingdom of God to reality.

As I have been speaking, I have really been asking you to see things through the eyes of people you have never known, because there is some common humanity there.  I have asked you to see the dissatisfaction with the evil of the world that others have had, with the stark realities of life under occupation, and of a people’s hope for salvation, for a saviour, not just for them and their sins, but to bring something bigger, something that will put the whole world to rights, that will bring true peace. 

But this peace cannot be established by better systems, or by forcing people to do what we want them to do.  It can only be brought by Jesus.  Jesus through his mother inherits our humanity and therefore intimately understands us as only one of us can do.  But through his Father in Heaven and through his own divine essence shared with that same Father, he is good, just, kind, loving, and truly incorruptible.  And he draws people in to be freed from evil, transformed, renewed and to be shaped increasingly to be like him.  Every other system administered by human beings is ultimately corrupted.  Only through a divine and loving ruler is this paradise on earth even possible.  In Jesus earthly ministry we have the first seeds of that Kingdom laid in the ground.  Through the faithfulness of God, through his Holy Spirit and through believers who dared to trust this God, everywhere for 2000 years those seeds have been popping up in unexpected places.  Little communities of people.  These communities, eager but with the stumbling of children have been people fighting internal and external battles against systems and spiritual powers that oppose God.  And yet they have still been empowered to stand and to overcome. 

So yes, we live in hope in the promises of God.  Yes, we are works in progress, but we trust in the faithfulness of God.  Because although we falter and sin, he is faithful.  We trust in the faithfulness that brings our God to honour his promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to honour his word through Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Daniel and to come in the flesh, born to a teenage mother, born in a barn, raised amongst a conquered people, misunderstood by those around him.  We see him raised in a hick town called Nazareth, we see him minister in Galilee a land of outsiders, we see him draw close to everyday people irrespective of class and reputation, we see him bring miraculous healings and relief from demons (things grudgingly attested to even by his enemies of the time). We see him teach and show what it means to be part of this Kingdom, we see the opposition from rivals, we see him call out the evil those rivals represent and we see him rejected by the majority of a people that he himself created, a people he loved yet a people who plotted that same oppressive Roman power to sentence him to death.

 As a consequence of his choice to do his Father’s will and speak the truth, and do what is right, we see him choose to suffer incredible agony in a torturous death on a cross, a death that had he wished to he could have avoided.  He is God! At any time he could have pressed the easy button and skipped town.   

But for our sakes, for the love of people who did not yet know him, and so that all people may know that he is God and was sent by God he was raised from the dead and he appeared in the flesh of his resurrected body and was witnessed by many over a period of 40 days including at one point a single gathering of over 500 people.   

This is the God that we know.  This is the God that we look forward to in our hearts, while sharing in his life through his Holy Spirit which he has given to us.  This is the God who loves us more than we can ever know, but that you people with children can have some inkling of.  For it is written “"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!"”

The work of Jesus and the Kingdom of God is still advancing.  We look to that day that Jesus will return to complete the portion that he alone can do. 

And so, I will finish with where Jesus began to teach to the hearts of those on a mountain 2000 years ago.  Now hear him speak those words to you in the world that you now inhabit, in the life that you have, with the troubles that you have, with the desires that you have.

“Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

The Beatitudes

2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons[a] of God.

10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”