God With Us: Hope

This morning, we begin a journey through some of the most prolific writings about the birth of Christ, those from the Prophet Isaiah. As we journey through these texts this Advent, I want to encourage each of us to do more studying of the passages on our own for it is only through continuous study and reading that we can truly take into our hearts the meaning of the words and what they hold for us in today’s world. I am also going to issue this caution…do not take the Prophet’s words literally. There is much frustration that can come from doing so. Isaiah, as with most of the Prophets, writes both in the literal and figurative sense and changes between the two quite quickly and without any indication of doing so. With that being said, I want to give us some historical context to the Prophet’s writings and then talk a bit about what it means to have true hope, not the hope that this world teaches us, but the hope that comes from being in relationship with God…the only kind of hope we truly need as Christians.

So, let’s begin as I usually do in these situations, with a little bit of history. Isaiah, we believe, lived at a time when the land of Judah and Israel were at odds with one another. He wrote, mainly, from Jerusalem and spoke of events that were to happen in the near future as well as some distant events. Because we know that he lived at the time of certain rulers, we can place the time of his writings to be somewhere around 700 years before Jesus’ birth. Now, let’s put this in perspective…as we look at Isaiah’s writings about the Messiah, which we know to be Jesus, he wrote these words 700 years before anyone even knew who Jesus was. Think about that for a moment…Isaiah wrote about Jesus a really long time before anyone would ever know him. I want you to keep this in mind as we delve further this morning into Isaiah’s words. Remember this too, Isaiah wrote those words for the people what had been a united nation, living in the land that God provided to them, and because they rebelled, the land was soon going to be taken from them and they were now a divided family. Sounds a lot like our world today doesn’t it? But there is hope in Isaiah’s words and my prayer for this morning is that you see that hope, take it into your hearts, and then share it with others because this world needs a tremendous amount of hope...

Hope reassures believers in this present life

As we prepare to remember Jesus’ birth this year, I want us to spend the next four Sundays thinking about each theme, hope, love, joy, and peace, individually and collectively, so that when we get to Christmas Eve, we are truly ready to receive Christ once again into our hearts.

This Sunday is called the Sunday of Hope, partly because it is hope that brings us here each week but it is also that longing and desire to be closer to God which gives us glimmers of hope in this world. Advent is actually a season all about hope. The word advent means “coming” or “arrival,” and the season is marked by expectation, waiting, anticipation, and longing. Advent is not just an extension of Christmas—it is a season that links the past, present, and future. Advent offers us the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, to celebrate His birth, and to be alert for His second coming. Advent looks back in celebration at the hope fulfilled in Jesus Christ’s coming, while at the same time looking forward in hopeful and eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when He returns for His people. During Advent we wait for both—it’s an active, assured, and hopeful waiting.

Hope encourages believers

And it is that hopeful waiting that gets us to the point of being able to draw closer to God and it is also what we hear in Isaiah’s words for us today. Let’s take a look at a few of them, just to remind us of what Isaiah wrote to the people who had been so far removed from God by their willful disregard for the relationship...

Isaiah 2:2–3 NLT

In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all— the most important place on earth. It will be raised above the other hills, and people from all over the world will stream there to worship. People from many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the Lord’s teaching will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem.

Listen to these words…the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of all…it will be the most important place on earth…and people from many nations will stream there to worship. Now, if that does not give you hope then I don’t know what will. This has been the promise of God since the beginning. From the time of Abraham, when God promised all people on Earth would be blessed, right up through King David, that someone would always sit on the throne from his lineage, through the time of Christ as he taught and did many miraculous things, right up until now. This is still the promise of God. Our home, our future home, will be the highest place and people will come from all around to see and be a part of it. Now, that is a great big ball of hope glimmering in front of us. While it may not be the most realistic in our human minds, it is what God has in mind for all of mankind. God has made and kept promises, it is us, we who have not kept up our end of the bargain. Here’s the thing though…as we journey through Advent, there is an open invitation to all of us to open ourselves up to come back into that hope. If we have lost it altogether, and feel that there is no hope in the world at all, remember that Isaiah wrote these words over 700 years before Jesus was born and at a time when brother was fighting against brother, cousin against cousin, neighbor against neighbor…not unlike today. But here’s the thing...

Hope encourages believers to rejoice

Isaiah reminds us that God has the power to make all things happen. Adam and Eve walked beside God and because of a choice that they made, sin entered the world. So God banned them from the place that they knew as their only home…they were refugees. At the time of Noah, people had forgotten all that God had done for them and so it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and at the end of that deluge, a rainbow appeared in the sky because God promised not to destroy everything and start all over again. At the time of Abraham and Sarah, in their 90’s mind you, Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to carry on the teachings of God. It is because of this “s”on that we have the “S”on, who was born to give us new life and restore us into relationship with God.

This gives us reason to rejoice…Jesus came so that we would be back into right relationship with God and that is reason enough to rejoice.

Hope encourages believers to look for restoration

However, since his birth, we too have forgotten what that means…now, I am not standing here casting judgement…I am no different than anyone here today or anyone listening later on…we all move away from God’s love. We like the things we like and we want to do whatever we want. Here’s the thing though…what is the most prevalent name that is given to Christians today? That’s right…hypocrite…and to be honest, when you look around at some of the headlines lately, I don’t blame people for calling the whole of Christianity that. Throughout history, Christians have persecuted others because they did not see things the way we do or because they did not do things exactly as we think they should. Jesus taught us not to judge and we do an awful lot of that. Here’s the thing though, if we truly believe that God restores us, if we truly believe that Jesus came to give us new life, then we ought to be living like that all the time. This means that when we say we are going to do something a certain way, then we need to be doing it. If we say we are going to love everyone, then we need to love everyone…that does not mean that we do not separate ourselves from certain people out of love, but that does mean that we show love whenever we can. We need to first be in relationship with God, we need to be restored and that truly is the hope of Advent…the hope that the people of Jesus’ time felt can be still felt today. Jesus came to restore us to God, not the other way around. As we journey closer to Christmas, let us regain that hope in our hearts, it may be the only way we can be restored to God...

Prayer

Let us pray…God, as we journey toward Christmas, help us not to get caught up in the sales and ads and calls and pleas to buy, buy, buy, but rather guide our hearts to earnestly seek you out so that we can find the true hope of this season, Amen.