Wait In Hope

As a church, our normal practice is to work through the bible bit by bit, seeing what it has to teach us. Christmas time is a special invitation to do something a little different and so this morning I want to do something a little different too.

When we last looked at Galatians, the letter in the bible we’ve been studying for some time now, we came across a quote from an even more ancient part of the bible, the prophecy of Isaiah. As I was studying that, I really felt I was beginning to get a handle on the big sweep of Isaiah, seeing how it all fits together. Over the past week I’ve been thinking about how it connects to the Christmas story and this morning I want to take you with me on a voyage of exploration.

Now Isaiah can feel a bit daunting - it’s a pretty big chunk of the bible - 60-some chapters - and it’s a prophecy - that is, it’s someone writing down what the Lord is saying to them and their responses to that - so it’s not just story-telling like the Christmas narratives, or instruction like the letter to the Galatians we’ve been reading. It is a bit more of a stretch to get what’s going on and a bit more of a challenge to understand how this ancient writing applies to us - but at the same time there’s some absolutely amazing stuff in there. In fact Isaiah is sometimes called the “fifth gospel” because it has so much to say to us about the good news of Jesus.

The bit of Isaiah we’re going to look at in particular this morning was originally spoken to the ancient people of Israel about 500 years before Jesus’s birth - but we’ll see as we study it together that it stretches out beyond the Jewish people and tells a wider story - a story that includes us, too. And we’ll find it connects tightly to the real hope of Christmas - so let’s read together from Isaiah chapter 51 and we’re going to read the first six verses. If you’ve got one of these blue church bibles, you can find this on page 739. Isaiah chapter 51 - so look for the big 51. Page 739 and I think Hannah’s going to be reading for us this morning - but that might have changed by the time you watch this - so thank you to whoever is reading for us!

Isaiah 51:1–6 NIV

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut and to the quarry from which you were hewn; look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth. When I called him he was only one man, and I blessed him and made him many. The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing. “Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation: Instruction will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations. My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations. The islands will look to me and wait in hope for my arm. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail.

Thank you.

So what is that all about? What did this mean to its original audience? What does it mean for us today? Well, it’s a call to look back, to look out, and to look forward.

But before we dig in, who is God calling to here? To those “who pursue righteousness”, to those “who seek the Lord” - that’s what v1 tells us. Isaiah was speaking to a faithful remnant, a small leftover, survivors of a disaster. See in 605BC, the massive and irresistible Babylonian empire defeated God’s ancient people, Israel. In three successive waves they exiled more and more of the population, ultimately destroying Jerusalem, their capital city, and the temple, the heart of their religion, and carrying all but the poorest of the surviving population away into exile.

It was a time where hope was in short supply. What hope could there be? Defeated, humiliated, scattered. And yet some of those exiled held on to their faith, held on to their way of life, held on to their God. That’s who is being spoken to here. So what’s this got to do with us? We’ll come back to that in a minute. Stick with me!

So, our first call first: look back.

Isaiah 51:2 NIV

look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth. When I called him he was only one man, and I blessed him and made him many.

Look back to Abraham your father, God tells his faithful remnant. Look back to Sarah who gave you birth. Now Abraham and Sarah weren’t their literal father and mother of course - they’d lived centuries before. Abraham and Sarah were the founding couple of the Jewish people. Why look back? Because we see God take just one couple, and “make them many”.

And if you know the story, as the original audience would have done, you’d know that this was no ordinary multiplication. Abraham was old, far too old for children. Sarah was old too, far too old for children - and barren, unable to have children at all. God was telling his people to look back to his promise keeping, his blessing which made the impossible possible, which started the journey from just one couple to a whole nation.

A tiny remnant, survivors of waves of brutal war and destruction, scattered far from home. Why was God pointing them back towards his promise-keeping, his ability to multiply the few, to make possible the impossible, a child where there could be none? Because God wants them to look out!

God is promising once again to multiply his people. Like we looked at a few weeks back, just over the page in Isaiah 54 you’ll read this promise spelled out:

Isaiah 54:1 NIV

“Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the Lord.

Isaiah writes to the faithful remnant, to God’s people in exile, to tell them he’s done it before, and he will do it again. Skip down just a verse here and see how, as he calls them to listen to Him once more:

Isaiah 51:4–5 NIV

“Listen to me, my people; hear me, my nation: Instruction will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations. My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations. The islands will look to me and wait in hope for my arm.

How is this reversal going to happen? How are things going to be turned around? Look out, because God is going to act. His instruction goes out - orders for action to begin. The result will be his justice made visible to the world; his righteousness appearing on the scene, his salvation, his rescue entering the stage.

And then we read that his arm will bring justice. That’s a bit of an odd-sounding phrase in English but the way to understand this is his arm represents his strength, his power - his direct involvement in things rather than just others acting on his orders. So this is God saying “look out remnant because here I come: I am rolling up my sleeves and I myself am going to to do it.”

His final call to them is to look ahead: Isaiah writes to comfort them and to give them hope as they suffer and wait in exile - to encourage them: the Lord will have compassion.

Isaiah 51:3 NIV

The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.

Look ahead, remnant - there will be joy again; there will be gladness on that day. There’ll be a time for thanksgiving, a cause to rejoice in song. Look our for me: I am going to intervene, says the Lord. So you should wait in hope. That’s how v5 puts it. “wait in hope”.

Wait in hope - but for how long? Well, Israel did eventually return from the Babylonian exile: the Persian empire overran the Babylonians and their king, Cyrus, invited the Israelites to return home, to rebuild their temple. There was joy and gladness, thanksgiving and singing… But if you read the story, there was also weeping and mourning. This is what we read in the book of Ezra, the bible’s telling of that story of return and rebuilding:

Ezra 3:11–12 NIV

With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord: “He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy.

Although the ruins were rebuilt, those who remembered wept because they knew it didn’t measure up to what had been destroyed. Even in Jesus’ day, hundreds of years later, many Jews were still waiting and hoping for a better fulfilment to these promises: they knew their fragile reality didn’t match the glorious things which had been promised - so they still heard this as a call to look ahead.

Ok, lots of ancient Israel stuff there, lots of history - but most of all, lots of other people, not us, right? So what has all this got to do with us? Why did I take us to this weird little corner of the Bible this morning, just after Christmas? Doesn’t feel very festive talking about remnants and exile and things like that!

Well let me join some dots here and we’ll see if we can begin to understand how this connects to us. See, even though this is written to ancient Israel, exiled and captive, it’s also written to us - because were are more like these exiles than you might first imagine.

How so? Well, think about this: Israel were God’s special people and lived in his presence, with his temple in their midst. That all came to an end not just because of an exceptional enemy force, or an insufficient military budget - though practically speaking, that’s what it looked like. But the bible tells us the exile was God’s doing - because his people had turned away from him and his ways. Is 50:1

Isaiah 50:1 (NIV)

Because of your sins you were sold; because of your transgressions your mother was sent away.

Because they turned away from God, turned away from his way of living, that’s why they were sent into exile.

And here’s the thing: if we rewind to the very very beginning of the whole story, the bible tells us humankind lived with God, in his presence, in the garden of Eden. It tells us he walked with us, talked with us. But when we turned away from God, when we chose to ignore him and his ways, chose to go our own way thinking that would be better, the bible tells us we were sent away - we were exiled, you might say. Just like Israel.

So I’m going to call us garden-exiles. Garden exiles.

And think about Israel in captivity, under the thumb of the Babylonians - that’s also a picture of how we’re in captivity in our exile as we’ve walked away from God. Where we thought we were choosing freedom, choosing to go our own way, in reality we were choosing slavery. The things we chose instead of God, put into his place because we thought they’d bring us freedom and joy, they would become our masters - enslaving us and bringing us only sorrow.

Just like Israel found themselves exiles, we too are exiles. Sent out of God’s presence and into captivity. Waiting and hurting, oppressed and distant from God. And yet - and yet, we are not without hope. “You who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD” is where our passage started this morning. And if we garden-exiles seek the Lord, then this is also God’s call to us: look back. look out. look ahead.

We’re told to look back to our father in the faith, our mother in the faith. We’re told to look back and see the power of God, of his blessing - how he could make from that childless, old couple a family, a multitude. If you’ve been tracking with us through the bible book of Galatians, you’ll have had the chance to think about how even though most of us are not Jewish, we too can claim a place in Abraham’s family - because he’s the father of all those who hope in God’s promise, all who are counted righteous by faith, like Abraham did.

We’re told to look out - as God himself will act to change things. Yes, he steps in to restore Israel from exile - but he also steps in personally to restore us from our garden exile. His salvation is on the way.

Isaiah 51:4–5 NIV

There’s a bit of an oddity here in the original Hebrew here in that the first mention of arm here is plural, and the second is singular. So if we were being pedantic, we’d translate “my arms will bring justice to the nations” - that is, I’m getting personally involved - “the islands will look to me and wait for my arm”(singular) - and the commentator I’ve found really helpful here, Motyer, says this is to distinguish this second “arm” from God’s broader action. It’s almost like he’s taking a body-part, and separating it from himself. It’s both him, and it’s not him.

And this is because God will act through a person! God will act through another child of promise, an impossibly born child: hear the angel’s words to Mary:

Luke 1:31–35 NIV

You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

The true and greater Isaac, the child of promise, the child of the Spirit, and the summation of Israel is coming: Jesus. Look out world, God himself is coming! And because of this, through what this baby Jesus will go on to do as a full-grown man, we need to hear the last call from our prophet, Isaiah: look ahead.

Isaiah 51:3 NIV

God will take our exile, our garden exile, and fully reverse it: rebuilding the ruins, making the dry + desolate wilderness like Eden, like the garden of the Lord - there’s the totality of restoration that’s promised, story come full-circle: a return to that original relationship, together with God. And there, by the way, is another good reason to see this passage pointing beyond just the restoration of exiled Israel to something so much greater.

We are called to look ahead to the full and final return from exile: a return to God living among His people at last - only possible through the work of Jesus, his son, God’s righteousness, his justice, his salvation personified. Only possible through him suffering in our place, having all our wrongs laid on him, as Is 53:5-6 will tells us, just over the page from where we’re reading

Isaiah 53:5–6 NIV

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Look ahead, the prophet Isaiah calls to us: Still ahead, joy and gladness; thanksgiving and singing.

Now, Christmas has come and gone and we’ve had our fair share of joy and gladness, thanksgiving and singing, albeit with masks. But still the year turns on and still our world is broken. Just like that partial return from Israel’s exile saw a mix of joy and weeping, knowing it was not the same, I think there’s a place for that same mixture in our lives today: joy and weeping. Because there is a measure of restoration - but we’ve still not reached the ultimate conclusion, the full and final return.

In the closing pages of the bible, we read:

Revelation 21:4 NIV

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

And that is what we’re called to look ahead to: this day when it will no longer be a mix of joy and weeping, a partial resolution, but a fully and finally done. A return to Eden. That’s what God has promised us as he calls us to look ahead.

I know, a bit complicated, a bit epic. But this is the big story. And I think this is why with Christmas come and gone, with our mix of joy and weeping, with our still-broken world, we need to practice waiting in hope together .

See there at the end of verse 5:

Isaiah 51:5 (NIV)

The islands will look to me and wait in hope for my arm.

We are look to God, and wait in hope for his presence, for Jesus, when he returns once more to fully and finally make all things new.

So that’s my challenge to you with Christmas behind us: wait in hope. Don’t succumb to despair. Don’t live in grim resignation. Don’t waver in uncertainty. Weep, yes, weep even as you rejoice at Christmas - but choose to wait in hope.

Look back. Look out. Look ahead.

Let me pray...

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