Second Sunday in Advent
Preaching
Preaching And Reading The Old Testament Lessons
With an Eye to the New
To understand this rich passage, the preacher must first understand its setting. Historically, this is the message addressed to the Judean exiles in Babylonia, between 550 and 538 B.C., and it takes the place of the call of the prophet known as Second Isaiah, who is himself among the exiles. That prophet's preaching is found in Isaiah 40-55.
Literarily, however, the setting of this passage is the heavenly court of the Lord, and the heavenly beings play a part in the first eight verses. "Comfort, comfort" are plural imperatives, spoken by God to his heavenly servants. "A voice cries" in verses 3 and 6 refers to proclamation by one of the heavenly beings. The prophet answers the voice in verse 6b, and then begins his prophecy in verses 9-11.
Form critically, the passage divides into four stanzas, verses 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-11. Significantly, the message of Second Isaiah begins and ends with the assurance that the Word of God cannot fail and will always be fulfilled (40:8 and 55:10-11).
That assurance is the major comfort offered to the Judean exiles, languishing in their exile in Babylonia. Their thought has been that which is expressed in 40:27: "My way is hid from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God." God has forgotten them, they believe, casting them off because of their faithlessness and deserting them forever. Consequently, they think that God has broken all of his prior promises to them -- the promise of a land to call their own; of many descendants making up a great nation; of a special covenant with them; of blessing through them on all the families of the earth; of a davidic king to rule over them. Those are the promises that God had made to Israel in the past (cf. Genesis 12:1-3, 7; 17:7-8; 2 Samuel 7), promises that had been renewed by the prophets before the exile.
But now, in exile, all of the promises of the Lord seem to have come to nought. The land was lost, most of the people scattered or gone, the covenant broken, all blessing denied, the davidic kingship cut off. God's words had not come to pass, and all hope for the future was gone.
But no! That "but" at the beginning of verse 8b is the contradiction to hopelessness -- God's "nevertheless," God's "to the contrary," God's will changing everything, God's word "but." In our passage, the word is made the glorious contradiction to all human despair, for surely, the words of the heavenly being in verses 6c-8a mirror our human condition. "All flesh is grass." To be sure, we have our own beauty for a while, like that of the flower of the field. And we have a certain glory about us, of creativity, technology, intelligence, accomplishment. Yet we fade, don't we? "The grass withers, the flower fades," said twice for emphasis (vv. 7a, 8a). All the beauty and glory of human life ends in the dust of the grave, and our way is hid from the Lord of life, and we are clean cut off in our sins. "But!" "But!" "The word of our God will stand forever!"
First of all, our sins that have separated us from God and hidden his face from us (cf. Isaiah 59:2) are announced in our passage as forgiven (vv. 1-2). Our warfare is ended, our war against God, and his war against our evil ways. Those are now at an end. And the double punishment for our transgressions that we have received from the hand of God is now replaced by God's comforting acceptance of us, despite all.
(The "double" punishment in this passage has seemed unfair to many readers, but in 52:13--53:12, we learn that Judah has taken upon herself the punishment due to the nations, in order to give them salvation, which is a clear foreshadowing of Christ's atoning death on the cross. The preacher may want to deal with that foreshadowing in vv. 1-2.)
Second, the glad announcement is given in our text of God's return to his people. "Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God comes...!" Look! See him, there in the distance! There he comes back to you! When Second Isaiah begins his preaching, he tells Zion to shout out that proclamation from a mountain top (v. 9). From the herald, Zion, Jerusalem, the holy city, comes the announcement of good news, of gospel. God is returning to his people to save them. And God can save his sinful, despairing, lost people because he comes with might. He is not like those ineffective Babylonian gods and goddesses, or any other pagan deities, that themselves have to be carried from place to place (cf. Isaiah 46). No. Our God comes with might, to rule over all the earth (cf. Isaiah 52:7). Indeed, so mighty is his coming that mountains will be leveled before him and uneven ground made plain. The very cosmos is changed before the appearance of Almighty God (vv. 3-4). And all people everywhere will be witness to his reigning glory (40:5).
But this mighty ruling God of ours also comes in tenderness. He comes knowing our weakness and our want, our pain and our suffering. And so he comes like a shepherd who provides food for his flock, and who gathers up the weak lambs in his arms and leads us all gently to quiet waters and good pasture (v. 11).
Good Christians, is this not the good news of the gospel that is announced to us in this Advent season, as we wait to welcome once again our Lord Jesus Christ? Surely you and I have separated ourselves from our God by our unfaithfulness and indifference toward him during this past year. Some of us have even deliberately defied his will and wandered off into wilderness and exile. But God has made us some promises, hasn't he, like he made to those exiled Judeans? "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you." "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." "Whoever is in Christ is a new creation." "Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age." "Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." "I came that (you) may have life, and have it abundantly." "Every knee (will) bow ... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." And the word of our God shall stand forever. God keeps his promises.
And so to all of us who despair, who think we have been forgotten by God, who are weighed down by the burden of our guilt from some sin in the past, who feel lost in some far country or who are slogging through a barren wilderness of dailiness, "Behold, your God! Behold, he comes...!" There he is, incarnated in that babe of Bethlehem, grown to full stature as the very Son of God, dying on a cross and rising for your sake and mine. There he is, full of might to overcome all evil and death and to make us new again. There he is, the Lord of all, but still our Shepherd of mercy, who in love ministers to our every weakness and provides for our every need. There he is, come to comfort and to rule. The word of our God stands forever.
Literarily, however, the setting of this passage is the heavenly court of the Lord, and the heavenly beings play a part in the first eight verses. "Comfort, comfort" are plural imperatives, spoken by God to his heavenly servants. "A voice cries" in verses 3 and 6 refers to proclamation by one of the heavenly beings. The prophet answers the voice in verse 6b, and then begins his prophecy in verses 9-11.
Form critically, the passage divides into four stanzas, verses 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-11. Significantly, the message of Second Isaiah begins and ends with the assurance that the Word of God cannot fail and will always be fulfilled (40:8 and 55:10-11).
That assurance is the major comfort offered to the Judean exiles, languishing in their exile in Babylonia. Their thought has been that which is expressed in 40:27: "My way is hid from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God." God has forgotten them, they believe, casting them off because of their faithlessness and deserting them forever. Consequently, they think that God has broken all of his prior promises to them -- the promise of a land to call their own; of many descendants making up a great nation; of a special covenant with them; of blessing through them on all the families of the earth; of a davidic king to rule over them. Those are the promises that God had made to Israel in the past (cf. Genesis 12:1-3, 7; 17:7-8; 2 Samuel 7), promises that had been renewed by the prophets before the exile.
But now, in exile, all of the promises of the Lord seem to have come to nought. The land was lost, most of the people scattered or gone, the covenant broken, all blessing denied, the davidic kingship cut off. God's words had not come to pass, and all hope for the future was gone.
But no! That "but" at the beginning of verse 8b is the contradiction to hopelessness -- God's "nevertheless," God's "to the contrary," God's will changing everything, God's word "but." In our passage, the word is made the glorious contradiction to all human despair, for surely, the words of the heavenly being in verses 6c-8a mirror our human condition. "All flesh is grass." To be sure, we have our own beauty for a while, like that of the flower of the field. And we have a certain glory about us, of creativity, technology, intelligence, accomplishment. Yet we fade, don't we? "The grass withers, the flower fades," said twice for emphasis (vv. 7a, 8a). All the beauty and glory of human life ends in the dust of the grave, and our way is hid from the Lord of life, and we are clean cut off in our sins. "But!" "But!" "The word of our God will stand forever!"
First of all, our sins that have separated us from God and hidden his face from us (cf. Isaiah 59:2) are announced in our passage as forgiven (vv. 1-2). Our warfare is ended, our war against God, and his war against our evil ways. Those are now at an end. And the double punishment for our transgressions that we have received from the hand of God is now replaced by God's comforting acceptance of us, despite all.
(The "double" punishment in this passage has seemed unfair to many readers, but in 52:13--53:12, we learn that Judah has taken upon herself the punishment due to the nations, in order to give them salvation, which is a clear foreshadowing of Christ's atoning death on the cross. The preacher may want to deal with that foreshadowing in vv. 1-2.)
Second, the glad announcement is given in our text of God's return to his people. "Behold your God! Behold, the Lord God comes...!" Look! See him, there in the distance! There he comes back to you! When Second Isaiah begins his preaching, he tells Zion to shout out that proclamation from a mountain top (v. 9). From the herald, Zion, Jerusalem, the holy city, comes the announcement of good news, of gospel. God is returning to his people to save them. And God can save his sinful, despairing, lost people because he comes with might. He is not like those ineffective Babylonian gods and goddesses, or any other pagan deities, that themselves have to be carried from place to place (cf. Isaiah 46). No. Our God comes with might, to rule over all the earth (cf. Isaiah 52:7). Indeed, so mighty is his coming that mountains will be leveled before him and uneven ground made plain. The very cosmos is changed before the appearance of Almighty God (vv. 3-4). And all people everywhere will be witness to his reigning glory (40:5).
But this mighty ruling God of ours also comes in tenderness. He comes knowing our weakness and our want, our pain and our suffering. And so he comes like a shepherd who provides food for his flock, and who gathers up the weak lambs in his arms and leads us all gently to quiet waters and good pasture (v. 11).
Good Christians, is this not the good news of the gospel that is announced to us in this Advent season, as we wait to welcome once again our Lord Jesus Christ? Surely you and I have separated ourselves from our God by our unfaithfulness and indifference toward him during this past year. Some of us have even deliberately defied his will and wandered off into wilderness and exile. But God has made us some promises, hasn't he, like he made to those exiled Judeans? "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you." "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." "Whoever is in Christ is a new creation." "Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age." "Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live." "I came that (you) may have life, and have it abundantly." "Every knee (will) bow ... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." And the word of our God shall stand forever. God keeps his promises.
And so to all of us who despair, who think we have been forgotten by God, who are weighed down by the burden of our guilt from some sin in the past, who feel lost in some far country or who are slogging through a barren wilderness of dailiness, "Behold, your God! Behold, he comes...!" There he is, incarnated in that babe of Bethlehem, grown to full stature as the very Son of God, dying on a cross and rising for your sake and mine. There he is, full of might to overcome all evil and death and to make us new again. There he is, the Lord of all, but still our Shepherd of mercy, who in love ministers to our every weakness and provides for our every need. There he is, come to comfort and to rule. The word of our God stands forever.
