It is coming!
Throughout 1999 we’ve heard about it..... coming. Talk shows discussed. Experts speculated. Others wondered. Some got totally fed up hearing that....
......Y2K is coming.
Facing responses that range from panic to boredom techies have been telling us how our lives could be affected and showing us how we could get ready. Within a few weeks we’ll find out just how right they were, and how significant the impact is going to be. Will your toilet flush? Will Russian nuclear weapons randomly launch or explode?
As the billions of dollars which industry and government have sunk into the project show, it is significant.
So --- Get ready. Because, ready or not, it’s coming!

Get ready, it’s coming.

Thankfully, the whole world doesn’t rest on the shoulders of this Y2K thing. Which is why as church community we can focus on another coming – one far more significant. It is the church season we call ADVENT.

Advent is a word that basically means, "appearing, coming"

Christmas is appearing over the horizon; it’s coming.

With Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Advent/coming of God’s Son to be a human being.

Christian - get ready.

Because, ready or not, it’s coming! With an impact far beyond anything that a temporary computer glitch could muster.

Get ready -

That’s the whole point of the message which the prophet Isaiah wanted to get across to his audience. There is an event coming that will shake your present existence to the core. There is a person coming whom you will not be able to avoid, and whose coming will determine your future - here on earth and in eternity.

The words Val read for us this morning are one small part of that "get ready" message. But they form a significant part, for they speak directly to and directly about the one whom Isaiah tells us is coming.
 
 

The prophet Isaiah spoke directly to an audience of fellow Jews who stared captivity in the face. As we mentioned last week, the enemy army of Babylon overran their homeland with a brutal ethnic cleansing and economic looting that flattened the nation of Israel. Most of the population was carried into captivity. Things looked to be at a very dead end. Looked to be!

Into their despair, a despair of their own making, comes the prophet of God announcing hope — "people down and out, don’t despair. Hope is coming. A new beginning is just around the corner. Coming."

I said that their predicament was a result of their own making. The "making" was their ignoring of God, deliberatly as a nation turning their collective back on Him and wandering off on their own. Prophets before Isaiah warned them. They refused to listen. Prophets condemned them. They laughed...... till the condemnation came crashing onto their heads and their lives caved in.

The amazing thing about God, though, is that He is not one to leave things be. He doesn’t abandon people, but comes with a way out, a lifeline which they can hold. The lifeline will be tossed by a special Servant...

.... a coming servant.

We meet that coming servant in Isaiah 49. The verses Val read are divided into two parts – vv.1-4 are actually the Servant himself speaking. VV.5-7 are God speaking to the Servant about His assignment, the task He faces.

Before we look at the specific words before us, a bit of introduction. We’re going to find more than one layer of meaning here. Bible prophecies often are like that -- coming with layered meanings, like the layers of an onion, each layer looking a little further and deeper into time and fulfilment.

That’s exactly the case here. Isaiah 49 has three layers of meaning:

one immediate,

the second lay on the horizon of history,

and the third, the final layer still far off in the hazy, foggy future.

The reason we even bother to take of our precious time this morning to consider these ancient words of Isaiah and his prophecy about the saving plan of God is that they’re words which are still being rolled out.

Meaning #1 of the prophecy is behind us.

Meaning #2 is underway right now. In fact, Christmas is tied right up in it.

Meaning #3 still is coming - and we, like Israel, will be part of its fulfilment.

Let’s peel those layers back.

Like I said, Israel had sort of made their own bed. Yet God in His mercy had rescued them from it and given them a fresh beginning, the slate wiped clean. If you read the entire chapter 49, you’ll see quite quickly that the immediate and obvious meaning is a divine promise to bring them back to the land of Palestine. That’s the first thin outer layer.

God’s promise of rescue.

And like every promise of God ever made – before, then and now – it came true.

God never quits, or forgets.

He never reneges on His Word.

God’s promises are certain. You can build your life around them.

You can plant your eternity on them.

Layer #1 of this prophecy promise was unwrapped –

In 586BC Israel was conquered by Babylon. In 538 the first group of refugees returned to Palestine. Another group came back in 458, and the last group in 432BC. The temple was rebuilt, the economy restored and the nation of Israel again functioned.

Isaiah’s prophecy spoke ahead to this coming time.

It came.

Peel that aside and you come to a layer that begins with Israel but then also includes other people groups - all people groups that are caught in captivity, the captivity of sin and a bondage to Satan. That includes Canada.

In our last few services we’ve been blessed with a flurry of baptisms where we acknowledge that every single human being, no matter how young or cute looking, every human being is caught in the trap of sin. It has infected us to the core of our being. There isn’t a part of our life that is totally free of the tinge; not a part of us that is pristine, crystal and holy clear, pure. It is a tinge, a contamination that ends up separating us from God, removing us from His family, condemning us to eternity in hellish isolation from Him.

If there is to be meaning to our lives, we need to be released.

If there is to be hope for eternity, we need freedom from this curse.

If sin has a grip on us, there is no real richness in living.

If sin keeps its shackles on us, our eternity is certain death.

Release – oh, how we need it to come!!

We need, we desperately need a servant to come!

Advent of a servant - Lord, send one!

Enter Christmas Advent – celebration of the coming of Jesus, the great Servant of the Lord. Jesus said of himself:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim

freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. (Lk 4.18-19)

The Servant who is the embodiment of Israel, Jesus, comes to unlock the chains, to break the grip that sin holds on our heart, on our future. A fresh beginning. Slate wiped clean. Brought back, not to Palestine, but brought back into the family, into the household of God.

The power of Jesus, Son of God come to earth as man, will accomplish this. Great power - to just bring salvation to Jacob and Israel would be to only skim the top of this power; v.6 - it would be too small a thing. The reservoir of holy power goes far deeper and reaches far wider, right across the world!

Which is why it is not just a small group of believers in Palestine that are celebrating the pre-Christmas season of Advent. We, thousands of miles, and many gentile generations removed from them, are also privileged to be part of the anticipatory celebration. And believers across Asia, Africa, South America and Europe are also involved.

Restored back to relationship with God.

His Holy Spirit guiding our lives, at residence inside us.

His hope inspiring us.

His care surrounding us.

His future guaranteed to us.

Isaiah’s prophecy speaks of him, of Jesus. Let me show you some touchstones which point to Him:

v.1 speaks of the Lord calling him by name -

Secondly, the Servant speaks of himself in v.2, saying that his mouth is made like a sharpened sword.

If you have some background in bible study you may find your minds travelling to the words of Revelation 1:16, a vision of Jesus in glory after His resurrection from the dead:

In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double_edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

The words of the servant are powerful, says v.2. John 1:14 tells us that Jesus is the very embodiment of God’s Word. He is "the Word become flesh, dwelling among us." (Jn 1.14). His words will cut to the core of our lives, even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

third way in which these words point to Jesus: If you read v.3 of Isaiah you’ll see that the servant is named "Israel." And yet it’s not a reference to the nation, for Israel is the one whom the Servant will help. V.5 says so. Rather, this person is the embodiment of Israel – standing for everything Israel stood for; standing in their place.

Two more items - the first is found in v.4. Here the servant seems to despair about his work. All done for nothing! Can only depend on God making it count for something. He drops himself into the hand of God.

Finally, v.5 speaks of this Servant being honoured in the eyes of the Lord

Jesus is God’s great servant.

Jesus is the One who brings people freedom.

Jesus is the One who can bring light into life that otherwise is coloured in various hues of darkness.

He is hope.

He is future.

He is life.

It is advent, and we celebrate His coming.

That’s the whole point of Christmas.

Celebrate it, my friends.

Celebrate the advent of hope in this season, hope to which Isaiah points.

Whether you are rich or poor, young or old, alone or part of a large family, healthy or wrestling with disease – celebrate that you don’t have a dead end future;

with Jesus, the great powerful Servant of God you have a future of freedom and certain hope.

Whether your season includes parties or quiet, exchanging gifts or not, feasting or maybe just trying to scrape enough food together for your next meal,

here’s hope and reason for you to celebrate!

And celebrate remembering that there is more yet to come.

Remember how I said that bible prophecies have more than one layer?

There are two layers of Isaiah 49 already peeled back.

But one is yet to be opened – the deepest, most mysterious layer.

– a layer that lays ahead, a profound mystery.

It is a layer yet to be unwrapped, a promise layer. We have hints, and only hints, of precisely what that layer will look like. It is a layer that will be opened at another coming, the second coming of Jesus to earth. V.7 hints of it.

At this coming there will be no opportunity to overlook Him. There will be no more opportunity to walk past Him. There will be no allowance to despise or reject Him, to abhor Him. All will take notice and bow before Him.

If the WTO is meeting, it will stop conferencing and negotiating trade deals and be forced to acknowledge Him as supreme over their economic might. If the UN is in session, it will come to an abrupt halt and ambassadors of the world will bow before Him whose power crosses all political barriers. Even Mel Lastman and the nation of Toronto!

When this last, mysterious prophetic layer is unwrapped earthly life as we know it – complete with all the pain, struggle, dispair and grief which colours life in sometimes very dark shades –

earthly life will come to an end. As there was once a creation where, out of chaos and darkness, this world was created so there will be a miracle of recreation. That which has degenerated into chaos and darkness will be cleansed, broken down to its component basics, and recreated into a perfect wholeness; a new heaven and a new earth. Bodies that were devastated by the imposter death will be resurrected and given new life. The distance that we sometimes in despair and pain feel so keenly - the distance between heaven and earth - that distance will be forever bridged as God Himself will live with humanity; we forever in His presence.

Kings will see you and rise up, princes will see and bow down, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.

It is coming.

Get ready.