The Coming King (1)
By The Rev. Deacon Linda Stokes on Dec 5, 2010
Advent 2; 8:30 and 10:00a.m. Holy Communion
Isaiah’s Vision of Christ’s Coming #2”
Isaiah 11:1-10 (James 5:7-10; Matthew 3:1-12)
Opening Prayer:
Lord Jesus, long ago your prophet Isaiah spoke of you, standing as a banner to all people. Help us, as Christ bearers to stand for your truth, your justice and your love in today’s world. Come Lord Jesus come, open our spiritual eyes and ears to the message, you have for us today. In Jesus name. Amen.
Introduction(2)
This is the second in a series of Advent sermons, titled The Coming Kingdom, (2)The Coming King,(2) The Coming Deliverance (2)and The Coming of Christmas (2).
Last week, Pastor Brett encouraged us to do five things in support of the coming of God’s kingdom: pray for it, work for it, be exited about it, clear the way for it and hope for it. He reminded us that Isaiah’s vision of hope was made all the more poignant because of the sinfulness of the people. Isaiah’s vision of hope is placed before a spiritually needy people, and a physically threatened one. God, the ever faithful sends two visions of hope through his prophet: hope in a very powerful king and hope in a kingdom without pain or destruction.
Isaiah’s prophecy reaffirms a king from the line of Jesse. Hear we hear echoes from David’s anointing in 1 Sam 16:10-13 and again for Christ in the first chapter of Matthew. (3) Like David, Isaiah’s king is full of God’s spirit (3)(3)(3), which is manifested in his wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear of the Lord. This king has supernatural powers, beyond normal seeing and hearing and these powers enable him to judge righteously and justly. This is good news to those who have been victims of unjust rulers. This king’s words have the ability to reach the whole earth and yet they can judge and sentence individual wicked acts. This is a warning for the unrighteous.
The kingdom in which this king reigns is one without pain or destruction and one, which possesses the full knowledge of the Lord. Here Isaiah paints a picture, we all know. (4) It is an Eden-like place of peace, trust and love with frolicking animals and toddlers. (5) Lets read this together: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them. How is it that this full knowledge of the Lord has such a dramatic change on creation? Diets change, attitudes change, playmates change. The king stands as a banner to all his peoples and everything is transformed in his kingdom: (6) Injustice to justice, corruption to righteousness, abandonment to faithfulness, anxiety to rest, confrontation to peace, power to gentleness, violence to love, suspicion to trust and pain to comfort. This kingdom is expanded to include gentiles who will seek out this king and all will come to the king’s resting place. (7) Can you see the meaning behind Isaiah’s vision of the lamb and the lion, can you hear his words of hope “a new King is coming, can you embrace how this message was received so long ago?
(8) In the movie Precious a young 16 year old is pregnant with her second child. Her name is Clarisse but she goes by the name of Precious. Her first child, a girl, is in the care of her grandmother and has Down’s syndrome. Her own father is the father of both of her children. (9) She is black, obese and lives in a world of imagined hope. She has been physically and mentally abused by both her parents from the age of three. She has been told over and over again that she is stupid, she is worthless and she will never amount to anything. In her imagination, she is slim, white and beautiful, sometimes a dancer, sometimes a movie star. She lives in a world of silence were others are concerned. (10) She is the one who sits in the back of her classroom, avoiding eye contact and all conversation. Her silence is interpreted as attitude. Most people don’t even see her. She is in high school with the reading ability of grade 2. She is in a hopeless situation. Because she is pregnant she is sent to an alternative school and this change begins to have a positive impact on her life. Three people never give up on her. (11) Her teacher from her alternative school program, her social worker and a health care aid who helps deliver her second child, a healthy baby boy. Each one helped to nurture the hope in Precious’s heart. In a way they were all her surrogate mothers.
Her biological mother would remain a source of pain. After a violent fight with her mother, she is forced to find a new home for herself and her child. With the help of her teacher she is relocated to a government sponsored home. Shortly after her mom informs her that her father has died of the Aids virus. She then discovers that she too has Aids. With all of this tragedy in her life, she finally breaks down in class.
(12)Crying hysterically, Precious says, “Nobody loves me!” Her teacher replies “People do love you, Precious.” “Please don’t lie to me, Ms. Rain! Love ain’t done nothing for me… but beat me… rape me… call me an animal! Make me feel worthless! Make me sick!” With tears falling from her eyes her teacher responds, “That wasn’t love, Precious. Your baby loves you. I love you!” Can you see the horror in this girl’s life, can you hear her broken heart, and can you embrace the pain in her world? In Precious’s reality all the goodness in life is in her imagination. She lives a life of hatred but dreams about being loved. She walks in a world, which despises her but dreams of one where she is adored. She walks the street as one who is dead but in her dreams she is honored. In her life she is physically ignored but in her dreams she is accepted. Precious dreams of an existence, which is echoed in Isaiah 43, but she doesn’t even know it.
This is not a true story but it is a common one. Every girl, I saw in the Youth Centre had a story of abuse. I am sure that many in our own school have been abused. You can see it in there eyes and in their bruises. The fullness of the knowledge of the Lord is so far from their reality it is hard for them to imagine anything close to Isaiah’s vision.
Isaiah’s vision is a message of hope, which for him is coming, for John the Baptist is very near and for all believers today is a reality. We live Isaiah’s vision everyday. We see our time on earth with eyes full of the knowledge of the Lord (11:9). (13) Lets read this together For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters over the sea. This knowledge permeates every aspect of our lives, as water fills the sea, so we are filled. What does this mean for those who do not know? Isaiah says that when the king comes, all life will embrace the “full knowledge of the Lord”. I would suggest that the source of knowledge comes with God’s spirit working through us. We are the King’s messengers of hope and we are called to take God’s message into a very hurting world. This challenge reminds me of the Narnia series. (14) Where animals once lived in harmony with humans all under Aslan’s care. Their harmony is made real in the knowledge of the love of Aslan. Each knows their maker, their significance and their purpose in life. When the evil witch takes over Aslan’s message goes underground. We too, live in a world of vipers and asps who are waiting to defend their territory, who have very little knowledge of the Lord. Just recently I read that the crime rate in Winnipeg is on the rise, especially in the North end around our school. So what happens when the message of love and caring confronts a history of hatred?
In the movie, a determined Precious re-gains custody of her first child and improves her reading up to a grade 7 level. She expresses her desire to get her GED and perhaps go on to college. Although she severs all contact with her mother there is a sense of hope in her future and that of her two children. Surprisingly although she never grew up with a good mother, she has all the attributes of loving parent.
This is one story of a marginalized young woman who found hope in a very dismal existence. Her innate hope in wanting a better life was nurtured by others, people who, like Isaiah, could see beyond her many challenges. This I believe is also the challenge of our community as Christ bearers. We are all called to be prophets like Isaiah in the sense that we are to speak of the hope in Jesus Christ. Christ comes through us. As Christ’s spirit fills us with the fullness of his knowledge, we are called to stand as a banner to all people. In Colossians, Paul says that God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ (v. 1:19) and in Christ we have been brought to our fullness (2:10). In Ephesians 3:19, Paul prays that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Can you see this vision, can you hear these words, can you embrace this Christ-like fullness?
As kingdom people we hold two visions in our hearts. We know the Christ who is here. We know his kingship, his attributes and his love. We know the power of his word. We also know about his kingdom, a kingdom, which manifests itself in miracles in a very destructive world. In a way having the knowledge of the fullness of the Lord makes living in this world all the more challenging. Like Isaiah we want to declare to those victims (15) “you are loved, your are cherished and you are precious in the sight of the Lord.” Putting this into practice may seem scary to some of you, after all we are not all evangelists. Here I am reminded of the song, which says “They will know we are Christians by our love”. Love comes in many packages: in prayers, in food, in presence, in a smile, in eye contact, in listening intently, in a phone call, in fellowship, in sacrifice, in our seeing, our hearing and our embracing the other as Christ would. As we approach the coming deliverance and the message of Christmas I pray that we will all know God’s love to overflowing so much so that we will delight in sharing his good news. Amen.
