e-vo for week of December 7

Dearest e-votees-

I hope and that your time of preparing and lingering and steeping and waiting in Advent is fruitful.

For our devotional focus today we will look at the appointed lesson for this Sunday from Isaiah.

Peace,
Karl

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1 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion— to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory. 4 They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed. 10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11, NRSV

It is this Isaiah passage that Jesus finds in Luke 4:16-21 when he unrolls the scroll, reads the text and says “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The HarperCollins study Bible estimates that this text was written between 545 and 539 years before Jesus was on the earth. If we take Jesus to be 30 when he was beginning his public ministry then this prophecy recorded in Isaiah took ~570 years to be fulfilled. What do you think the people in the intervening almost 6 centuries thought as they looked at this passage and as they watched the passage of time?

There is a promise in the second part of the passage that God’s people, with whom God has covenanted, will be known among the nations as blessed. The words that follow in verses 9-11 strongly resonate with Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-56). Jesus coming into Mary’s life helped bring these promises to bear. She couldn’t help but respond with praise.

But for many there are still issues of being oppressed, brokenhearted, captivity, mourning and sagging spirits. Even the wait of 570 or so years didn’t sweep that all away. The intervening centuries between Isaiah to Jesus and then again to us have proven to be quite harsh to God’s chosen people. Many would be hard-pressed to declare them unequivocally blessed.

God’s promises are “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). But sometimes they take half a millennia or so to come to pass. Sometimes they still haven’t completely come to bear even after a couple millennia. But God’s time is so not like our time. And God’s faithfulness is so not like our distracted allegiances. We wait, as patiently as we can, for the baby to come again to the manger in Bethlehem—with Mary. We wait, as patiently as we can, for Jesus to come at the end of all time and usher in with finality the joy and the healing and the comfort that will have no end. And when the impatience starts to set in we can gather together for encouragement and worship. That’s what we do as an Advent people.


God, give us patience and grace as we wait for your promises come fully to bear on us and on this world. Help us be a source of grace and community for all those who also wait. Give us words and songs of praise and glory to join in singing with Mary’s Magnificat. Amen.