Advent 3

Preparation

Please begin by reading Isaiah 61:1-4 and 8-11 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided that text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--God’s Surprising Intervention

The theme of this third Sunday of Advent is joy, and what joy there should be in this passage from the prophet Isaiah! 

Some earlier Advent readings from Isaiah began with the longing of a people in exile who had been waiting for a lifetime for God to intervene and set things right.  Next came a shift to hope and promise.  God was going to comfort God’s people.  This promise was reliable because God is reliable.  God would come ¾ come with the power to set things right; come with a gentle touch to care for the people as a shepherd cares for the sheep.

In this week's reading we learn that God would intervene through an agent ¾ someone filled with God’s Spirit, someone whom God would anoint to bring good news to those who needed it the most.  This someone was to bring good news to the powerless.  This someone would come to mend broken hearts, to bring liberty to captives and prisoners, to comfort those who were in mourning.  This someone would replace ashes with flowers and mourning with gladness. 

Then God was to take those same powerless ones who accounted for the least and use them to build up and restore ruined places.  They would become the strong ones, “oaks of righteousness,” not for their glory but for God’s glory.  God was also bringing “a day of vengeance” to demonstrate God’s justice.  In short, everything was to be turned upside down.  Oppressors would fall while the oppressed would celebrate and restore!

In the short term, this was wonderful news to a people whose beloved Jerusalem lay in ruins while they themselves were in exile.  There was to be a massive reversal of fortune.  Those who had been crushed would be restored and they, in turn, would restore their homeland. 

But there are far wider echoes.  God's promise was not just to Israel and her capital city.  Centuries later, Jesus would declare that he was the one who fulfilled this promise.  He read Isaiah’s words in a synagogue in the village of Nazareth and declared to those present that “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  (Luke 4:16-21) 

Jesus’ announcement that he was about to fulfill Isaiah’s words with a ministry that would turn the world upside down was not popular.  The people of Nazareth proceeded to drive him out of town.  God’s good news was (and is!) subversive in the eyes of those whose vested interest is in continuing oppression of whatever stripe.

Jesus radical announcement that he is God’s anointed one bringing good news to the poor, the captive, and the brokenhearted is still fresh.  God is still acting among oppressed people.  Our own history is proof of that. 

But we must also remember the other part of Isaiah’s message.  Being clothed with the garments of salvation and becoming “an oak of righteousness” in God’s garden brings with it a call to mission.  The oppressed are rescued, but they are then charged with “rebuilding the ancient ruins and restoring the places long devastated.”  We are not set free to become oppressors ourselves or to be indifferent, but to be Jesus’ partners in bringing the good news and in binding up the broken ones.

        revclay

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Isaiah 61:1-4 and 8-11

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion ¾ to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.  They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.  They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

* * *

"For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity.  In my faithfulness I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them.  Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples.  All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed." 

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.  For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.  For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. 

[NRSV]