Seasons. An Advent and Lent Podcast By Willow Park Church

After Leaving Isaiah and the prophetic poems looking forward to the coming of a new Kingdom in Christ, we will now move ahead 600 years to see what the early church understood about the king that had come to them and taught all about the new Kingdom.

We begin with Paul the Apostles letter to the Philippians.

He begins this scripture by reminding us that once we have found the new kingdom we need to realign our minds to the understanding of the one we have been waiting for in the leading up to Christmas.

When people in the ancient world thought of heroic leaders, rulers and kings they often thought of Alexander the Great.

At the age of 20 he succeeded his father Philip to the throne of Macedonia, quickly made himself master of all Greece, and then set about the task – to him, it seemed, quite small – of conquering the rest of the world. By the time he died at the age of 33 he had succeeded to such an extent that it made sense, within the thought of the time, for him to be regarded as divine.

Only when we grasp this, do we see just how deeply subversive, how utterly counter-cultural, was Paul’s gospel message concerning Jesus of Nazareth, whose resurrection had declared him to be Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true Lord. He was the reality, and Alexander and Augustus were the caricature.

In today's reading, we see the true humility of the king that we wait for, this Christmas on full display.

Turning the idea in what way kingdoms are run on its head.

He ‘emptied himself ‘. People have sometimes thought that this means that Jesus, having been divine up to that point, somehow stopped being divine when he became human, and then went back to being divine again. This is, in fact, completely untrue.

The point of verse 6 is that Jesus was indeed already equal with God; somehow, Paul is saying, Jesus already existed even before he became a human being

But the decision to become human, and to go all the way along the road of obedience, obedience to the divine plan of salvation, yes, all the way to the cross – this decision was not a decision to stop being divine. It was a decision about what it really meant to be divine.

There is so much goodness and mystery packed into this verse, and also also packaged into Christmas that there comes a point that we need to embrace and understand and appreciate the mystery of who Jesus is and that he is fully God and fully human.

Advent Day 15. Year of the Lord

In this poem, Isaiah speaks in the voice of the Anointed One—the Messiah.

The spirit of Yahweh is upon Messiah to bring good news (gospel) to the oppressed, the broken-hearted, the captives, the prisoners. These are the Jewish exiles who are brokenhearted over the loss of Jerusalem and their temple and have become oppressed captive prisoners in Babylon. By the spirit of Yahweh, Messiah announces the good news of healing, liberation, and restoration.

In the first message Jesus ever preached, he proclaimed this passage to announce the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus did literally renew sight to the blind and set the spiritually oppressed free in his real-time interactions with the people he walked the earth with.

However, his good news was meant to be so much more. To extend well past his time here on earth.

Jesus, our God, and saviour, is one who cares for the poor, brokenhearted, the captives, and those who grieve and mourn.

That is not who the people were waiting for. They were still in the mindset that their saviour needed to be like the kings of old.

And what we needed was to be set free from the oppression of the religious zealots and from oppressive teachers.

The oppressed in that day wanted a savour that would come and overpower their enemies with violence and to exact revenge from their time in slavery.

Now, as we listen again, I want us to hear Jesus proclaim this to the people in Jerusalem as he announced his ministry. You will notice a slight change. He omits “the day of vengeance of our God,”

Imagine yourself seated in the Synagog with all the religious leaders.

What is their reaction?

Jesus has just announced that he is the one Isaiah had been predicting all this time.

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Lord Jesus, we have known your message of grace and forgiveness, but we confess that we have not always been careful to live out this important message daily.

Today is Saturday, December 10th, the 14th day of advent. Every Saturday, we focus on a passage from the book of Psalms that points to the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Today’s passage is Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19. This is a passage that was written by David for Solomon, his son, the next in line to the throne of Israel. The psalm, which we will read in a moment, focuses on what kind of kingdom the King would bring to the people of Israel. While the psalm is about Solomon’s kingdom, it is also about a different kingdom and a different king - the king and kingdom that would come from the line of David, the shoot of Jesse, the Messiah. And this kingdom, unlike Solomon’s, which ended in disarray, would last forever.

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

This passage describes the kingdom that the Messiah would bring to the world. The first seven verses of this advent reading give us many promises about what Jesus’ kingdom will be like.

Firstly, Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness. “May he judge your people with righteousness...”. Jesus will judge the world with equity and justice. He will right every wrong, he will wipe every tear away from our eyes, he will make all things new, and injustice will no longer reign. Jesus also makes the unrighteous to be righteous in God’s eyes, through his loving sacrifice for the sins of the world. In Jesus’ kingdom, justice rolls like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Secondly, Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of peace. “Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people”. Prosperity can also be translated as peace. Christ said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” He brings peace between God and man, that man may know the loving and gracious God who created them. He brings peace between man and fellow man, that conflict may cease and peaceable relationships may grow. He brings peace in man’s own soul, that in the most difficult and trying circumstance, we can know a peace that passes all understanding.

Thirdly, Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of protection. “May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy...”. He cares for the weak, and has a heart for the poor. “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” He sees those who are weak and lowly and is gentle with them and says that he will defend their cause. He will do this and He calls his children to do this, too.

Fourthly, Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of victory “May he... crush the oppressor.” Christ came to bring people from death to life, from darkness to life, from the reign of the enemy to the reign of the God of love. Through his death on the cross and his resurrection, Jesus defeated the enemy and the sting of death. The people of Christ now live in eternal victory.

Fifthly and finally, Jesus’ Kingdom is a kingdom of flourishing in grace. “May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth! In his days may the righteous flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more!” In Jesus’ kingdom, the righteous are strengthened, fed, loved, and comforted. In his kingdom, the Holy Spirit will come like rain onto our souls, softening the hard soil, quenching our thirst, and feeding us, making us fruitful.

There is only one response to the promise of this glorious kingdom that we now live in, and that is to praise and bless the name of the Lord. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!” To bless is to make reverent and holy, and so we lift up the name of Jesus in reverence and awe, for he alone does wondrous things. May his glory and magnificence cover the earth, that all may know him and live in his kingdom.

Today Is Friday, the 8th of December and the 13th day of Advent.

The Jewish exiles in Babylon will soon be allowed to return to Jerusalem. Still, after fifty years in exile, many of them are about to "return" to a place they've never been, and Isaiah wants them to understand that "home" is a very different place than Babylon.

Isaiah prompts images of one selling milk and wine as a vendor at a market. Come, buy and eat!

The vendor is selling what would be a luxury in milk and wine. But in Babylon, the Jewish exiles cannot afford these tokens of abundance. They're exiles, immigrants, cheap labour, the underclass—the "good life" in Babylon is out of their reach.

Now God is depicted here as a vendor, calling out, "are you thirsty?" I have milk and wine! Take your pick, you don't need money for what I give you.

What Yahweh is presenting is a totally new economy. An economy of generosity and not exploitation.

Because many of the Exiles have only ever known the consumerist and militaristic Babylon, the idea of a Kingdom based on peace would be almost impossible to fathom.

Isaiah's poem ends by saying that as the exiles return in peace, the mountains will break into song and the trees will applaud their return. Painful things like thorns will be replaced with pleasant things like the cypress. This is the end of exile.

But as the Jewish exiles returned home, were they really home? They were still dominated by foreign powers—the Persian Empire, the Seleucid Empire, the Roman Empire.

Perhaps this poem song is indicative not of the Kingdom being realized in 537 BC, but a promise of the King who will one day come, who is the Word made flesh.

When all milk and wine will run freely, and no one will thirst, and all will know peace.

Today we will look at the fourth and most famous of the Servant Songs; it’s with the fourth song that we most clearly see the Servant as one who suffers.

Though this song may be more associated with Lent or even Good Friday, we should understand that to properly anticipate the Christ, Isaiah’s song of the Suffering Servant must be heard.

Isaiah begins his song by announcing that the Servant will succeed, prosper, and be exalted,  But considering what will follow in the rest of the Song, We may see this as a worrying hint as to what lies ahead.

when Isaiah says that the Servant will be “lifted up,” Jesus speaks, in his final week of ministry of being “lifted up.” “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. (John 12:32–33)

This middle portion of the fourth Servant Song is the prime example of why the book of Isaiah is often called the “Fifth Gospel.”

The first Christians saw the suffering and vindication of Jesus throughout Isaiah 53, and thus these verses appear repeatedly in the Gospels and Epistles. Isaiah’s Suffering Servant poem contain the narrative contours of the Passion story. The Servant is depicted as the arm of God sent to bring salvation to Israel. Jesus is God, coming to rescue us.

As the Servant becomes a public figure, he is ultimately rejected and despised, wounded and bruised, oppressed and afflicted. Finally the Servant, Jesus, is put to death.

In the middle portion of the song, the poet asks how the unjustly executed Servant could have a future, but in the closing lines of the song we are told that the Servant does indeed have a future—a glorious future.

The conclusion of the poem speaks both of the death of the Servant (“he poured out himself unto death”) and his glorious future (“he shall see his offspring”).

Today, as we come into advent, we wait for our Peaceable King who was wounded for our transgression and bruised for our iniquities.

As I read this long song in the intended three parts. At the end of each section take some time to allow the words read to permeate your soul. I encourage you to invite the holy spirit to speak to you in whichever way The Spirit knows you need.

In the haste of the Christmas season it is good for us to slow down and remember what it is we are

Read.

Advent Day 11. 

Music:

Over the next three days we will be winding down our time in the book of Isaiah.

Two that we will be omitting are

Isaiah 42:1–9 A Light to the Nations

and Isaiah 49:1–7 Salvation to the Ends of the Earth

When we look at these four poems as a whole we can ask and answer an enormously important question: Who is the Messiah? Messiah is Israel embodied in one person who fulfills Israel’s vocation and is glorified among the nations, but who also suffers greatly in the accomplishment of this task.

Today we read the third servant song in Isaiah 50:4–9

A Word for the Weary

The degree to which the Servant Songs informed Jesus of his impending suffering is probably enormous. In Luke, Jesus foretells his disciples the fate of the Son of Man: “He will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him.” (Luke 18:32–33)

In the third Servant Song, we begin to clearly see the suffering and humiliation that will befall the Servant in the course of his mission. In verse 6 the Servant says, I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.

But we will save the anticipated suffering of the Servant for the fourth song. In this meditation, I want to focus on how the Servant says he knows how to “sustain the weary with a word.”

Excerpt From The Anticipate Christ.

Confession

Music:

As we continue our reading from Day 9 of Advent, we see how the highway of comfort will be paved.

Isaiah reports that God, who has seemingly gone into exile, is about to return to Jerusalem.

But who is coming? In which way will God emerge?

He will tend the flock like a shepherd:

Not the image of a God who some might suppose would be one that comes to conquer and fight.

But an image of a shepherd who gathers the vulnerable in his arms and carries them close to his heart.

In response to this good news, Israel is to pave the way.

Isaiah 40:3-11

And how will this salvation come?

It will come as the word of God. Frail humanity has failed them—kings and princes, priests and people have all failed and Israel has been led into exile. Human constancy is like grass—the grass that withers and the flower that fades. But now God is about to end the exile and send his word—his enduring word that is unencumbered by human frailty.

From this very first of Isaiah of the Exile’s poems we gain powerful messianic expectations. Thus it should be no surprise that Mark, the first Gospel written, begins with Isaiah 40.

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah: Behold, I am sending my messenger before you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord.” (Mark 1:1–3) And so John the Baptist appeared in the Judean wilderness, preaching a message of repentance in preparation for the coming of Messiah. John also baptized people in the Jordan river, not only as a public act of repentance but also as a symbolic re-entry into the promised land. John’s baptism said this: We are returning from our exile in sin; we are rethinking our ways of idolatry and injustice; we are preparing our hearts for the arrival our true king.

During this advent season, let us take some time to make straight in the desert, raise the valleys and lower the mountains and hills.

To make that space we must look inside of ourselves and ask God to search us through to help us see where we need to confess and turn to make those highways straight, the hills low and the rugged places plain.

As we spend the next few moments reflecting, lets ask God to show us areas in our hearts that we need to confess, and make smooth for the coming King this Christmas.

CONFESSION OF SIN

MOST MERCIFUL GOD,

Advent Day 9. Comfort 

Music:

The book of Isaiah is like a mini-Bible.

Just as the Bible is divided into a first Testament with thirty-nine books and a second Testament with twenty-seven books, so Isaiah consists of two halves: the first thirty-nine chapters written in Jerusalem before the exile and the final twenty-seven chapters written in Babylon during the exile.

Between the two halves is a kind of “intertestamental period” of about a century and a half. In the gap between the poems of Isaiah of Jerusalem (1–39) and Isaiah of the Exile (40–66) is where the book of Lamentations is situated chronologically.

Lamentations is a collection of poems attributed to Jeremiah that give artistic expression to the grief that came upon the Jewish people in 587 BC when Jerusalem was destroyed and the population deported to Babylon. One of the recurring themes in Lamentations is that there is no one to offer comfort:

She weeps bitterly in the night With tears on her cheeks, She has none to comfort.

Her downfall was terrible, With none to comfort.

Zion stretches out her hands, But there is none to comfort.

They heard my groaning, But there was none to comfort. (Lamentations 1:2, 9, 17, 21)

But at last comfort has come. The first line of Isaiah of the Exile’s first poem begins with “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.”

And with good reason, these are the first words in Handel’s Messiah. The second half of Isaiah is so full of gospel themes that it is often described as the Fifth Gospel.

As much as we have heard the hopeful message of the first half of the book of Isaiah, we are now leaving Isaiah of Jerusalem behind us, the woes have been pronounced, judgment has been threatened, catastrophe has fallen, and now it is time to comfort the people of God.

Today’s reading comes from Isiah Chapter 40:1-5

Comfort for God’s People

40 Comfort, comfort my people,

3 A voice of one calling:

Advent Day 8.

During our Flight, we passed over the Western Sahara Desert. I have never felt so small as I did at that time. We flew over an endless desert for two hours with small villages seemingly placed randomly throughout. I allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to find myself wandering in the desert. To be left to wander, looking for water and a place to find any shelter or life. It left me with a feeling of hopelessness.

When Isaiah penned the rivers in the desert poem, Judah was in a bad way.

Internally Judah was corrupt, and externally it was under threat of invasion. For years the nation had been wandering with no signs of hope, let alone any possibility of Joy

But as we have heard throughout the readings of Isaiah, the prophet who brings the message of hope does so even during the most toilsome times.

In this poem, the Joy of the Redeemed, we see Joy erupt from sorrow. In the midst of pain the promise that those in the desert will soon be glad.

Someday soon, Isaiah says, “you will see the glory of God”

When you are lost in the wilderness, sometimes the best thing you can do is stop and wait, even if waiting is the last thing that you want to do.

But that is what we do at advent, we wait. When we are lost and feel hopeless sometimes we will do almost anything to fill the void and make something happen, but we’re not very good at waiting—it feels too much like doing nothing. But it’s not doing nothing. As we wait, we slowly become contemplative enough to discern what God is doing. Unless we intentionally cultivate some contemplative slowness in our soul, it doesn’t matter if God acts, because we will most likely miss it.

When God entered humanity through Jesus many people who were supposed to understand the significance of the moment, missed the beauty of who had arrived in the manger. but the contemplatives like Simeon and Anna perceived the arrival of God’s salvation because they learned how to wait.

The deeper truth is that God is always acting because God is always loving his creation. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are always inviting us into their house of love.

As I thought about wandering in the desert, the possibility of being in a spiritual desert is much more real. This Advent, we wait for Jesus, the one who will open the eyes of the blind, open the ears of the deaf, and cause us to leap for joy.

Advent Day 7. 

Music:

Secret Place; written and performed by Simon Wester 

Every Saturday, we’re going to look at a passage from the book of Psalms, and see how it points us to Jesus during this Advent season. The psalms are a blend of prophecy and story, of heartache and hope, of struggle and deliverance, and there is much that we can learn as we reflect and meditate on them. Psalm 1, for example, says that the one who meditates on Scripture and delights in God’s word, will be blessed. They will prosper, they will be like a tree planted by a stream. They will yield fruit, and their leaves will not wither. In other words, delighting in the word of God and taking time to meditate on scripture is giving our souls what they need in order to thrive and flourish. 

As we meditate on the Psalms during Advent, may we experience the presence of the Lord, and in turn, the blessing of the Lord. Today’s psalm, Psalm 122, was written by David for the people of Israel to sing on their way towards Jerusalem, where they would worship at their feasts. And he starts the song by saying that he was glad when he got to go to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. Now, Jerusalem was chosen by David to be the place where the Ark of the Lord, the very presence of God, would dwell. The infinite God, unbound by time and space, decided to constrain himself to one location, in order to assure his people of his presence and his promises to them. 

As one writer says, “He is everywhere, but he was there.” David was glad because he was going to be in the very presence of God. This advent, we are invited to join David and the people of Israel in this journey. Just as they were on their way to Jerusalem, we are on our way towards Christ’s birth. Just as the people of Israel got to go to the house of the Lord, we get to go to his house, too. But there is an important distinction to make between our journey and the people of Israel’s journey. They had to go to a specific place at specific times in order to experience God’s presence. But we get to experience God’s presence every moment. God’s presence is here, with us, right now, through the Holy Spirit. We experience his presence, his Holy Spirit, because of Christ’s coming. The infinite God, unbound by time and space, decided to constrain himself, once again, to one location. But Christ came so that all may experience his presence at all times, through the Holy Spirit. And in his presence, we give thanks to him. In his presence, we find peace. In his presence, we find freedom. Let us be glad that we can be in the presence of God today. 

Let us be glad that we can experience his peace. And let us be glad as we wait for Jesus’s coming with the eager expectation that, through him, we can go to the house of the Lord. Let’s spend some time in prayer. Pray that the Holy Spirit would fill you with his presence. Pray that you would know the peace and freedom of Christ this season. And pray that you would enjoy and delight in the Lord’s presence with you