Tawa Baptist

Transformation

Scripture: Isaiah 65:17-25

Video Link: https://youtu.be/Spt3lNxBec0

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • God’s new creation
    • From grief to joy
    • From death to life
    • From frustration to fulfilment
    • From harm to harmony
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

Miracles of transformation are all around us. Perhaps the most common and yet unnoticed transformation is the miracle of photosynthesis.

Plants are able to absorb water, carbon dioxide and sunlight then transform it into glucose energy. As part of this process, plants release oxygen into the atmosphere as a by-product. We human beings benefit from this miracle of transformation. Plants form the basis of the food chain and they give us air we can breathe.

I wish I could explain to you the miracle of cows transforming grass into milk,

or acorns transforming into oaks or caterpillars transforming into butterflies or salmon transforming from saltwater fish into freshwater fish, but that’s a whole other level of complicated. Miracles of transformation are happening around us all the time.

Today, Easter Sunday, is a day when we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is more than mere resuscitation, it is a miracle of transformation.

One of the classic Old Testament readings for Easter Sunday is Isaiah 65. In this passage we hear how God intends to transform the whole cosmos. From Isaiah 65, verse 17 we read…

17 “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. 19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. 20 “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reacha hundred will be considered accursed. 21 They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They will not labour in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. 24 Before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear. 25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

God’s new creation:

You’ve probably heard of anagrams. An anagram is a word, or a phrase, created by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase. For example, you can rearrange the letters of the name Andrew to spell Warden.

The names Andrew and Warden are quite close in meaning. Andrew means manly or strong, while Warden means guardian or watchman. Not all anagrams are similar in meaning though.

Those anagrams which are opposite or contradictory in meaning are called antigrams. For example, you can rearrange the letters of the phrase entails sin to create the word saintliness. The antigram of the phrase ill fed is filled. On the sly becomes honestly and antagonist transforms into not against.

Fluster is actually restful in a muddle. Violence converts to its opposite, nice love. Ailed becomes ideal. And adultery changes to true lady. Just as we can transform the meaning of a word by rearranging its letters, so too God can transform our quality of life by rearranging our values and circumstances.

In verse 17 of Isaiah 65 the Lord God (Yahweh) says he will create new heavens and a new earth. This does not mean God plans to throw out the existing heavens and earth. Rather it means God is going to transform this world into something far better.

In the Genesis accounts of creation, God rearranges the elements of chaos to create order so that life can flourish. In doing this, God did not destroy what was there, he transformed it into something functional and beautiful, into a paradise.    

Likewise, when God raised Jesus from the dead, he didn’t destroy Jesus’ earthly body. Rather he transformed Jesus’ corpse into a spiritual body, a body that would not get sick or age but would be fit for eternity. A body made new with the stuff of heaven and yet still bearing the scars of his earthly experience.  

In verse 17 the Lord God goes on to say, the former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

This indicates God’s renewed creation will be fully realized in the age to come. The current age we are living in now is drawing to a close and when it does the things we have suffered in this life will be forgotten, like a bad dream.

Indeed, the start of the next age (when God makes all things new) will be like waking up to the reality of what God originally intended for his creation.

From grief to joy:

In verses 18-19 we read of the first transformation, from grief to joy.

From weeping and crying to rejoicing and delight. From funeral to real fun.

(That’s right, if you rearrange the letters of the word funeral you get real fun, it’s an antigram.)

Verse 19 highlights the transformation of Jerusalem, the holy city.

In Matthew 23, Jesus lamented over Jerusalem saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”

In the age to come, the new Jerusalem will be transformed from a source of grief to a source of joy and a delight to the Lord. The thing that strikes us here is that God suffers with people. When bombs rain down on homes, when parents lose their children, when families are torn apart, God is grieved.

By the same token, when human beings treat each other with justice and compassion, when we exercise self-restraint for the well-being of others,

when we turn away from violence and greed, then perhaps we put a smile on God’s face and a warm glow in his heart.

From death to life:

The next picture of transformation is from death to life, or more accurately from an untimely death to long life. 20 “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years…

The average life expectancy in New Zealand these days is 82 years and 9 months. A little less for men, a little more for women. In 1960 the average life expectancy was a touch over 70 years.

The oldest human being, in recent history, was a French woman who lived to be 122 years old. The oldest living land animal is a giant tortoise (named Jonathon) who is thought to be at least 192 years old.

But these ages are nothing compared to some varieties of trees. The largest living kauri tree (Tāne Mahuta) is estimated to be roughly 2000 years old, give or take.

In verse 22 of Isaiah 65, the Lord says, ‘For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people’. This is a proverbial way of saying, that in the age to come (in God’s new creation) people will live much longer than the 70-80 years we are used to. People will live for hundreds of years.

Now for those who are feeling the aches and pains of getting older, that might sound like a terrible thought. But it’s not, for these extra years will be good ones, filled with health and vitality. As verse 20 says, one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child.

In the book of Job chapter 14, Job laments the brevity of human life and the finality of death saying…

7 “At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. 8 Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, 9 yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. 10 But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.

There’s a Norwegian spruce tree growing in Sweden which (according to carbon dating) is over nine and half thousand years old. However, it is not the original tree. When the trunk and branches die, the roots remain alive and grow a new trunk and branches. Some trees can do this.

But human beings are not like that. When a person dies, we don’t sprout a new body and limbs. There is a finality to death which mocks life’s meaning and cuts hope short.

Many centuries after the time of Job, Jesus conquered sin and death on the cross. God raised Jesus to eternal life on the third day and now humanity has hope of another life, a more abundant life, after death.

From frustration to fulfilment:

Returning to God’s vision for his creation in Isaiah 65, so far we have observed the transformation from grief to joy and from death to life. Now we note a third transformation, from frustration to fulfilment.

I’m working on a little building project on my days off at the moment, making a small retaining wall in one part of the garden where there is risk of erosion. This has involved digging some holes for the posts.

Unfortunately, the ground is hard and compacted with lots of tree roots in the way. While the tree roots help to provide stability for the soil, they also make digging quite frustrating. Rather than breaking my spade and my back, I decided to buy a manual post hole borer.

It worked like a dream, peeling through the dirt and slicing up the tree roots. The right tool for the job, transforming frustration into fulfilment.

Anyway, the next morning after digging the holes, I was woken by a heavy downpour. The first thing I thought, on hearing the rain on the roof was, what’s happened to my holes. Hope the rain hasn’t washed away my hard work, because that would be really frustrating. 

By God’s grace (and the shelter provided by a camelia tree) the holes survived and frustration was avoided.

In verses 21-23 of Isaiah 65, the Lord says to his people…

21 They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat… my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They will not labour in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune;

Note the three crippling frustrations in these verses. The loss of houses, the loss of income, and the even more devastating loss of seeing your children suffer misfortune. Home, work and family. These are things we can identify with.

Many people in this world work hard to establish some form of security, they labour to have something to hold on to and something that will hold them, only to have it ripped away by forces beyond their control. Sometimes the things we hoped would be fulfilling turn out to be frustrating.   

But this is not what God wants for humanity. The Lord’s vision for the age to come is one of fulfilment, not frustration. A future in which his people enjoy the fruits of their labours and get to see their children doing well.

Previously, in Isaiah 64, the prophet had cried out to the Lord in frustration…

1 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down… 10 Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people. Your sacred cities have become a wasteland… 12 After all this, Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?

This shows the great chasm the people felt between themselves and God.

The Lord seemed distant and indifferent to their suffering.

We all have times like that don’t we. Times of desolation when we feel like God has forsaken us, that he doesn’t care. Times of frustration in prayer when we desperately desire God to intervene and come to our aid, but we get no response.

In verse 24 of Isaiah 65, the Lord answers the prophet’s prayer of frustration, saying:Before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear.

In the age to come, the frustration of unanswered prayer will be forgotten.

The Lord will be so close to his people that we will know the fulfilment of God’s presence in real time.

To be heard and understood is a precious thing. It makes us feel less alone, more connected. This kind of intimacy with God is what eternal life is like.

From harm to harmony:

We are talking about the transformation God envisions for his creation. It is a transformation from grief to joy, from death to life, from frustration to fulfilment and from harm to harmony. 

In verse 25 we read…

25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.

This verse may sound familiar; it is found in Isaiah 11 as well.

In this world, the age in which we live, the wolf is the proverbial enemy of the lamb. Wolves are ferocious predators and lambs are defenseless creatures. Wolves (as we know them) do harm to lambs. But, in the next age, the wolf will do no harm to the lamb. To the contrary, wolves and lambs will live in harmony.

In this world, lions eat meat and they pose a threat. They are to be feared.

But in the age to come (in God’s perfect world) lions will be vegetarians and pose no threat. This is a parable. Wolves and lions represent the strong and powerful, while lambs represent the weak and vulnerable.

The Old Testament scholar, John Goldingay, explains…

Harmony in the animal world is a metaphor for harmony in the human world. The strong and the powerful (the wolves and lions) will live together with the weak and the powerless (the lambs) because the weak and the powerless can believe the strong and powerful are no longer seeking to devour them. [1] 

The mention of the serpent eating dust is a reminder of Genesis 3, where the snake tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. In God’s vision for the future, sin and temptation will be under our feet. Sin and temptation will have no power over us.

The harm we experience in this world will be transformed into harmony. All of God’s creatures living in peace and respectful relationship with one another.

Conclusion:

Isaiah 65 is a picture of paradise. It is life as God intended it. It is the kingdom of heaven on earth. It is creation raised from the dead. Sadly, the world we live in is like a desert in comparison. It may seem to us that Isaiah 65 is just pie in the sky, a mere pipe dream that will never be realised.

Well, if it was up to human beings to realise the vision of Isaiah 65, then we would have to agree, just pie in the sky, opium for the masses. But it does not depend on us. It depends on God Almighty, and all things are possible with God.

God’s sovereignty sets the tone for the vision of Isaiah 65. In verse 17 the Lord says that he will create new heavens and a new earth. We could no more bring about our own transformation than we could raise ourselves from the dead.         

The renewing of God’s creation is God’s work. The resurrection of Jesus is the first fruits, the down payment guaranteeing God’s commitment to make all things new. Knowing God plans to transform and renew his creation gives us real hope for the future.

When we are overwhelmed by grief, we recover some joy and strength from knowing that grief will not have the last word.

When death cuts life short or we feel like our life is going too fast, we remember that this life is not all there is. The best is yet to come for those who are in Christ Jesus.

When our prayers, our work and our plans for our family are frustrated by forces beyond our control, we find consolation in trusting that God works all things for good in fulfilment of his redemptive purpose.

And when the wolves of this world devour the lambs, when the strong crush the weak, when harm is done to people and the planet, we live in the light of the age to come (the age of harmony). We take responsibility to care for others and protect the environment, to the extent we can.

Let us pray…

Sovereign God, we thank you for the hope that is ours through faith in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. May your vision for the transformation of the cosmos be real in our minds. Keep our feet on the ground as we walk through this world with you. Through Jesus we pray. Amen. 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. What miracles of transformation do you observe in the natural world? What miracles of transformation do you observe in history? What miracles of transformation do you observe in your own life?
  3. What does it mean for God to ‘create’ in Isaiah 65? What does Isaiah 65 show us about God’s intention for his creation?
  4. How does Jesus’ resurrection relate to the vision of Isaiah 65?
  5. Discuss / reflect on the four main transformations envisioned in Isaiah 65. That is: from grief to joy, from death to life, from frustration to fulfilment and from harm to harmony.
  6. What frustrations have you experienced in your life? How might we deal with our frustrations? What fulfilments can you give God thanks for?
  7. What difference does the vision of Isaiah 65 make for us now, today?  

[1] Refer John Goldingay’s commentary on Isaiah, page 85.

Tawa Baptist

God’s Glory

Scripture: Isaiah 60

Video Link: https://youtu.be/AaDoG32hNoo

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Light
  • Gravity
  • Worship
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

One of the greatest mathematicians to have ever lived was a man called Archimedes. Archimedes was born in 287 BC, nearly three hundred years before Christ. Archimedes lived in Sicily, a region in Italy.

One day the king asked Archimedes to help him solve a problem. The king had given an exact amount of gold to a jeweler and asked the jeweler to make a crown for him. But when the crown came back, the king suspected the jeweler had cheated him by substituting some of the gold for silver.

Archimedes had to determine whether the gold crown contained any silver, without damaging the crown. Archimedes thought hard about this for a while. Gold has a higher density than silver, so if the density of the crown was less than the density of the gold the king had given the jeweler, then the king had been ripped off.

To calculate the density, Archimedes needed to know the volume of the crown. However, he couldn’t measure the volume with a ruler, like you might a square box, because the crown was an irregular shape.

The answer came to Archimedes while he was taking a bath. As Archimedes sat down in the bathtub some water overflowed and went on the floor. At that moment Archimedes had an epiphany. He could calculate the volume of the crown by placing it in a bucket of water. The volume of water that was displaced would equal the volume of the crown.

Some say that Archimedes was so excited about this sudden flash of insight that he ran down the street naked shouting, ‘eureka’, which in Greek means,

‘I found it’. That last part about Archimedes running down the street naked might be an embellishment, but the rest of the story is true.

As it turned out, the density of the crown was less than the density of the king’s gold, which meant the crown did in fact contain silver. I’m not sure what happened to the jeweler, but it probably wasn’t good.           

Today, the 5th of January, is the twelfth and last day of Christmas, which means you are supposed to take your Christmas decorations down after today. It also means that tomorrow, the 6th of January, is Epiphany.

An epiphany (with a small ‘e’) is a sudden realization or insight, when the answer or meaning dawns on you, as it did with Archimedes in the bath.     

Epiphany with a capital ‘E’ is a special day in the church calendar celebrating the visit of the wise men to see Jesus after his birth. These wise men were probably like Archimedes; mathematicians, engineers and astronomers.

The wise men had an epiphany after studying ancient prophecies and the stars in the night sky. One star shone brighter than usual, so they followed that light to Bethlehem where they found and worshiped Jesus, the Messiah of God.     

The Bible doesn’t say how many wise men there were, only that they brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. From these three gifts, people assume there were three wise men.

Whatever their number, none of them were Jewish. They were gentiles from the east. For this reason, Epiphany (with a capital ‘E’) is associated with God’s plan of salvation for the nations of the world. 

The classic Old Testament reading for Epiphany comes from the book of Isaiah chapter 60. If you listen carefully, God may give you an epiphany of your own. From verses 1-6 we read…

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. 2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. 3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the hip. 5 Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. 6 Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Light:

Isaiah 60 is about the glory of the Lord and the epiphanous effect God’s glory has on the world. Three words to give you a handle on this passage: light, gravity and worship. We start with light.

Near the beginning of the 20th Century, Albert Einstein came up with the special theory of relatively. Einstein had an epiphany in which he realized that the speed of light is constant, while time is relative. Don’t ask me to explain it, but apparently the faster you go, the slower time goes. It’s a real mind bender.

Now light is extremely quick, the fastest thing known to humanity. Light travels at a speed of 300,000 kilometers per second. Einstein theorized that if time slows down as you go faster, then at the speed of light time stands still.  

In verse 1 of Isaiah 60 the prophet says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.”

The experts say the one being told to arise and shine here is the city of Jerusalem, also known as Zion. The promise is that God will shine the light of his glory on the holy city, on the people of Jerusalem.

Isaiah 60 gets interpreted in different ways depending on your point of view. Interpretation is often relative to where you stand in time and history.

If you were Jewish and had recently returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon, then you would be inclined to think of these words as applying to the physical city of Jerusalem.

When the Jewish exiles returned, during the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, they found the city in ruins. They had to rebuild the walls and the temple and all the infrastructure and they faced opposition in doing this. The city of Jerusalem was anything but glorious. It was a shambles.

For the Jews who were trying to rebuild, Isaiah 60 was an encouragement that God would help restore their fortunes and make them prosperous again. Their hard work would not be in vain. 

But if you are a Christian living in a secular western culture in the 21st Century, then Zion, the holy city of God, is code for God’s kingdom on earth.

For us, Isaiah 60 is not talking about the physical Jerusalem we see on the news in the Middle East.

Rather, Isaiah is talking about God’s spiritual reign on earth. For Christians, Zion is not so much a geographical location. It’s more a state of being in which God’s will is done. It is a community of righteousness, justice and peace. It is heaven on earth.

We believe God’s kingdom came to earth in the person of Jesus and that when Jesus returns in glory, heaven on earth will be realized in its fullness.        

However you choose to interpret it, Isaiah 60 is first and foremost about the light of God’s glory. God’s people are to reflect the light of God’s glory, sort of like the moon reflects the sun’s light.

In verse 2, Isaiah says, 2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you.

Darkness here is spiritual darkness. It is moral evil and death. In contrast, the light of the Lord represents truth and goodness, justice and peace, love and life. The light of God’s glory shows us how to live right.

This imagery sounds echoes of the creation story in Genesis 1 where we read…

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 

Isaiah is piggy backing off the creation story in Genesis. He is acknowledging that the world is in bad shape, it’s in chaos and darkness. But God is going to bring order to the chaos. God is going to bring light to the darkness. God is making his creation new and it begins with his glory, his divine light, rising over you.

Jesus said of himself, ‘I am the light of the world’. In other words, Jesus shows us the goodness of God. Jesus reveals the truth about God (and the truth about us). Jesus overcomes the darkness of sin and death through his death and resurrection. Jesus comes to make all things new. Jesus restores God’s order to creation.   

As I mentioned earlier, light is fast. Isaiah 60 finishes with these words: I am the Lord; in its time I will do this swiftly. In other words, the revelation of God’s glory, will happen quickly in the end, like having an epiphany after a long struggle to understand.

Gravity:

We’ve heard about the light of God’s glory rising over Zion. Now let’s consider the gravity of God’s glory. God’s glory is a weighty thing. It is heavy, it has substance, mass, gravitas.

Outside the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, there’s a statue of Isaac Newton looking down at an apple on the ground. This commemorates Newton’s epiphany about gravity.

For some time, Isaac Newton had been contemplating the nature of gravity.

One day in 1666 Newton was walking in the garden of his family home, when he noticed an apple fall from a tree. He considered why the apple fell straight down and not up or sideways. 

From that simple observation Newton reasoned that a falling apple and the orbiting moon are both pulled by the same force. Newton then did some mathematical calculations to prove his theory. Basically, the greater the mass of an object the stronger its gravitational pull.

In verses 3 and 4 we read…

3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. 4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you;

Thinking in spiritual terms, the light of God’s glory will have a certain gravitational pull, drawing the leaders of the nations toward Zion. This is a poetic way of saying, people are attracted to the glory of God’s wisdom, justice and peace, his salvation, his abundant life. Deep down people want God’s reign on earth.

Notably, among those coming are your sons and daughters. For the Jews of Nehemiah’s time (hundreds of years before Christ) this could have meant the lost tribes of Israel returning to Jerusalem. But for believers today it might mean seeing wayward children returning to church or witnessing secular society returning to faith in God.

Verse 6 mentions Midian and Ephah being drawn to Zion. Midian and Ephah were descended from Abraham through Abraham’s second wife Keturah.

They were like half-brothers to the Israelites. This hints at a reconciliation between the children of Abraham. The power of God’s glory is that strong.

Verse 6 indicates the people of Sheba feeling the gravitational pull of God’s glory too. This reminds us of the time the Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem with gifts of gold to learn the wisdom of Solomon.

God’s glory is not like gravity in every way. Gravity is an unconscious force of nature. By contrast, God’s glory is discerning and wise, capable of restoring people to right relationship. 

God’s glory is his wisdom and power to save all the nations of the earth, whether they are descended from Abraham or not.

Worship:

The glory of God’s salvation requires a response of worship.

The word worship comes from the old English word, ‘worth-ship’.

Worship is about attributing worth or value to something. This means worship costs us. It involves a sacrifice of time, energy and gifts.

Verse 5 talks about the riches of the nations coming to Zion and verse 6 talks about those from Sheba bringing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord. Gold, incense and praise are all symbols or elements of worship.

The financial offerings we make each week and the time we volunteer in service to Christ are part of our worship of God, as are the songs of praise we sing in church.

The smoke of incense is a symbol of people’s sweet-smelling prayers rising to God. We don’t literally burn incense in our tradition, but we do pray as part of our worship. Prayer itself is the more important part. Incense is simply a visual reminder of the invisible reality of prayer.

We note also that worship is a process. Worship involves going on a journey. The pilgrims in Isaiah 60 don’t just set and forget a weekly automatic payment to the church (as much as the deacons and staff do appreciate that).

The pilgrims in Isaiah 60 travel a long way to get to a place where they can offer their gifts in worship to God.

The journey to worshipping God takes time and energy. It requires faith to leave what feels safe and familiar. It requires commitment and endurance to go the distance. But we make the effort to go on that journey because God is worth it. The journey is part of our offering to God, it is part of the sacrifice.  

Our life in this world is a journey with a purpose. The goal is to offer ourselves in obedience and praise to God our Father.  

Isaiah 60, verse 11, says: your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations…    

Many times, over the centuries, nations have come to conquer and destroy the city of Jerusalem. But Isaiah 60 imagines a very different future. One in which the nations of the world recognize God’s worth (as revealed by his glory) and are drawn to worship the Lord in peace. 

God’s glory opens doors and offers security. People are drawn to Zion with goodwill. By God’s grace and power, the spirit of greed and violence, which dominates this current age, is replaced by a spirit of generosity and love.

The glory of God’s salvation requires a response of worship.

Conclusion:

History tells us the promise of Isaiah 60 is yet to be fulfilled. The Jews who returned from exile in Babylon saw a partial fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

The earthly city and the temple were rebuilt but not to the former glory of Solomon’s time and certainly not to the extent of Isaiah’s vision.

As Christians, we believe Isaiah 60 is properly fulfilled in and through Jesus, the Christ. The visit of the wise men, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, points to Jesus being the one in whom the glory of God dwells.

As we read in the gospel of John: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,  who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. Jesus came to make all things new.

Jesus embodies the light of God’s grace and the gravity of truth.

Through Jesus’ sacrifice salvation is available to all people. 

Through faith in Jesus our worship is made acceptable to God the Father. 

May the light of God’s glory inspire your hope. And may the gravity of God’s glory keep your feet on the ground, as you journey in worship to him. Amen. 

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
  2. Have you ever had an epiphany? What happened? What did you suddenly realise? How did you feel? What difference did it make to your life?
  3. How would the returning Jewish exiles of Nehemiah’s day interpret Isaiah 60? How might Christians living in the 21st Century interpret Isaiah 60?
  4. Discuss / reflect on the Biblical connections between Isaiah 60 and the creation story in Genesis. How does Jesus fulfil the vision of Isaiah 60? 
  5. Why are you drawn to Christian faith? What do you find attractive about Jesus?
  6. What is worship? Why do we worship? How do we worship God? To what or whom do you attribute value and worth?