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2 Corinthians 1:2-4 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, 4 who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.
Isaiah 40:1-2 Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
Prepare the Way: Comfort My People Week 1 Communion
Today we start the season of Advent. The word advent literally means coming. We set aside four weeks as a sacred time to contemplate the coming of Christ into our world. To, in a sense, prepare our hearts for Christ to come anew. This is a holy time, a time to contemplate the miraculous love of God who stepped down from the throne of heaven and became incarnate here on earth. The word incarnate is a perfect description of what God did. It literally means “enfleshed”. God put on the flesh of humanity and became one of us.
Advent is to be a time of anticipation. We live into the experiences of God’s Old Testament people and anticipate the hope God brings to us through the Messiah. We continue to anticipate his entrance into our lives and our world on a daily basis. And we anticipate the day at the conclusion of history when God enters our world again through the second coming of Christ.
This Advent our sermon series is Prepare the Way of the Lord. The series will
come from the first eleven verses of the fortieth chapter of Isaiah which contain the prophetic line, “prepare the way of the Lord.” Let us, once again, prepare the way for our hearts to receive our King.
The first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah have been filled with rebuke and doom. The downfall of many nations including Israel is predicted.
Isaiah was a prophet who lived in Jerusalem during the latter half of Israel’s kingdom period and spoke to the leaders of Jerusalem and Judah on God’s behalf. Isaiah brought a warning about God’s judgment, telling Israel’s corrupt leaders that their rebellion against the covenant with God would come at a cost. Isaiah also said that God would use the great empires of Assyria and later Babylon to judge Jerusalem if they persisted in idolatry and oppression of the poor.
However, that dire announcement was also combined with a message of hope, as Isaiah believed deeply that God would one day fulfill all his covenant promises. He trusted that God would send a king from David’s line to establish his Kingdom on Earth and lead Israel in obedience to the laws of the covenant made at Mt.Sinai. This was how God’s blessing and salvation would flow outward to all nations, just as God promised to Abraham. It’s this messianic hope that compelled Isaiah to speak out against the corruption and idolatry of Israel and its leaders.
By the end of chapter 39, immediately before our reading this morning Isaiah has prophesized the fall of Jerusalem and exile of people to Babylon.
With chapter forty there is an abrupt change. God proclaims comfort to His people. There is hope. Isaiah tells the people that God says to comfort them. Rather than crying out judgment against His rebellious children, God is speaking words of comfort for His wounded children in exile. Not just once does God say comfort but twice so it is emphasized. This tells us the depth of feeling in the heart of God. From the deepest reaches of His being, He sets the new tone for His people. In their present distress they will be comforted, and in their future history they will be restored.
How do God’s words of comfort to His people in exile over twenty-five hundred years in the past possibly speak to us today? We are not in exile, are we? No, not literally. But in many ways we lead lives exiled from God. We try to do it on our own and forget God is there for us.
We, too, need comfort. We are fragile people. At any moment disease can strike. Injuries can occur that turn our lives upside down. Friends and loved ones die and we are left alone. Insecurity rules, so today, hear God’s words of comfort spoken directly to you. Hear Him whisper your name tenderly. Know not in your head but in your heart that God loves you. His comfort is available to us if we but reach out. Hear God speaking His comfort to you. Are you weary, heavy laden? Give your burdens to Jesus, let God console you. And after you have turned your burdens over remember to console others as you have been consoled. Approach others with the love of God in your heart.
Paul’s words about consolation also speak to us. He calls God the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation and says God consoles us in all our affliction, so that we, in turn can console others in the same way God consoles us. Hope and strength are available to God’s people. Through our relationship with God we are given a special ability to handle all the dimensions of life, to offer comfort to those who grieve or doubt or fear. We are called to the ministry of comforting. This season rather than spread Christmas cheer let us spread the good news of God’s consolation in Jesus Christ. The comfort God speaks of in these verses is to be spoken to the world by us, His people, to those who are lost in darkness, who wander and do not know the way home.
God’s grace expands with God’s second word of comfort. God told Isaiah to proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
The Israelites were sent into exile for their sins. Now God tells them they have paid the price, even double for all their sins. There is a price for our sins too. We are forgiven but there was a price for that forgiveness. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He paid the price; He served the term so we could be forgiven.
It is one thing to serve a sentence for a crime and another thing altogether to be pardoned. When a person serves a sentence they have been punished for their crime and the record remains. They are still guilty of the crime. When a person is pardoned it is different. It is as though the crime never happened. There is no record. They are forgiven. Here the groundwork is laid for the forgiveness that will come through Jesus the Messiah.
God ultimately comforted us by sending His Son, Jesus to be the redeeming sacrifice, to pay the penalty for our sin. We didn’t pay it, we never could. Jesus paid it when He came to us as a baby born to Mary so long ago in Bethlehem.
Have you heard God’s tender words of mercy spoken to you? Come, sinner, accept my mercy, enter my grace and be redeemed. The war of sin can be over if you but surrender yourself to me. There was a Christian worship song written by the group Passion back in 2012 entitled, “White Flag.” It speaks of sin as a war against God and calls us to surrender, to wave the white flag. It says, “The battle rages on, As storm and tempest roar, We cannot win this fight, Inside our rebel hearts. We’re laying down our weapons now, We raise our white flag, We surrender all to You, All for You. We raise our white flag. The war is over, Love has come, Your love has won. Here on this holy ground, You made a way for peace, Laying Your body down, You took our rightful place.”
Surrender your heart to Jesus, whether for the first time or for the thousandth. Let Him console you; let His love fill your heart in this Advent season.
Christ’s coming is not just something that happened two thousand years ago. Christ is still coming; His kingdom is ever-present, growing and expanding throughout our world. Therefore Advent is not just a commemorative event, an anniversary. During Advent we celebrate Christ’s first coming while we eagerly anticipate His second coming. We live in the in between times, between the first and second comings. The kingdom of God is present and it is coming. Each day that passes bringing it one day closer.
On this first Sunday of Advent we celebrate communion, the Lord’s Supper. It may seem strange to celebrate Christ’s coming birth and something that preceded His death at the same time. Yet both are similar for in both we acknowledge the mystery of Christ. Jesus Christ is coming and He is here with us. We say it in the words of part of the communion liturgy. Great is the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. This is our great hope as Christians.
Today we lit the candle of hope. As Christians, we have hope. We hope in God, our Creator who called this world into being and knows every sparrow that falls. We hope in God, our Redeemer who has saved us from our sin. We hope in God, our Sustainer who upholds us when we would fall, who lifts us up on wings like eagles an loves us with an unfailing love.