Monday 6th December - Darkness into light

06/12/2010 by paul.

Isaiah 9:2-7

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep
darkness,
on them has light shined.
You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Isaiah prophesied seven centuries before Christ, not in the legendary world of Abraham and Moses but in the age of historical empires. The year Isaiah had his great vision and commission in the Temple (Isa. 6) was the year Ahaz came to the throne in Jerusalem. The terrifyingly named Tiglath Pileser III ruled the Assyrian Empire, and had devastated Galilee and the north. Was this to be the fate of Judah, or would God act to save them?

This was the shadow of death that hung over the people: the warrior’s boot and the blood-stained clothes of the dead. In recent years we have seen terrorist attacks in America and here in the UK, and more recently news of the continuing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and, a generation that has taken freedom for granted is having to ask itself what that word is really going to mean for us and how it is to be won and held.

The question in our Advent journey is much the same. Living this side of Christmas, we take Christ for granted: but how is his kingdom actually going to come among us? How do the great promises to the patriarchs translate into historical reality?

Isaiah’s prophecy brings a possibility and a problem. The possibility is that the tide of history will turn. The problem is that it might only be that, and that what Isaiah calls joy will in fact only be happiness – the good feeling when happenstances go right – for a while. Isaiah’s alarm call says reach higher. Joy is something else – the deep lightness of heart that comes when we know that whatever the happenstances, all will be well. It has roots not so much in the past as in the future and draws life from them to bring extravagant hope into even the worst of history.

So where do your roots lie? Is it just a matter of researching our ancestry or the traditions to which we belong? Are we just the conditioned products of our pedigrees? And where the past has hurt us, is that also it: and we must live with the scars?

No we have other roots we can draw on – and in them can be healing as well as hope. Some of the roots reach out to those who love us; and some forward in hope to the God who loves us too. We do though, face a choice. We can sit by the waters of Babylon and bemoan our exile, and embrace bitterness; or we can reach out our roots into the water, and live.

Where are your roots – what are the things that give your life foundations to build upon, and what supports you. Give thanks to God for these things. Where are your roots reaching out too? Pray for strength to live ‘in exile’.

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