Category: Expectation (Advent Series)

Thanks for joining me for our Advent series: Expectation.

We will be working our way through portions of Isaiah, focusing on the expectation of the Messiah. In our final week before Christmas we will also explore Psalm 22. Invite a friend to join you as you connect with your expectations this Christmas.

Isaiah 7:13-16

“Then Isaiah said, “Listen well, you royal family of David! Isn’t it enough to exhaust human patience? Must you exhaust the patience of my God as well? All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). By the time this child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey. For before the child is that old, the lands of the two kings you fear so much will both be deserted.”

This Christmas season, I am reminded of the feeling of expectation and longing that the Jewish people had in waiting for their promised Messiah. Waiting is hard in general, but when you have something specific you are waiting for it can be excruciating. As Christians we live in a waiting, longing state as we hold the expectation of Jesus’ return. And while we have some clues as to what this final return might look like, the restoration of heaven and earth is not nearly as clear as some might believe.

In today’s passage, we look at some signs that God promised that would help his people identify the Messiah. The first clue is a virgin giving birth to a child. That must have been a pretty big head-scratcher before the fact… A second clue that God gives his people is that the Messiah will be called Immanuel, meaning “God is with us.” And when he arrives on the scene, your precious kingdoms will be long gone.

We tend to fill in information when we are given bits and pieces, so the Jewish people had filled in a lot of gaps in the prophecies with information and expectation that was not true. When we cling to our own expectations based on the things we have “figured out,” we might miss what God is actually doing. Many Jews at the time of Jesus expected him to be a political leader. Only a bunch of rowdy shepherds would believe he was a baby in a stable. God’s work is always greater than what we can imagine, and his plans out-do our expectations every time. But we must remember to hold loosely to the things our minds expect as we continue to hope in the goodness of God far above any circumstance.

Isaiah 9:1

“Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever. The land of Zebulun and Naphtali will be humbled, but there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between the Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory.”

Have you ever gone through a time of darkness and despair? What is the number one thing we all think when we are in a difficult spot? “This is never going to end!” There is something about hardship that convinces our minds that the darkness will never lift. But it does lift. Nothing remains the same forever. Hope wins.

This prophetic word in Isaiah tells of a “time in the future when Galilee… will be filled with glory.” We know from the New Testament that Jesus was from Galilee — a fulfillment of this prophecy. This place in the midst of judgment, defeat, and humiliation would not stay down forever. All they needed to do was hold on long enough for Jesus.

The world will not remain in darkness and decay forever. Your difficult situation will not always be the way it is right now. Pause and ask yourself, “What am I expecting to stay the same in my life? What am I expecting to change?” God is at work in your life right now. What do you expect will come of that work? Perhaps it is not better circumstances, but a greater closeness to God’s presence that will brighten your world. May we all, like Galilee, be filled with his glory.

Isaiah 9:2-5

“The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine. You will enlarge the nation of Israel, and its people will rejoice. They will rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest and like warriors dividing the plunder. For you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders. You will break the oppressor’s rod, just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian. The boots of the warrior and the uniforms bloodstained by war will all be burned. They will be fuel for the fire.”

Prophecy is mysterious, and I can only imagine what people prior to Jesus’ day thought when they heard Isaiah’s words read aloud. “Something good is coming…” is the message loud and clear. But what exactly? How? We see light and dark imagery, commonly used in all sorts of literature genres. God is reminding us of the spiritual battle that is being waged on our behalf. Dark versus light.

What happens to your eyes when you go from darkness to light? If you’ve ever gone to a matinee movie you know the feeling… There is a shock to the system as you get your bearings. Your eyes have to adjust. We live in a time when our eyes are still adjusting. We see bits and pieces of the kingdom of Heaven, parts of the war won while the darkness continues on other fronts. But we know, just as Isaiah’s audience knew, the burden will be lifted someday.

Darkness has a way of making it hard to see details. Perhaps you can make out shapes or shadows, but you can’t see the whole picture. The Holy Spirit shines a light in certain places, but until Jesus’ glory is fully revealed and heaven and earth are made new we will not understand everything. This semi-darkness is why we continue to wait and hope. That heavy burden on your shoulders will be lifted. That is an eternal guarantee.

Isaiah 9:6-7 (NLT)

“For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!”

These verses comprise some of the most famous lyrics in Handel’s Messiah. The words “to us” hit me as I meditate on them. This child described in these verses was given to us. Not to me, not to you. To us. This is a gift on a global scale, and there is a sense in these verses that the Messiah will change the whole earth.

Notice his names: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. A person’s title says a lot about what they do and what is important to them. He is a ruler that brings great peace. Fairness and justice describe his kingdom. The last sentence is my favorite. If the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is passionately committed to something, I have no doubt it will happen.

Most Jewish people familiar with these Messianic prophecies expected a government ruler to be their savior. Perhaps a king or a military leader. The mistake here, and one that we often make today, was to look at prophecy through an earthly lens. The Messiah wasn’t going to come and save them from an earthly oppression. He wasn’t going to overthrow earthly governments. He wasn’t going to establish an earthly kingdom. No, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies had something much bigger in mind. Eternal things cannot fail, crash, end, or be destroyed. This king Jesus will bring permanent peace. Pause today and ask yourself, “What are some ways I still think about Jesus from an earthly perspective?” Allow him to tear apart the limits in your thinking and expand your understanding of him as the eternal King.

Isaiah 11:1-5 (NLT)

“Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot— yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He will delight in obeying the Lord. He will not judge by appearance nor make a decision based on hearsay. He will give justice to the poor and make fair decisions for the exploited. The earth will shake at the force of his word, and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked. He will wear righteousness like a belt and truth like an undergarment.”

Why does God speak in vague metaphor so often? Most of us would prefer writing in the sky. We seek high and low to get information about the future — psychics, horoscopes, even a slip of paper in a cookie. We just want to know. I’m not sure what we think would happen if we knew all of what the future holds. Most of us look back on life and are glad for not having known all of what we were getting ourselves into. We need to simply walk and trust and take one gift from God at a time.

Today’s verses have hints at what the Messiah would be like. Someone from David’s lineage, someone wise, someone obedient, someone who can bring justice, and someone who can destroy the wicked in a single word. Oh, and he wears truth underpants. Yeah, God just said that. Knowing Jesus now, of course this all makes sense. But if we had never heard about Jesus, if we did not know him and his Spirit as we do, would we recognize him?

There are a lot of “Christian” things in our world today that have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus. In fact, many of those things are the very things Jesus opposed while on earth. Good, “religious” behavior often misses the heartbeat of God. He loves the poor, he doesn’t judge on appearance, and the earth that he’s shaking isn’t going to be in a loud voice defending the rich or well-off. This Advent season, tune in to the heart of God. Step away from the Christian “positions” and look for Jesus beside the poor and the broken. It’s his favorite place to be.