Advent 2 - God comes to us

Isaiah 40: 1-11,   Mark 1: 1-8

Can you remember when you were little?

Old enough to be walking.. but young enough to get tired a long time before the adults you were with – and maybe older brothers or sister or cousins. 

Everyone else is striding along, determinedly, tirelessly, focussed on getting.. wherever it is you are going. You start off walking full of energy, maybe even skipping, perhaps chatting happily to the person whose hand you are holding. 

But after walking for a long, long time the path seems to have no end and it’s hard, and you’re starting to tire. You start to wonder if your legs can really carry you much further… you stop talking to save your breath… you start to feel a bit wobbly, not just your legs, but you’re getting tearful – so, so, tired. 

Really you want to stop and rest. You look up at your dad or your mum or whoever you’re with and say “I can’t go much further. I only have little legs..” or maybe you just cry.

The long legs next to you stop; strong arms reach down to pick you up. You’re held safe and high and carried easily and safely to the end of the journey where you can rest at last.

When Isaiah tells God’s people that the Lord God will feed his flock like a shepherd he is not just reminding them of how great God is – he is reminding the people how much they need God’s presence.

“He will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom”.

God’s people are as weary as a struggling lamb or a tiring child and God knows that and will act to help them.

At this point in their history, when this prophecy of Isaiah was given, God’s people have endured 50 years of exile in Babylon – either being taken off into a foreign land or being left behind in a shattered city.

And Isaiah declares “Comfort” to the people. And not just a pat on the head, patronising kind of comfort – the word used in Isaiah is the one for the comfort you give a grieving person – it has a sense of consoling, holding, helping.

The people of God are weary and cannot see a way back to prosperity and contendness and peace. Isaiah declares – God is coming to you. God declares that the impossible will happen – there will be a highway in the desert flattening hills in the way, crushing rocks, leaping gorges. And this road is not so that the people can find their own way home, but so that God will find his way to them with all speed and grace. Isaiah cries “here is your God!”.

The highway is not a literal path for God’s arrival – surely God doesn’t need a motorway or a railroad – it is a metaphor for making a way for God to come – making a way that removes all obstacles – making a way in the hearts and minds of the people, removing all the barriers that stop them from knowing and believing God is with them.

You can see why the words of Isaiah were comforting to a shattered and broken people who had endured exile – God will come and lift you up again.

At the Zoom Bible Study on Tuesday we thought about how hard it is at the moment to read anything which talks about the people of Israel, or Jerusalem, or Bethlehem (which is in a Palestinian territory). We would not feel comfortable having these words twisted to offer support to either side in the present conflict. But Isaiah’s words, originally spoken to the people of Jerusalem at the time of exile, have been treasured by generations since then – generations of Jewish believers and then generations of Christians, too as they are used every Advent and sung in Handel’s Messiah. 

Wherever God’s children are in distress this is the promise of a God who takes the initiative to save them.

So Mark, setting down the start of his gospel ‘the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God’, also begins with a portion of Isaiah and also talks about making a way for the Lord to come through the desert.

John the Baptist’s method of preparing the way was not to build a literal road for God’s coming, but to prepare people’s hearts and lives by offering baptism for the forgiveness of sins. He teaches the many people who flock to him, to expect the one who is to come (who we know to be Jesus). When John finally sees Jesus, among the crowd in the desert, according to John’s gospel he says “behold, the Lamb of God”.

For Mark, setting down his gospel, the birth of Jesus with its manger and stable and shepherds and magi, which we remember at Christmas, is not important to relate. 

Mark begins here, in the wilderness, where people are most in need, and John the Baptist points people to the presence among them of the son of God, of Jesus the Christ, of the living, eternal God made human flesh among them.

The whole of Jesus’ birth and ministry is a description of God coming to be with us. God takes the initiative to come to earth and live among us.

Just as Isaiah’s promise came to the weary and broken of his time, so Jesus comes to the people who are suffering Roman occupation, who are taxed and oppressed and counted like cattle by a foreign army. We celebrate the child in the manger because we know he will grow to be the man who declares himself to be the Good Shepherd, who has stooped down to earth to be with us and who will allow the Roman soldiers to crucify him to show that he is with us through death and into eternal life.

I find the Godly Play story of the Holy Family, which we heard earlier, both simple and powerful. It takes us back to what we know of the story of the birth of Jesus and helps us remember both how simple and how awe-inspiring it is. (You can see it on YouTube here )

Where does all this leave us, this Advent?

You might be wondering, as I am, whether you will be ready for Christmas when it comes – the time seems short, the list of things to do seems long. But the great message from these readings this morning is that we don’t need to do anything to find that God is with us. There are things we can do, reflect on, think about, read, that might help us feel more ready.

But the truth is that God is coming in Jesus – to stoop down to pick us up when we most need it.

If you’re weary, and uncertain about your direction, think back again to that small child on the walk – know that the arms of God are waiting to gather you up – trust that God is coming to us. Sometime, soon, we will hear the words “he will be called Immanuel - ‘God is with us’ “ – and we will know it to be true.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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