Hope and Joy: A Meditation on Isaiah 35 for the 3rd Sunday in Advent

The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them;

and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing:

the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon,

they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.

 

Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

Say to them that are of a fearful heart,

Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance,

even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

 

The Prophet Isaiah preached the Word of God to the people of Judah during a tumultuous time, when the Assyrians had conquered and laid waste the northern 10 tribes of Israel, and Babylon would eventually conquer the remaining southern tribes of which Jerusalem was the capital.  He bore witness to the coming judgement of God upon His people for their abandonment of His Word to follow other gods and evil ways of life, but he also bore witness to God’s grace, redemption, and mercy.  In chapter 35, God’s Word to faithful King Hezekiah was one of deliverance from the hand of the resurgent Assyrians who would attempt to overthrow Judah as they had Israel, and a promise that in days to come there would be refreshing of the earth in righteousness, joy, and blessedness.  Not only did God fulfill His promise to Hezekiah by turning back the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, but He was also faithful to bring forth the Messiah who would make all things new some 600 years or so later.  Knowing that God will always fulfill His Word and always in His own time, the people of God continue to look forward to the final return of our Savior, the resurrection of the dead, and the refreshing of all creation.  And in the times intervening between the present day and the Last Day, the people of God live in God’s gracious and providential presence with hope and joy, regardless of the rising or falling tides of darkness in the world.

 

Authentic hope and joy are inextricable from each other, because both flow from the same unassailable Word of God.  What is hope, but to know the promises of God for His people, that He has come to give them life more abundantly than any fallen mind can imagine?  And what is joy, but the solid confidence that hope must be fulfilled by that same promise?  When Jesus arrived incarnate on that first Christmas morning, He came to fulfill all the prophetic promises that He gave to the Prophets in ages past.  He is the One who caused the crippled to jump and dance, the blind to see, and the deaf to hear; to preach forgiveness and grace by way of repentance and faith in His Word; to declare and then perform in His own flesh and blood the Vicarious Atonement for the sins of the whole world; to rise victorious on that first Easter morning, lavishing His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation upon all who would trust in Him.  His disciples moved out into the world full of hope and joy, grace and faith, to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone, in every land, and in every culture, toppling the rule of demons and demonically inspired men.  The hope and joy the disciples were given could no more be taken away from them than the very Word of God could be overthrown.  No matter what circumstances they found themselves in, whether persecuted, imprisoned, detested, or even martyred, they could still count it all joy for the sake of the Promise they had received in Jesus.  They knew that the Promise of the Gospel was forever, and that the sufferings of the present age were only fleeting moments against the backdrop of eternity.

 

In our own day, we would be wise to remember the hope that moved Jesus’ first disciples to become Apostles, and turned the dark, pagan world upside down.  Like King Hezekiah, the Apostles could find no hope or joy in the trappings of politics, of venerable social institutions, in the trappings of ceremony and ritual, or in the ambitions of waxing and waning empires.  The hope of the people of God does not rest on politicians or political parties, the balance of power in Congresses or Parliaments, the sobriety of Justices or the exercise of Executive Administrations.  The hope and joy of God’s people rests solely and immovably upon the Word of His Promise.  While it may look like wicked men move the world toward their own ends, the truth is that God continues to guide the world and all creation to the ends He established before the world began.  The evil will rise up and bear their own guilt, often doing tremendous harm within the boundaries they are given, but God alone can make all things work out for good, particularly for those whose trust abides in Him.  This of course does not mean that His saints are entirely preserved from suffering, persecution, and even death, for all mankind is appointed once to die and then to appear before God for judgment.  Rather, it is that His people are preserved in and through every tribulation and even in their final Judgment, while those who persecute His people will go to their own everlasting punishment.  The hope and joy of God’s people is such that it cannot be shaken by wounds and injuries of contemporary circumstance, because it is rooted in the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

In our age, as in many ages before us, people have wandered away from the sure Promises of God, and in leaning upon their own understandings, have lost their hope and joy.  Many have been deceived to follow their own passions with wanton abandon, and have found only misery and death.  Others have been convinced that politicians will save them if only they were granted more money and power to guide and provision their lives, but find like the peoples of all tyrannical lands that they have become merely slaves.  Some have trusted in academics, philosophers, administrators, and experts to shepherd their lives, only later to find themselves abused and misguided for the enrichment of their guides.  Still others have trusted in science and technology to solve the profound questions of human purpose and the dignity of life, later to discover that endless addiction to media and a bottomless pit of pharmaceuticals have provided little quality or quantity to achieve the goal of a good and wholesome life.  The increasing hopelessness and joylessness of the world around us, as evidenced by the calamitous rise in brutal crimes, mental illness, substance addiction, suicide, population collapse, and civilizational decay, does not so much rest on the failures of the solutions people have tried to apply to their problems, but to their abandonment of the only true source of hope and joy which is given to mankind by their Creator.  Passion, politics, academia, science, and technology can all be used well in accordance with the Word of God, but apart from God’s Word, they become poisoned fonts and fetid pools that leave their drinker’s thirst unquenched.

 

As we press toward Christmas, we come face to face once again with the hope and joy of God’s promise for His people.  Jesus, the very Incarnate Word of God, comes to dwell among us, that we might live and move and have our being in Him.  His Promise is made sure and irrevocable through the work of His Cross, so that the gifts He gives cannot be stolen by any power of fallen men.  To us, a Child is born—to us, a Son is given!  To us is given the Word of forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation, which is in itself victory over every sin, over all death, and over every power of hell.  This is the hope and joy of God’s people which endures and shines in every age through those same people who are commissioned to bear witness to the Word which gives them reason for such hope and joy.  We, who are blessed to live in that Word of Promise, full of joy and hope by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, are also sent to share that Word with everyone we meet.  And in so doing, we may just see our darkening, pagan world turned upside down once again.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.