Word of Salvation – Vol.19 No.06 – November 1972
The Coming Of God
Advent Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf, B.D. on Isaiah 40:1-5
SCRIPTURE READING: Luke 3:1-18
PSALTER HYMNAL: 121; 126(1,2,4) (after law); 55(1,2,3); 335; 406
It is first Advent Sunday today, and Advent means: “COMING”. The four advent Sundays precede and introduce Christmas, because while the WORLD regards the birth of Jesus as just another excuse for just another party, the Church of Jesus Christ wants to give itself time to wonder that – where we could not and would not – come to God, God came to us! The amazing message is indeed in that one word: Advent! He came! He comes! Let us listen to the Word of God from that classic Advent passage: Isaiah 40. There we, in our text this morning, hear of THE COMING OF GOD.
1. to whom
2. with what
3. which way, and…
4. wherefore.
1. TO WHOM?
It is obvious from the whole second part of Isaiah’s prophecies, the part that starts with our text, that the prophet talks first and foremost to Judah as it would come back from Babylon, Isaiah had prophesied that God would be so angry with the sins of His people that He would allow them to be dragged away to the land of the enemy. And how well-deserved that punishment was! Jerusalem had mocked its God! Jerusalem had – in spite of God’s warnings – lived as if THEY could just please themselves! In the days of Isaiah’s first years as prophet, Ahaz had been king, and this godless no-hoper on David’s throne had even locked up the doors of the temple! Then Hezekiah had come and had sought – after Ahaz’s death – to reform the Kingdom. That had been a beautiful time. But after him Manasseh had ascended the throne and he had been even more godless then Ahaz! And that while they should have known the danger, because to the North, the Kingdom of Israel, the Ten Tribes, had already perished as a punishment of God! They had already been dragged away to Assyria!
But do you think they cared? No sir! They were heading for destruction and punishment, a culture that had the FORM of the service of God but no longer its power. A nation of church-goers when it suited them, but no longer a nation that loved God. And Isaiah gets the call from God: Tell them that I will judge them! They will not believe you! They have fat hearts, closed eyes and deaf ears! They go for the fun, for the pleasing of self. They go for what God can GIVE, but for the Giver Himself they have no time. They mumble and gripe when the service lasts too long. They refuse to keep God’s Day holy, and they only want to find God when they are in need. For the rest, they are like people today who pay God His ‘dues’ on a Sunday morning (when the weather is neither too bad nor too good) and for the rest they have their hearts and their minds, their souls and their time, full of money and holidays and outings and . . . yes, worries too!
Is God their God? Well, they sure don’t treat Him as their God! Now it is bad enough when heathens and Assyrians and Philistines treat Him like that. But when God’s own people, whom He saved from misery whom He rescued from death and whom He had given His Word, are giving Him the cold shoulder like that, that hurts! And it angers Him! And so – Isaiah tells them – there will be an end to God’s patience, and He will allow Jerusalem to be destroyed and the beautiful Temple to be torn down. He will finally remove the candlestick from its place. Isaiah sees it before his mind already. God shows him! After centuries of patience. . . that will be the end!
But then he looks further! God shows him THAT, too! And in the amazing words of our text, God says . . . to THAT nation, to THAT ungrateful bunch of no-hopers: MY PEOPLE! Comfort – you prophets! – messengers of Mine. Comfort MY PEOPLE says YOUR GOD! Yes speak comfortably, kindly, to the heart of JERUSALEM.
I know folks who were born and bred in Holland, but they migrated to Australia and now there is nothing good about Holland any more. The climate is wrong and the taxes are too heavy and the neighbours were stickybeaks and the bosses were slave drivers and, boy, there was no end to the list of complaints! All right, let’s say they HAD a raw deal! But what is it compared to what GOD had to feel about Jerusalem, about His people? They had grieved Him and thrown Him out! They had ignored His will and disobeyed His good law! They had hated both Him and their neighbour. And their exile was deserved! God had had patience enough!
But now listen! Comfort …MY PEOPLE! And you and I know HOW GOD MEANT THAT INCREDIBLE STATEMENT! For the day was coming of the great Advent, the great ARRIVAL and the Eternal Son of God would – yes – Himself become such a Jew; He would Himself become a member of that nation and of that Mankind, so that God THEN INDEED would say: This is MY PEOPLE. I have now become ONE OF THEM! Flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones! Oh brothers and sisters, and what was that mankind going to do to that heavenly Citizen who became one of them? What were we going to do to Him Who SO MUCH said, “My people” that He cried in our night and suffered under our pain? We were to be no better than Israel! We had a cross for Jesus! We gave Him the dirty deal of all the centuries! Jerusalem. . . . it crucified its Lord! And yet. . . . He says: “Comfort. . . comfort MY PEOPLE!”
He came to His own and His own received Him not!
We must see with amazement what mob it is that He calls: “MY PEOPLE”. Speak to the heart of JERUSALEM…. ‘CITY OF PEACE’ that means. But it is a city of war, a city that made a cross for its God. It is a city that maybe goes to church but that starves the poor and – yes – maybe they pray on the street corners, those citizens of Jerusalem, but they make the Temple full of idols or they make it a den of thieves. Ahaz planted an image of a false god in that temple and in Jesus’ days they sold animals and changed money. And when God came. . . they had a cross for Him, and mockery: “If YOU are the Son of God, why don’t you come down.”
But He says: MY PEOPLE. And then you and I begin to see a bit what love is. We who think that God must be very pleased that we came here at all this morning. But as soon as some other fellow in the church says a nasty word to us we stay away for a few Sundays. I know young people who are getting on in age but they have NEVER YET answered the call of their God in baptism. . . never yet professed their faith because they have a thing or two against church people. . . they have a chip or two on their shoulder. But He Who never did any sin Himself, He Who came to share our pain and our night, was nailed to a cross and thrown out. . . and He says: MY PEOPLE…! And WE think we know what love is? Oh God. . . and YOU did THAT for me? YOU call US that?
Yes, Advent is the coming of God. WE did not come to Him… but HE came to us. That’s the story! There is none other! To whom does He come? He says: “Jerusalem” – He says: “My people”. Oh, that we then may learn to say: Lord, I am not worthy that you come under MY roof! But speak but one word, and my soul shall be healed! And He does speak that word, for….
(2nd) WITH WHAT does this God come? The Bible tells us: with COMFORT, PEACE, and PAYMENT OF DEBT. COMFORT says our text – COMFORT! You have to know what grief is, to know what comfort is. Someone is sick to death. There is no hope, it seems. But then comfort is not the bloke who tells you to cheer up. Comfort is the doctor who after the operation tells you that you shall not die but live. That is comfort and that is how God does it! He comforts not just in words. . . He comforts by His deeds. Cry to Jerusalem that her war is over! He says.
Jerusalem was at war. At war with her God. At war with the Lord of hosts! Who can win such a war? Who has a chance in such a battle? All the stars are his, and the smallest star is a million atom bombs! How can we ever have a hope in war against Him? But Jerusalem had that war. A sinful world has that war. We’re against God! ‘We declare Him dead!’ says proud man. But whoever gets his eyes open to who God really is, is terrified about this! WHAT? At war with God? King Josiah had the law of God read to him. The law he and his people had forgotten. And as he heard what God would do to those that were disobedient, he tore his clothes in terror and fear: “WHAT HAVE WE DONE??”
We are at war with God – How can we ever win? How can we survive? We see today a bit of what can happen to a culture that is at war with God. How it can hollow out from within, and how its proud plans founder the one after the other. Psalm 2 tells of the foolishness of nations and of people who say, “Let us tear asunder the rule of our Maker” and Psalm 14 tells how foolish it is to even say in your heart (let alone to shout from the rooftops) GOD IS DEAD! Proud man is at war with God, and God is at war with him… Until. . . until there is that message bought with blood: “TELL JERUSALEM, SAY TO MY PEOPLE. . . HER WAR IS OVER! The shuddering people in the air raid shelter hear the signal: “All clear” and whoever has been through the terror of World War II will remember the unbelievable relief: “IT IS OVER . . . WE ARE FREE! IT IS PEACE!” I have seen old men dance in the streets and I have seen hard characters weep tears of joy: it is over; it is peace. . . the war is over!
MY PEOPLE . . . have their debts paid – DOUBLE! Enough! Not a cent lacking! Even the interest paid up! And we know now how that was done. We know how the Guiltless One not only suffered the punishment for our wrongdoings but also fulfilled all obedience. We know how Jesus was greater than Adam, in doing what he should have done AS WELL AS undoing the wrong he did! DOUBLE FOR ALL HER SINS! He saves to the uttermost, until He could cry out – SOMEONE CRYING AGAIN!!! – with a loud voice: “IT IS FINISHED!” SUCH is the COMING OF GOD! Such is HIS ADVENT! To whom? He says YET: “TO MY people!” With what? He says: with comfort for those who mourn; with peace for those at war with Me, with full payment, double for all sins!
OH THE COMING OF GOD. But then…
3. ALONG WHAT WAY? “Listen! A voice is crying: “Prepare in the wilderness a way for the LORD! Make straight in the desert a highway for our God! Let every valley be filled in! – and every mountain and hill be laid low. Let every cliff be made a Plain and ridges become a pleasant thoroughfare”. Well, we know today that this is no easy thing! In many places they are doing that sort of thing these days: Road construction is going on all over the place. And we know the huge machinery needed to do that job. The roaring monsters that must tackle those mountains and the clanging and clattering scoops that must fill valleys!
When John the Baptist tells the nation of God that the Saviour at last is about to come, he makes no bones about the roadbuilding needed to prepare a highway for this mighty Lord. We just cannot be easy-going about receiving Jesus, “Lift up your heads you gates and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, that the KING OF GLORY may come in!” God wants changed lives! God wants a highway of holiness! Enormous the rubble that must be cleared! But: The power in the bulldozer is that of the Spirit! And HE will supply the strength to whoever asks HIM for it! We need not just ask God for the spirit of forgiveness! We may also ask Him for the Spirit of VICTORY. We are invited to more than the blessed assurance that “Jesus is mine!” We are also called to man the roaring machines that get stuck in the sin and corruption, the pollution and the curse that lies on the world around us. We are called to be highway builders for our God, because:-
4. HIS GLORY SHALL BE REVEALED and ALL FLESH SHALL SEE IT TOGETHER THAT THE MOUTH OF THE LORD HAS SPOKEN IT. I will never for- get how in the year after the war, I was taken along with my father and mother to hear for the first time Handel’s splendid oratorio “Messiah”. As you know, that wonderful piece of music starts with our very text of today. The tenor sings “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. . . !” and he goes on with the call to prepare the highway for God through a sinful world full of the rubble and debris of our sin.
But then suddenly there is the choir, for the first time with that tremendous fugue:
“And the glory, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed!”
Overwhelming!
I remember vividly how the impact of that music and those words so overcame me as a 16-year old boy, that I wept and thought I couldn’t stop crying. It was as if I was in heaven already. But hallelujah! I wasn’t! I was on earth and the Lord gave me a little foretaste of what will happen when these words become true:
HIS GLORY SHALL BE REVEALED!
For that is why! That is what!
Jesus did not come just to ship a privileged bunch of goodies off to some safe faraway heaven! He came to make God’s glory ride the highway of earth!
He came to put the song in the mouth of redeemed sinners who in turn should put that song in the mouth of God’s creation and other people!
“THE GLORY OF THE LORD SHALL BE REVEALED!”
It is now often still concealed!
That glory of God, it is now often hidden. Hidden in the grateful silence of a heart comforted. Hidden in the deep peace of a heart washed clean from sin. But Advent is more than ‘Silent Night’. Advent is that first coming of Jesus that culminated in the Open Grave!
Advent is that row of events that led to The Son of Man going to the throne!
And now He says “MY PEOPLE” and that’s YOU and ME! MY PEOPLE! He says, ‘Prepare again a highway for Me! And where you see the desert that sin has made, I call YOU to make the hills flat and the valleys full!
Not by your power…
Not by your might,
But by My Spirit!
A cup of cold water in my Name.
or a kind deed to a stranger for My sake!
A piece of music that praises Me
and a Christian family life set up by two young people getting married!
A highway for your God!
Push aside the rubble of dirty books…
and by the power of My Spirit shove away the debris of man-centred thinking!
A highway for your God! Then His glory begins to sing already where stone-age tribes in New Guinea at last get free of the fear of demons, and where labour in Canada gets free of the false rule of the class struggle!
A highway for your God! When the coming of Jesus brings black and white together on their knees and old, old quarrels are forgotten around the Communion Table!
For Advent means: “Coming” and God came here, and did things HERE which you and I have heard about and now ALL FLESH shall see it together, yes… may begin to see it now already, that the mouth of God has spoken it.
Take heart! He came! He won! He is coming again! Maranatha! Amen.