“Word Accomplishes God’s Purpose” Isaiah 55:1-13

 My family has always been ones to prepare for things early. My mother is always good about making us have our Christmas lists complete before October, shopping done before November, tree up in early November, and so on. Our preparation is not limited to Christmas – oh no – even to this day I usually have my bags packed a week before I make a trip. 

But really that’s what makes part of anything we look forward to worthwhile, right? The sense of expectation that comes when we begin to prepare. The mounting joy and sense of wonder that comes as each day brings us one step closer.

The people of Israel had lost their sense of expectation. Their sense of having something to prepare for. The place they lived and worship, the place that they believed the spirit of God dwelled had fallen – Jerusalem had been taken by the Babylonians and with it, the people of power had been marched on a three month journey to be exiled in Babylon. It was a bleak time that lasted for many years. So many that those who were first taken away had died off, leaving only their legacy and stories of what once had been of the people of Israel and the mighty city of Jerusalem. And with the death of those who first traveled so many miles seemed to be the extinction of any hope of returning.

The people felt that they were being punished for breaking their covenant with God. It is what the prophets of old had told them. It was what their forefathers and mothers had drilled into their heads. It was what they believed.

But then. But then the unexpected happened. In a community so wrought with despair, God appeared. God not only appeared, but God did this radical things. God commanded God’s very self to comfort his people. Let’s stop for just a moment and think about that. No one on this earth or in the host of Heaven has the power to command God and actually expect God to do what was commanded. No one. No one, except for God’s very being. And that is what we have here; God telling God to comfort the people of Israel. He wants Israel to know that their time of trial is coming to a close. That salvation is just around the corner. God gives the people something to hope for. Something to prepare for.

God tells the people that help is on the way. Seek the Lord and you will find him. And you will be filled with joy. 

This must be done – for God has commanded God, and God cannot go back on his own word. Everything else is this world may only be beautiful and true for a fleeting period of time, but the word of God always is fulfilled without mortal limitations.

God is doing a new thing. He is about to come in and declare his might by gathering up this people, his very own, and carrying them back to the place of freedom form which they came. 

What a powerful message. What a radical message for a people who had never actually seen or been to Jerusalem. We will find is subsequent weeks that not all followed this message of God and not all believed this message of God commanding God’s very self. But maybe this message and the reaction to it by God’s people isn’t too far off from our reality today.

Today we are in the third Sunday of Advent. We are half way to Christmas. And while the world around us is spinning, we are invited to come and sit in the joy of the Lord. To be filled and then to go forth with that joy to spread with the world.

I recently was having a conversation with some devout believers about what prevents people from coming to a life in Christ. My answer surprised them. A lack of joy. Friends, joy is not only the focus of this particular week of Advent, it is a fruit of a spirit. Not a gift of the spirit that only some are given to build up the body of Christ. A fruit of the spirit that is evidence of Christ working in our hearts and lives.

Yet, do you know some folks who love Jesus but aren’t filled with joy? Remember joy is not dependent upon circumstances. Isaiah is speaking to the people about joy when they are in the middle of a heart-breaking exile. Yet, joy is still avaliable in God and joy can still be shared. 

We are are a people of joy. Yet the world around us is going to try to beat that out of us and distract us with worries and hustle from the deep, abiding joy we can have in the Lord. Even in this season. We can become so distracted, friends, that we forget who we are. This is the time of the year when we all should be slowing down and reflecting upon God, yet sometimes it seems like we are just running from one thing to the next without really having time to seek the face of God.

Yet that’s exactly what today’s scripture passage invites us to do. To seek God’s face and be filled. Isaiah is speaking to a group of exiles, trying to bring them hope and proclaim God’s salvation to them. He is speaking to those who are becoming discouraged being in a foreign land amongst people who do not believe what they believe. And to these people who yearn for God to save them, the prophet proclaims, “everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.” Come seek after God and be filled. 

We call each other to come and remember as the people of God tthat God is so faithful, because we are being held captive by the world around us. So when some of us hear this message of hope that some in our midst become excited about and start to prepare for, we dismiss them as optimists or dreamers. Because in all actuality, we don’t want to return to this place we have never been. We don’t want to trust this God whom had just be handed down to us through our ancestors but whom we have never met. So we choose to stay put. We continue in our bleak daily existence, because we don’t have anything radical to become excited about any more.

But others of us will hear the still small whisper of the truth about this season. The truth about what is yet to come. So we become excited. We look forward to something that we don’t know quite what to expect. And even in the unexpected we are filled with joy. 

So in the words of a Christian song I find deeply moving, . “Let all who are weak, all who are weary. Come to the rock, come to the fountain. All who have sailed on the rivers of heartache, come to the sea, come on be set free!” Friends, the invitation to come to the waters and seek after God are just as much extended to us today as they were to the people of Israel. And that is truly what the season of Lent is about, seeking and finding. Realizing that God’s ways are above our ways. Stopping and sitting in the silence listening to the voice of God. To cease striving for the things that cannot last and do not truly satisfy. 

Whenever I hear this text from Isaiah my mind goes to the Samaritan woman at the well who encountered Jesus one day. She listened to him talk about this water that will satisfy so you will no longer be thirsty. God is offering us that water still. The water that quenches our very spirits, from everlasting to everlasting. Yet, all to often we reject what God is offering us in our haste to get to the next thing. Or we don’t realize how truly thirsty we are. We forget that what God is offering us is truly the best. Offering us living water from the fountain of life that will not run dry. 

 For when we run from one thing to the next looking for satisfaction, looking for truth, looking for meaning, looking only for the joy of this world - we will never find what we are looking for. Never find the water that fills our spirits. The water that is freely given and can be freely received. For that water can only be found in the presence of a Holy God. The one whom the prophet tells us to seek after. May we allow God to draw near to us this Advent season. May we seek after the one who invites us to come.