December 5: Isaiah 4:2-6

Life is full of seasons.  As this marvelous world turns and tilts and gives us the seasons we count by the calendar, other seasons are marked by events and attitudes.  As it tells us in Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything.  Our seasons of life—grief, joy, friendship, sorrow, birth, death, growing, reaping—remain with us, regardless of our age, our wealth, or our outlook on life.

We call this season “Advent.”  We look forward to it and celebrate it as a way to bring the Christian existence full-circle each year.  By re-visiting the seasons of the Christian calendar, we continually remind ourselves that God wants us to use His calendar, not ours. 

To see Isaiah 4 in the light of Advent, we need to see the first three chapters of the book as it leads to Chapter 6, the famous “I saw the Lord” statement so important to Jewish, and later Christian, culture.  Isaiah 4:2-6 is full of metaphoric and symbolic language typical of Isaiah.  All of it foretells the effects Christ’s birth, suffering, death, and resurrection will have for a sinful world.

For Isaiah, this was his season of hope.  He wished to portray a time when the Messianic promise would be fulfilled for his people.  But before that portrayal could be complete (see Chapter 40) he needed to lay the groundwork – by reminding his people where they had fallen short (Chapters 1-3), by alluding to his future and more complete prophecy (Chapter 4), by pausing to pray, sing, and meditate on these ideas (Chapter 5), and later fully worshipping the Lord (Chapter 6).  Isaiah understands, and indeed instructs us, that is it not a straight path to the Resurrection.  He, his people, and his future Messiah need to continually visit the seasons of life.  They have to revisit them as a reminder to be patient, to revel in the moment, and to continually praise the Lord regardless of the season.  Remember to stop and worship this Advent season.  Isaiah is a good place to start.

Jim Vernon

December 4: Isaiah 54:9-12 Promises Fulfilled

            The promises of God are the bedrock of our faith and the foundation of our Christianity.  On a personal level, they are the guideposts to our life journeys as well as the energy that fuels each journey.  They also provide the assurance needed when troubles come that we will prevail in the end and be rewarded for our perseverance.

            In times of great loss—loss of health, a home, a job, a loved one through death---we find comfort in God’s promise that He will not give us more than we can bear, and that He will be with us through difficult times.  Often the trouble we face is the result of our own bad choices, and sometimes it is punishment for our sins, individually or collectively, as in the time of Noah when God destroyed civilization except for Noah’s family because of their sinfulness, and during the Babylonian captivity when the Jewish Nation lost their temple, their freedom, and their favored position in God’s eyes.

            Just as God promised in Isaiah 54: 9-10 after the flood never to destroy the earth by water again, He also promised Israel that he would never again punish them with captivity.  In both instances, it took years to recover from the devastation, but the promises provided direction, hope, and finally, fulfillment.

            God made another kind of promise to his people repeatedly in both the Old and New Testaments, that he would send a Messiah, a promise that would take centuries to fulfill, culminating in the visit to Mary by the angel Gabriel to announce that she would bear a child (Luke 1: 30) who would be the Savior of the world, and His birth in a stable in Bethlehem (Luke 2: 7).

            That child/Savior now lives in our hearts, guiding us, inspiring us, and instilling his peace in us as we celebrate Him as the “reason for the season” in the midst of a troubled world.

Ozelle Scrutchins

December 3: Psalm 124

Psalm 124 is one of the Songs of Ascent or (goings up). It is one of fifteen psalms going from Psalm 120 to Psalm 134. These songs were probably sung by Hebrew pilgrims while going up to Jerusalem or while the priests were climbing the fifteen steps of the temple during one of the worship festivals. These Songs of Ascent are also known as Pilgrim Songs or Songs of Steps.

Psalm 124 is marked as a Song by David. The psalm is about praise for deliverance and our dependence on the Lord. The psalm begins with: “If the Lord had not been on our side.” The psalm ends with “We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare” and “Our help is in the name of the Lord.” With our ears ringing with the news of the tumult in the world, we need this time of Advent to take time to remember and anticipate the announcement that “For unto to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” Also, it is a time to reflect on our faith in Jesus and his command to us to love our neighbors.

As I reflect over what is turning out to be a fairly long life and I think of the many changes that have occurred during my lifetime, what stands out are the changes in our national culture. There are many people who remember the “good old times” and want to bring them back. I believe it is human nature that we remember the good times and forget the bad. Let me remind you of some of the bad of the “good old times.”  I was born in 1932, a Depression Baby. Times were hard. Then we had World War II with 50 -56 million people directly killed and approximately 6 million Jews killed in Hitler’s “final solution.” We detained Japanese-Americans on the West Coast. I lived in a segregated world with its evils.

During this Advent season let us anticipate the announcement that Christ is born and remember his command to love our neighbors. Love is not only a feeling, it is a decision. It is a command to act out our love for our neighbors. We don’t need to bring back the (good old times). We need to move forward and make the world better by loving our neighbors.

Frank Davis

December 2: Genesis 8:6-12

            People who lived through floods in Houston or on the Mississippi River might have recalled the flood story in Genesis.  The water rose up in seemingly endless heavy rains, fed by streams, rivers, and overwhelmed flood control structures. 

            The world seemed flooded and families moved into shelters, stadiums, or other places for long times in strange surroundings.

            In the Genesis story, Noah’s family seems to have been sealed away under a deck with hundreds of animals for many days.  We assume that they could not see out, since in the part of the story we are thinking about now, Noah has to release a dove* to find whether the water has subsided.  He might have trained the dove to look for leaves and to bring one back to him. 

            On the first try, the dove returns without a leaf.  Noah sticks his arm out of some kind of hatch and brings it into the dark, crowded and smelly interior of the ark.

            On the second try, seven days later, the dove returns with a freshly plucked olive leaf, which was evidence that the flood was ending.  He waits seven more days (for the land to dry out more?) and sends the dove out again.  It does not return.  Maybe the sweet green earth overwhelmed the dove’s training to return to Noah.

            Is this an Advent story?  It’s possible that any story can be an advent story if its characters are trapped in darkness.  Then the story might suggest that one way we survive miserable times is in the hope that one day a messenger will arrive to remind us that there is a reason we have been shut in.  Now the bright world we once lived in has been cleansed and waits for us.  The messenger holds an olive leaf as a sign.  

*The raven in verse 7 seems to be part of a different version of the story, along with 8:13-19.

Joe Hall

December 1: Isaiah 2:1-5

Reading this passage is wonderful.   It is a positive description of victory, overcoming, being lifted, and God setting everything right.    Included is the famous line about beating “their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.”    There is an invitation to come to the House of God.   This is a prophesy filled with promise.   However, entering this Christmas Season, some people may have a problem with wonderful promises.    Life has been hard, and sadness has overtaken joy.  

            Instead of finding comfort in the prophesy, we may find ourselves doubting.    Even though our Bible is filled with prophesies that have been fulfilled, we may secretly wonder if God will keep his promises.   Recent history doesn’t paint a good picture for the concept of prophesy, or prophets, in our modern culture.  We may find ourselves with less hope than these scriptures clearly shout.

            It is here that we need to be real.    What is the reason . . . the best proof . . . that I know God’s promises will come true?    Is it historical facts, eye witness accounts, statistics, or past experience?    For me, it is none of these.   For me, it is the very real sense of God quietly reaching out to ME for personal fellowship when I know how unworthy I really am of His love.    No matter what I do, or how things are going, I sense His presence.    I perceive a still, small voice.    This communication is a faithful, consistent, complete, and unwavering happening that gives me complete assurance in His promises.   If the Creator God can focus His majestic power to simply guide and interact with insignificant ME all day long, then I can trust His promises that are for all of us.    It seems to me that it is a bigger miracle for God to love me than for Him to raise a mountain.   

            The passage closes with “let us walk in the light of the Lord.”  This season, sense His presence and the light that fellowship with Him can bring.    Rest on His promises, trust and respond to His love.

Ford Mastin