“For as the earth brings forth it’s bud, As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, So the LORD God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.”
What a beautiful and compelling vision of the future.
For Israel, righteous justice and joyful praise was most definitely not sprouting among the empires of the world.
It seemed as if God was no where – not in the temple, not on the throne, and not amongst the people.
Though Israel knew they had sinned against the LORD and broken their covenant, they wondered when the punishment would end.
It seemed that returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding their life in the Promised Land was the beginning of a new era with God.
But now a new empire was directing the affairs of the nations, and injustice and sorrow marred the gardens and cities.
Which is why Isaiah’s sermon resonated so deeply with Israel.
When would righteous justice flourish – not only in Israel, but also in the surrounding nations?
How long, O Lord, until all the peoples of the earth praised you instead of their idols?
Isaiah reminds Israel who it is they worship, of how great and good is their LORD.
He announces to them that the Spirit of the LORD God will descend upon an anointed servant who will come to Israel.
This anointed servant will preach good news to the poor and heal the brokenhearted.
The LORD God will send his servant to proclaim liberty to the captives and the Jubilee year of the Lord.
The LORD God will have his day of vengeance, and God will comfort all who mourn, giving them beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
If Israel is a garden, the LORD will plant righteousness that the people may be called oaks of justice.
And through this rebuilding and replanting, Israel shall rejoice and God will be glorified.
Through the LORD’s faithfulness, he will make an everlasting covenant with a people who are continually unfaithful to him; BUT, the Lord God will direct their work in truth.
Through what the faithful LORD God does with unfaithful Israel will result in all the world acknowledge that surely Israel is blessed of God.
Isaiah is so sure of this planting, of these oaks of righteousness, of a world rejoicing at the justice and faithfulness of God in how he rebuilds Israel, that he declares himself already clothed in salvation, already putting on a robe of righteous justice, like a bride and groom all decked out in their finest beauty.
Isaiah is so confident in the LORD God, he believes with every bone in his body that justice and joy will spring forth before all the nations.
It will happen as sure as when the garden causes the things that are sown in it so spring forth.
Isaiah wrote to the people of God during the Advent of the First Christmas.
As the people of God, we are now reading Isaiah during the Advent of the Last Christmas.
We read of Isaiah’s confidence in the LORD God almost twenty five centuries later.
Sometimes it seems, on this side of that first Christmas that the robes of righteousness are wearing thin and the coats of salvation are getting threadbare.
We need Isaiah’s sermon now just as much as when Israel needed it then.
They were ready and waiting for the anointed King, their Messiah, their Christ to come and cause justice and joy to spring up from the parched earth.
But Israel crucified their king, cutting down the gardener with all the injustice and hate that we are all to familiar with still today.
God brought comfort to all the people of God who recognized Jesus to be the Son of God and the Son of David.
Through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, God signaled his faithfulness to Israel while vindicating Jesus as the LORD and King of Israel and all the nations of the world.
But through the crucifixion and resurrection we also begin to see how the LORD is going to sow the seeds of righteous justice and joyful praise throughout the world.
He’s going to do it through the church scattered throughout the whole world. In every city of every nation there will be a gathering of men and women who are faithful to the LORD Jesus Christ.
Because of their confidence in the coming of the Lord to establish the kingdom of God, they live now in light of a future that may not come in their lifetime.
They rejoice always, praying constantly, giving thanks to God in all things, for they believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is both with them and coming again to reign upon the earth.
And when he does, the justice and joy that the church has been striving to sow in their community will become true of the whole world.
The justice and joy of the church will become seeds for that nation, and God will cause justice and joy to spring up from what was sown in that place.
Maybe you are having a hard time imagining what it will look like for justice and joy to spring up from the earth.
I want to show you a small three minute movie where you will see men springing up from the earth in justice and joy at Christmas time.
You may have already seen this chocolate commercial.
It’s a story known as the Christmas Truce and it took place exactly one hundred years ago this Christmas, during the first five months of the Great War, of what became known as World War One.
It helps to know a bit of history to appreciate the beauty of this compelling event. The first five months of the Great War was the worst warfare the world had ever seen.
The world had seen many horrific wars over the thousands of years of recorded history.
But none like this.
Prior to World War 1, great battles lasted one day, maybe three days. No battle had ever raged on everyday for a month.
When the battles started in August between Germany and the Allies, France expected the war to be over by the end of September.
So when December came and there was no end in sight of the war, the nations became gravely worried about the new world of chaos they were descending into.
Though the truce only lasted for a day, and though the war raged on to consume over twenty million lives in the next four years, there was a moment where justice and joy sprung up from the earth.
It’s a picture of what could have happened had the rulers and authorities turned away from their fear, pride, and greed.
That Christmas Truce was a brief picture of what the Last Christmas will be like, when the LORD God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up, conquering the dark powers and evil forces that enslave the nations in a kingdom of war and darkness.
We are not living in World War I, but we are still living in the aftershocks of it, one hundred years later.
You may not be living in the trenches, but you are living in a time where it seems like Christ is no where.
There is so much injustice in our nation.
There is so much loneliness and despair.
There is so much violence and death.
There is the every day grind of having to work with people who suck the joy out of the air; of living every day in pain or hardship or the constant struggle to survive with no end in sight.
Maybe it’s the nagging feeling that for all you have accomplished, there is still an emptiness that cannot be filled.
Maybe you need your own Christmas Truce: to rise up out of your trench and choose to rejoice in the LORD and believe that Christ is now here.
It’s important to note how Isaiah ends his poem: “As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.”
In your hardship, in your grief, in your sadness, in your difficulties, in your uncertainty, in your anxiety, in your sufferings: what are you sowing?
When the evil one seeks to sow bitterness and despair in your heart, do you join him in it?
When the devil speaks lies to you, do you add to them?
When evil strikes you, your family or friends, when death unfairly strikes down those you care about – do you let the shadows of death creep in and drain your life away in despair and anger?
Isaiah writes to Israel, reminding them that it is the Lord who causes righteousness and praise to spring up, but we must sow things into the garden in order for anything to spring up.
There will always be death in this world, but are you sowing life?
There will always be injustice and wickedness, but are you sowing righteous justice and goodness?
There will always be sorrow and despair in our world, but are you sowing kindness and faithfulness anyway?
We plant and water, but it’s the LORD who makes it grow.
There is an old Israelite myth that if you wept over the seeds that you sowed in the spring, you would thus be able to rejoice as you reaped a bountiful harvest.
Sometimes it’s in pain that we continue our faithfulness, sometimes it’s with tears that we do the next right thing.
But we look to the coming of the LORD, whether in our lifetime or in the generations to come, and we believe that he will come and cause justice and joy to spring forth before all the nations from all the seeds that we sowed with our tears.
“In that year of the LORD, he will comfort all who mourn, giving them beauty for ashes;the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called oaks of righteousness, that He may be glorified.”
2020 Lectionary Reading for the Third Sunday of Advent: Isaiah 61v1-4, 8-11 / Psalm 126 / 1Thessalonians 5v16-24 / John 1v6-8, 19-28
