Day 8 of Advent- Dec. 4th

Week 2: How Long, O Lord? [As we explored the plea of God's people for Christ to return in the previous week, the question that often arises is "How much longer are you going to wait?!" It is a question that the people of God have been asking for millennia, and it is one that we must continue to ask as we actively pursue Jesus and his kingdom, living out it's justice, peace, mercy and love wherever we may go in this fractured and fallen world.] 

Dec. 4 - Isaiah 40:1-11- Marv Nelson (Aletheia)

We live in a fallen and broken world.  Many times, as believers we long for heaven to come and to come quickly.  The news clippings we read of racism, sexism, tyranny, natural disasters and all the other brokenness that exposes itself troubles us.  We know Heaven is the place of full restoration. We know that when this world ends, we will finally be whole with Him.  In this passage, we see the call for comfort, we see the call for life and see the life being breathed into the withered grass by God.  We then see the response to this new life being a shout for joy that God is here. “Behold your God!”  We are to declare.  The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it. Heaven is here now.  The incarnation was the beginning of restoration, but even prior to His coming, there were glimpses and images of Heaven on this earth.  We can declare aloud “Behold Your God!” We can confidently shout this because God is here.  He is in us.  His stamp is on every human being, because we are created in His image.  The tension doesn’t have to be so grim as a longing for something that is so far off, but we can realize Heaven here and now as well.  It is a tension of a now but not yet reality that we should seek to live into.  We should use our longing for restoration to spur us on to seek more and more of the restoration that is available now.  We then can declare the goodness and greatness of God as well as His Presence among us, because we will have tasted of this restoration and know that it is good.

Prayer-

Father, may we experience the restoration promised to us in the incarnation of Christ.  May we seek to experience Heaven here and now and use our longing for full restoration to spur us into seeking restoration now.  May we then, being restored shout aloud “Behold your God!”