By Mother Rebecca

This past summer, we spent several weeks together reading from the writings of Israel's prophets. Before we began, I shared an often-quoted saying: God sends prophets to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. In this summer's lectionary readings, we got a hefty dose of the latter. We listened in as the prophets pointed out the ways in which God's people had failed to love God and love their neighbors, warned of the consequences of continued failure, and called God's people to repent.

Beginning this Sunday, we'll spend Advent with the Prophets. In this series, we'll have an opportunity to engage with the other side of that equation. We'll listen as Isaiah says:

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins (40:1-2).

Before our series begins, it's helpful to remember that the words of the prophets echo throughout the centuries. The prophets spoke God's word to particular people, way "back then" (in ancient times), in light of their particular circumstances. As we'll find in this Advent series, those who knew and experienced Jesus read the prophets in light of that experience and found new meaning in these writings.

Take one of the great prophecies of Advent – Isaiah 7:14 – as an example:

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son
and shall name him Immanuel.

When Ahaz was king of the southern kingdom of Judah, two kings (Rezin of Aram and Pekah of the northern kingdom of Israel) laid siege to Jerusalem. God sent Isaiah to Ahaz to reassure him that God was with him and the city would not fall.

Take heed, be quiet, do not fear,
and do not let your heart be faint
because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands (7:4).

Ahaz was deeply troubled by the siege and found no assurance in these words. Seeing this, God sent Isaiah back to Ahaz saying: "Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven" (7:11). Ahaz refused, telling Isaiah that to ask for such a sign would be tantamount to putting God to the test (never mind that God wanted to give a sign). Isaiah responded:

Hear then, O house of David!
Is it too little for you to weary mortals
that you weary my God also?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son  and shall name him Immanuel.
He shall eat curds and honey
by the time he knows how to refuse the evil
and choose the good.
For before the child knows how to refuse the evil
and choose the good,
the land before whose two kings you are in dread
will be deserted (7:13-16).

When Isaiah spoke these words to King Ahaz, he pointed to a young woman who was with child in that place and at that time. His point was that within a few years (before that unborn child was old enough to eat curds and honey), Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel would cease to threaten Judah.

Matthew and Luke found new meaning in this verse from Isaiah. They recognized that, in their own time, a young woman had become pregnant and born a son. And those who came into contact with her son, Jesus, experienced him as Immanuel – God with us.

As we journey together through the prophetic writings connected with the coming Messiah, I wonder how we will experience passages that foretell the birth of a child – the coming of a King – the light that shines in the darkness – the return of God with us, our Emmanuel. For the word of God is living and true. As the word of God spoken through the prophets enlightened King Ahaz in the throes of siege warfare in ancient Israel, as that same word of God spoken through the prophets shed new light upon the evangelists as they sought to share Jesus with the world, so the word of God spoken through the prophets reaches out to us as we watch and wait for Jesus to come again in power and great glory to usher in the kingdom of God.

See you this weekend,

Mtr. Rebecca