In the Name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord and Savior sanctify you in the truth, for His word is truth. Amen

The Second Sunday in Advent (2011)

The Faithfulness of God Comforts the Faithful Rev. Toby Byrd

Psalm 80:1 (ESV)

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.

Since Advent is a time of waiting on the coming of the Lord, the Introit for today gives us assurance that God in His faithfulness has done for us what no man could have ever done, He has planned our salvation. The prophet Isaiah foretells of the coming of our Savior when he writes, “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him’” (Isaiah 62:11 ESV). With great anticipation we eagerly grasp hold of this message. However, to fully grasp the implications of this Advent prophecy, we must look at the setting into which this promise was placed.

The speaker is Isaiah, that man of God who stands like a mountain peak in Old Testament time’s midway between Moses and Christ. “Daughter of Zion,” he shouts. He had lived in Jerusalem during all the days of his prophetic activity. He knew this city well, and he loved her people. However, he also knew from his long, sixty-year ministry that the king and the temple set the pace and the pattern for the rest of the nation. Judging by its most recent history, the future did not look bright for the “Daughter of Zion.”

Isaiah had already served three kings, and now he was serving Hezekiah. As a young man he had been called to prophesy in the very year in which King Uzziah died (758 B.C.). The southern kingdom of Judah, of which Jerusalem was the capital, had flourished mightily under Uzziah. Uzziah’s army numbered 300,000, he had built many towers for protection of the herds, and he fostered agriculture, commerce, and industry. Under his reign the “Daughter of Zion” flourished.

When Jotham, the son of Uzziah, took over the reigns of government, he received, on a silver platter, a nation well organized, well fortified, and well healed. Not since the golden age of David and Solomon had Judah seen this much glory. Even religion flourished. Worship in the temple was very popular. The sacrifices needed for worship were brought in abundance. However, religion played second fiddle to material gain and economic well-being. The people had not set their hearts on God’s will and way. There is no finer varnish for a worldly heart than the outward performance of religious ceremonies, and the “Daughter of Zion” was using that varnish lavishly. However, worse things were yet to come.

Under Ahaz all the national prosperity with which his grandfather Uzziah had been blessed in his fifty-two year reign, and all the temple fervor, hypocritical as it was, during the fifteen-year reign of his father Jotham finally degenerated into open hostility against God and His prophets. The “Daughter of Zion” had to witness the introduction of the barbaric religious customs of the Moabites. It had to witness the king sacrificing his own son, a prince of the royal house of David, to the hideous idol Molech. It had to witness the removal of the altar of burnt offering from the forecourt of the temple to see it replaced with an altar designed after one which Ahaz had seen in Damascus. God’s people and God’s king had gone mad. It was madness; it was national suicide, to have God pour out His blessings upon a nation only to have that nation repay God’s love with wickedness.

The “Daughter of Zion” had to be saved. God’s answer was to send war! King Pekah from the north and King Rezin from Syria, together they would be God’s whip to beat Judah to her knees. However, Ahaz has other plans and doesn’t repent. Instead of asking God for help he calls upon the mightiest man of his day, Tiglath-pileser of Assyria. The powerful Assyrian army intervenes killing King Rezin of Syria and defeating the armies of Israel capturing and assimilating the ten tribes of Israel, leading thousands into captivity never to return or to be heard from again. This is the salvation Ahaz thought he needed! However, before the last chapter is written, the “Daughter of Zion” herself becomes a tribute-paying vassal to Assyria. Can a nation fall any lower? “For the Lord humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had made Judah act sinfully and had been very unfaithful to the Lord” (2 Chron. 28:19 ESV). Spiritual decay was the soil into which the loss of Judah’s every freedom had been sown.

Is it any wonder that God sent faithful prophets to walk through God’s garden with the pruning shears of God’s Word, cutting away the dry, rotted, diseased, unfruitful, dead branches, bushes, and vines.

King Ahaz was soon cut down, and his son, Hezekiah, was cut to the heart. Ahaz was dead, but Hezekiah was alive with faith and zeal. The young king was only 25 years old, but he was wise. Spurred on by the prophets, Hezekiah called the people to faith. Here is his inaugural address: “Hear me, Levites! Now consecrate yourselves, and consecrate the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filth from the Holy Place. For our fathers have been unfaithful and have done what was evil in the sight of the Lord our God” (2 Chron. 29:5-6 ESV). He starts his reign with a clean-up campaign. This man will go far in saving a nation from disintegration. God’s house is cleansed, God’s Passover reintroduced. Tithes and sacrifices are once more brought as the love-offerings of God’s people. Hezekiah and all Judah recognized that their national salvation lay in the faithfulness of Jehovah. King and people confessed their sins. King and people laid hold on the promises of God in every national emergency. King and people in faith laid hold on God.

Would to God it had stayed that way in Judah! However, the reformation effected by Hezekiah was not permanent. Hezekiah himself fared better spiritually in the days of trial than in the days of peace and plenty. On one occasion he boastfully showed the representatives of Babylon, “all his treasure” (2 Kings 20:13 ESV). Pride had taken possession of his heart and therefore, God gives him a brief view of the future. Through Isaiah He paints a sketch of the Babylonian Captivity; “Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon” (Isaiah 39:6 ESV).

You might ask, Pastor, why are you giving us the history of God’s Old Testament people? Well, my brothers and sisters in Christ, it is to show you the just judgment of God. It is to show you that in the midst of these judgments, while every man, woman, and child in Judah was thinking of national survival, God was planning an eternal survival. “Daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your salvation comes” has a far deeper meaning than merely the survival of a nation in the midst of a world filled with hate and oppression. The prophecy is far more than just an assurance of victory although surrounded by diabolic forces of destruction. This prophecy is to lift the eyes of the “Daughter of Zion” to her noblest Son, the Messiah, in whom Jehovah had planned the salvation of mankind.

Judah is to know by the Word of the Lord that its redemption from sin is drawing nigh. The calamities which had befallen the nation should remind her of the oft-repeated call to repentance. Ruined cities should remind her of ruined souls. Captives transported to foreign lands should remind her of the captives of the prince of darkness.

“Your salvation comes” reminds the Judeans that the God who closed the first Eden had opened another Eden; that the God who condemned the first Adam had planned salvation by the second Adam; that the God who created man is the God who alone would save man.

Herein lies comfort for us, for the Word of God given by Isaiah to the faithful of old was also intended for the faithful of all times. Judah was to know that God is faithful, that He would not break His promise. Though the Messiah’s birth still lay beyond the horizon of more than seven centuries, the faithful should not lose heart. In God’s own time there would come a King who would accomplish what no David, no Solomon, nor Hezekiah could accomplish. These kings could bring glory, power, wealth, and security to the kingdom. However, only the Messiah could bring salvation. Forgiveness for all would come through His life, death, and resurrection. With forgiveness, purchased at the price of our Lord Jesus’ holy, precious blood, the doors of heaven would open for the faithful.

Again, I say, all this has been written for us, the “Daughter of Zion” the Church today. From our vantage point in the New Testament church we can look back and rejoice. God was faithful. Step by step He prepared the world for the coming of Christ. When God was ready, His Son was born. What does it mean to us? It means that repentantly we can lay our sins in His manger. We need not fear them any more. Joyfully we can lift out of that manger our pardon. We need tremble no longer. Longingly we look from that manger with a new hope. We need not die any more. “Daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your salvation comes!” Isaiah wrote that for you and for me. Believe it!

Another element of comfort that comes to us in this Advent season of watchful waiting is the assurance from the second verse of the Introit today. That God in His faithfulness will hear our every Advent cry. We join Asaph, the writer of this psalm, as he pours out his heart, “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock!” How well the church of the New Testament understood the needs of the faithful as it chose this verse for the Introit today!

“Give ear . . . you who lead Joseph.” Here is utter confidence. Asaph writes in the spirit of David, who wrote, “He leads me beside still waters” (Ps. 23:2 ESV). This is not a despairing cry of “Help, Lord, we perish.” Instead, this is the confident prayer of the man of God who had witnessed the tender care of Israel’s Shepherd for His flock. Asaph is not unmindful of five centuries of God’s love. “You brought a vine out of Egypt” (Psalm 80:8 ESV), he says in this psalm. While he is praying that the Shepherd will listen to him, he already knows that He who dwells between the cherubim’s will shine forth, that is, He will exert His majestic power to lead His flock safely home. This Shepherd is no hireling. This Shepherd cares for the sheep. He hears and answers their every cry.

I would impress on each of you, who have had so many burdens to bear in this year now drawing to a close, that you, too, can make this your confident cry. “Give ear, O Shepherd!” Some of you have experienced pain you never thought you could bear and sickness you never thought would visit you. Cry out, “Give ear, O Shepherd!” He hears. Some of you have experienced heartache in your homes. Again, cry out, ““Give ear, O Shepherd!” He hears. Others have lost their jobs; still others have had serious business setbacks. Cry out, “Give ear, O Shepherd!” He hears. All of us have felt the smiting blows of our awakened conscience. Cry out confidently, “Give ear, O Shepherd! Father forgive me for I have sinned!” He hears. “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 9:2 ESV). With Asaph we can shout in this psalm, “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!” (Psalm 80:3 ESV)

Asaph fully realized the implications of his prayer. The Shepherd who hears the cry of His sheep, the Shepherd who leads His flock in love, will want the flock to follow. Our Lord reminds us, “He goes before them, and the sheep follow him” (John 10:4 ESV). Asaph understood this. Therefore, when he comes to the end of his psalm, he says, “Then we shall not turn back from you” (Psalm 80:18 ESV). As you are faithful Lord, make us faithful.

Today you were reminded that God’s people turned away from Him during the reign of Ahaz and sought after other gods. The advent they embraced was a false advent; it was an advent of sin coming their way instead of life and grace. However, in this holy Advent season we again hear of the ancient prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, while we hear how God carried out His plan for our redemption, we anxiously wait for the Second Advent of our Lord, and while we hear again the promise of answered prayers, our heart shall not be remiss in making its vow. “We shall not turn away from you O God.”

Therefore, in our homes, during Advent and all times, we pray that the Holy Spirit would help us live our lives in the power of the Spirit who dwells within us, for we know that our Lord Jesus lives there, too. His patience with sinners shall show us the patience we need with each other. His chaste language shall be the cleansing power that touches our tongues. His love shall be mirrored in the love we show toward those with whom we walk toward eternity and His holy thoughts shall find the Spirit’s bridge to enter our heart. Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.