How to Play During Advent
Don’t stare at the community; come inside and live.
Hope Defined
You may not know where these verses are in Isaiah, but I am certain almost all of you have heard of these classic texts:
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
Some of these texts have ministered greatly to individual Christians throughout history. They have become cherished verses in the piety of the Church. If you attend a liturgical church, you will inevitably read Isaiah during Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. Why? Because Isaiah is big: big in content, big in historical events, and big in revealing to us Jesus.
It is a book marinated in hope. Hope is a powerful concept in the vocabulary of prophets. Hope is the expectation that something will be different than what it is; hope is the longing that something will transpire in the way we believe it would. Hope is the Christian’s armor, the unending well of delight. You take away hope; you leave the Christian with nothing.
Living In-Between the Times
Victor Frankl, an Austrian who became a specialist in counseling post Concentration camp survivors, once wrote: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
What happens in-between hope and fulfillment? What happens when we are hoping by faith, and we are tempted to embrace the first offer?
The Gospels would say, “Lean on the Christ of the Prophets!” The matter of hoping is never a matter of Jesus being away from us; it’s a matter of forgetting how Jesus is to be found.
And Isaiah reminds us of how we find Jesus. Isaiah speaks so loudly in every season because it is constantly reminding us that his ways are not our ways and that our sentimentalism is not the way to the manger. Isaiah calls us out of our comfort to confront ourselves to see Jesus in unexpected places.
The Isaianic Vision
In the context of Isaiah 2, the northern kingdom of Israel had been carried into captivity (722 B.C.), and the kingdom of Judah was in the middle of idolatry and evil.”[1] To make matters worse, the kingdom of Assyria was a major threat to both kingdoms; the Kingdom of Babylon was gaining power and was to overthrow Assyria as the dominant threat. In summary, some bad guys want to destroy God’s people—who have themselves fallen into idolatry—but don’t worry because there are even more dangerous people who want to kill God’s people.
It’s like two assassins debating each other about the virtues of killing someone. The kingdom of Assyria and the kingdom of Babylon are fighting for who will impose the greatest amount of damage on the people of God. And the people of God have completely lost their way. This is the kind of situation that puts the M in misery and D in desperation.
This is the kind of hopelessness that sets us up for great redemption. It’s the best kind of story: “Remember the good ol’ days when we could go for a stroll down Jerusalem Street worry-free? Now, these barbaric Assyrians watch our every step, and the Babylonians have taken our northern friends into captivity.” These are moments when history's great composers write the best music, like in Psalm 137. Remember the song our forefathers sang:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept
when we remembered Zion.
We hung our harps
upon the willows.
For there our captors made us sing
and our tormentors made us entertain,
saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
This is the agony of God’s people before Messiah arrived. They needed hope. And Isaiah enters the scene to provide them with hope. In fact, in Isaiah 2, we learn that in the “last days,” there will be a universally attractive influence of the worship of God, an international dispersion and influence of the Christian faith...”[2] This is the hope promised, but Isaiah tells us the content and character of this hope.
Isaiah 2 is a happy overdose of hope, a buffet of prophetic good news, a gourmet meal given to hungry sinners. And yet, many rejected this message. Isaiah, in fact, was told that the ears of many would be closed. The hearts of many would grow cold.
In the Sea of Idolatry
Israel is drowning in her sins, and Yahweh God has provided his people with the means to live: the prophets have come with a message of hope. But the people had no interest in the prophetic word. The message of repentance came as a means to deliver Israel from her oppression, and Israel said, “No thanks.” She is dying, drowning, depleted, and she rejected the means of salvation God sends.
Isaiah 2 is a prophecy of something so remarkable that only faith could grab hold of it. You’ve probably heard the expression: “If it’s too good to be true it probably isn’t.” But in the Bible, the promises of God are all too good to be true, and God never lies, so if it’s too good to be true, then it is. Isaiah 2 paints this picture.
Listen to verses 1-2:
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
Isaiah, the son of Amoz—not to be confused with the prophet Amos—saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. This promise has been made elsewhere in Micah, Jeremiah, and now through the prophet Isaiah. “Judah and Jerusalem” serve as pointers to one great city. The Book of Hebrews makes it abundantly clear that Judah and Jerusalem refer to God’s people. Was this something Isaiah saw would take place in his day? No. This is not a prophecy to be fulfilled in Isaiah’s day. He says in verse 2:
2 It shall come to pass in the latter days
This is where all sorts of controversies about the end times begin. But if we simply practiced the principle of Scripture interpreting Scripture, we would see that the Bible resolves that issue for us. The latter or last days are not days coming; they are days that have begun with the coming of Jesus. Hebrews makes this clear:
But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
The promise of Isaiah is to be fulfilled in the coming of Jesus. What will begin to take place with the coming of Messiah Jesus in the first century?
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills:
The New Testament interprets all this language in reference to the people of God. Hebrews interprets all these things for us. The “mountain” or “Zion” refer to the Church of God. The composition of God’s people forms this great and highest mountain.
Isaiah says this great mountain will be established; permanently fixed; no one will be able to bring it down. The voices of God’s people won’t lose its vigor; the fellowship of the saints won’t lose its power; the blessings of God won’t lose its glory. It shall be established.
And how do we know that this community will remain intact? Look at the end of verse 2:
and all the nations shall flow to it,
3 and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
There is a blessed hypnotizing effect that the community of God has in the world.
Sometimes, community life is not developed because people want to look at the life of the body as an art piece. They just sit and admire it from afar. “Oh, that’s nice as long as I don’t have to engage it.” But there is a child-like enthusiasm in Isaiah’s prophecy: “Come, let us go up to the mountain.” It’s like kids saying: “Hey guys, come on, let’s go play.”
And here is where I give the punchline to this whole Isaiah conundrum. You ask, “But what do I do in-between hoping for something and its fulfillment?” What do I do between Advent and Christmas? The answer is play; you embrace the art of calling one another to play together in the community of saints. No Christian civilization can triumph without what the ancients called play or our Old Testament forefathers called “Feasting.”
How Now Shall We Then Live?
So, here is Advent: the people are in turmoil. They are suffering. They have enemies competing to destroy them. But a great prophet came announcing a time of unending joy in a Person. Between confusion and the fulfillment of hope, what do we do? We enhance play and feasting. We gather with greater intensity. We open ourselves to the surprising work of Jesus in our lives. In our deepest uncertainty and sadness, we enhance the feast. Advent is practice for Christmas. We rehearse, we align our marches, we warm up our vocal cords, we gather our children around the fire, we psalm unto the Lord, and we tell one another: “Hey, hope is coming in a Person! Have you heard?”
“Oh, but you just don’t know how sick I am.” “Oh, but if you have no idea how unhappy I am.” “Oh, but if you only knew the state of my soul.” “I am not ready, I am not prepared for this embodied hope business. Keep this play and practice to you, extroverts and overly confident; I will just stay here and weep.”
And your answer is,
Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
“Come, let us meet together. Let me join you in time of sadness. Come, I will pick you up tonight. Come, let me bring you a meal because hope is never an isolated experience in the prophetic writings, it’s a communal call to be where the weak are and to reveal to those who are weak where their hope lies.
I want to encourage all of you to engage this season in hopeful expectation. Yes, Christ has already come. We are not expecting another incarnation. We expect that the story of Jesus will captivate our hearts again and again as we relive his story through the prophetic word. Don’t lose heart. Be faithful in the little things. Don’t stare at the community; come inside and live together. Life together is difficult, and this is why we need this intense heat of the church to keep us from becoming cold to the revealed truth of Christ and his kingdom. Advent is practice for Christmas! Come, let us play and ready our voices for the joy of the world is near.
[1] https://bible.org/seriespage/1-introduction-study-book-isaiah
[2] Kenneth Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion, pg. 208
Notations
Occasionally, I am interviewed by Redeemer Broadcasting Network on various subjects. They are in upstate New York, reaching around 120,000 people, and will likely double that number as their station reaches more significant areas. The interview will only go LIVE in two weeks. I discussed the time and mood of Advent as well as the role of children during this season.
My friend, James Wood, is on fire, arguing that modern Calvinists want Augustine’s soteriology, but not his ecclesiology. Dr. Wood notes:
Reformed Protestants today need not only this polemical reminder of why the late medieval Catholic Church was wrong in its abandonment of Augustine’s teaching on grace. We also need to retrieve the Augustinian ecclesiology that Calvin espoused.
Some cool kids are talking about why men don’t sing, but I have them beat by quite some time. The featured podcast this Tuesday is this blast from the near past.
Nuntium
Our congregation is learning this beautiful piece of music with stomping and all. Christmas is going to be awesome!
My second round of edits has come in for the manuscript. We are shooting for a mid-January announcement. I already have three endorsements and hope to persuade or bribe a couple more.
I have a featured article coming out in the next edition of the FLF magazine on the nature of man as head and woman as glory.
I love talking to my friends about Advent. I had Dr. Dustin Messer join me for this fun episode on the generosity of Advent.
Happy Advent. Christmas is near.
Uriesou Brito