Season of Hope: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Lord Jesus, help us to see you more clearly, to love you more dearly, to follow you more nearly day by day. Open our eyes, Lord, help us to see you. Amen.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev'rywhere you go;
Take a look in the five and ten glistening once again
With candy canes and silver lanes aglow.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Toys in ev'ry store
But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be
On your own front door.

I know I know I am no Perry Como or Johnny Mathis, but it is looking a lot like Christmas everywhere we go. Of course if you went to Wal-Mart it looked like Christmas back in September, but gradually our community is getting into the Christmas spirit. The Advent/Christmas season is filled with lots of things. There are lights on our houses and on our Christmas trees. There is Christmas music filling the stores, our homes and cars, and Sunday church services. There are parties to go to, presents to wrap and open, friends and family to visit with and lots and lots of food to eat. Then there is the whole Jesus being born in Bethlehem thing that, unfortunately, gets put on the backburner. Taking all that stuff aside Advent and Christmas is season of hope.
The word hope is a funny word because it can mean so many different things to different people. I am a lucky person. I live in a great country and in a great community. I have a job and a great family who supports me. My hopes might seem something like this; I hope I get that new gadget for Christmas. I hope that the Titans make it to the Super Bowl. I think a lot of you are in the same boat as me. We hope for things that most of the world think are frivolous. You see there are some in our country and some in our own community that hope they will have enough food to put on their table. They hope they can give their kids a warm coat and maybe one toy this Christmas. They hope they can pay all the bills and have some left over. They hope they still have a job. Then again there are some in the world who simply hope to live to see another day. They hope that bandits won’t come today to take their sons and rape their daughters. They hope the water they drink to quench their burning thirst won’t give them a deadly disease. You see hope differs greatly depending where and who you are in the world.
Our words from the prophet Isaiah this morning are words of hope to a people decimated by war and exile. These words are a promise from God for a complete and total restoration and redemption of the people and their land. But it will not be the same as before. The prophet proclaims that the poor, the captive, and the prisoner will be freed and they are the ones who will rebuild the destroyed kingdom. In verse 4 the pronoun “they” is used, “they” refers to the captives, poor, and prisoners mentioned in verse 1. If some hope that things will be exactly as they were before they will be disappointed because this new era God will usher in is a season of justice, righteousness, and freedom to all people not just to some.
This hope from Isaiah like most hope found in Scripture is twofold in nature. There are two kinds of hope found here. One is a cosmic kind of hope. It is a universal hope that death is not the end but that it is conquered by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The theologically this term is eschatological in nature, which means that it is a hope based on the second coming of Christ and the redemption of the world as promises in Revelation 21 and 22. It is an Easter hope because without the death and resurrection of Christ we would not have this hope. We hope that just as Christ is risen we will also rise with him. This hope is the foundation of our faith. There are some branches of Christianity that do not rely upon the belief in the resurrection of Christ but in my opinion that without the resurrection believing in and proclaiming the gospel of Christ is pointless. No resurrection, no Christianity. We all are familiar with this kind of hope although its exact mechanics and nature are difficult to ascertain. This is a hope that we must wait for. It is a hope that will come in God’s own time. Jesus was asked about it and said that not even he knew the day nor the hour no one but God knew. That is one key element of Advent is a waiting, an anticipation of the fulfillment of our hope. We must wait for this kind of hope. But there is another hope that is scripturally based and is found in our lesson from Isaiah.
This hope is not based on future events, but it is in the here and now or at least it can be because this hope is in us. It is the hope that provides liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, and good news to the poor. It is the year of the Lord’s favor and it is a time of rebuilding not only cities and buildings but rebuilding people. It is a time that is based on our actions and our fulfillment of God’s commandments. God is telling us in this Scripture the key to fulfilling this hope and we do not have to wait for it because it is within our grasp. God is telling us that if we fulfill his commandments, his teachings of love for all people then we can be the hope that we want to see in the world. We can be the ones to release people held captive by poverty and injustice. We can be the ones to free those imprisoned unjustly and unfairly. We can be the oaks of righteousness standing tall for the world to see. We can be that hope that people long for.
I know what you might be thinking. Here he goes again, preaching social justice. I wish he would talk about something else. Why do we need to talk about this over and over again? Well this is what Jesus preached. Jesus preached social justice. In fact, Jesus begins his ministry in Nazareth by reading from these verses in Isaiah. He said that the Scriptures are fulfilled in him. The people of Nazareth flipped out and ran him out of town. What does Jesus mean? He is the catalyst for both kinds of hope. Through him we have the Easter hope and through his teachings we have the means to be the present hope to other people. In Jesus we have the example of how to be the hope for other people. Jesus never rejected anyone. Jesus loved everyone no matter who they were or what they did. Jesus touched the leper, gave sight to the blind, and fed the multitudes. Jesus welcomed the sinner, the outcast, and the stranger. In these acts Jesus gave hope to those without and we can do the same.
When we give a toy to a child like the Marines do every year with Toys 4 Tots then we give hope. When we give food and clothing to the Help Center and the Clothing Center then we give people hope who are down on their luck. When a person can put food on the table for their children then we give them hope that people do care. We need to remember that Advent and Christmas are not just season for hoping but they are also season for being hope for someone else. We are the instruments of God’s hope in the world. Paul called us the hands and the feet of the Body of Christ and if we don’t do something then who will. When we give someone hope then they believe that tomorrow will be a better day, and the next day will be better, and the day after that better still.
I want to close this morning with a warning. Isaiah makes a small statement that has big implications. In verse 2 Isaiah proclaims a day of God’s vengeance. Who will God take vengeance upon? If we look at verse 1 we have the answer. God’s vengeance is for those who captured and imprisoned the people unjustly, it is for those who promote injustice or do nothing to change it. It is for the ones who ignore the poor, the widow, the orphan. It is for the ones who afflict the immigrant, the stranger in our land. When that day comes, where do you want to be? Do you want to be on the side of God or on the side of God’s vengeance? Let us work together to be on God’s side. To give a little hope to those without and let us not just do it at Christmas time, but all year long. We are the ones who hear the message from God through the prophet. We are the ones who hear the message from God through our Lord and Savior. Let us not ignore this important call from God. Let us be the hope for those who are longing for it.

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen