We have wonderfully encouraging words from Isaiah in our 1st Reading today (2:1-5) where he says “Come let us go up” and later “Come let us walk.” You can hear and see me give this Homily on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtv3E17H40M
We use that word “Come” so often in ordinary life that we perhaps forget to think about what it means to us. “Do come in” .. ”Come along” .. “Come this way” even “Do come to the Party” All are friendly invitations full of promise. And when we get to Christmas we will all sing “Oh come let us adore him” as we encourage one another in our praise for God’s greatest gift.
But “come” also encourages us to move on, not to stand still. We wait hopefully for the train or bus to come, not just to look at it, unless you are train fanatic like me, but so that we can get on it to take us to where we want to go. Isaiah has no trains or buses of course, instead he encourages us to walk. He says “Come let us walk in… the paths of God.. in the light of the Lord;” Wonderful images of God, not just as our destination, but as someone who will walk alongside us, a power that will provide us with light, so that even in our darkest moments we will still be able to see at least a little way ahead.
For Isaiah, the destination he wants us to walk towards is “The mountain of the temple of the Lord”, and for Isaiah this was Mount Zion of course, the mountain on which Jerusalem is built, and where the Temple used to stand until destroyed by the Romans. Now I’ve never been to Jerusalem, but I know that compared with the mountains that surround it, it’s only a very small mountain. Even Bethlehem for example, only 5 miles away, sits higher than Jerusalem, so it is no wonder that in his vision Isaiah wants to see Jerusalem “Lifted higher.” But within his prophecy is a hint of something much greater than a bit of earth moving, for we believe that his words are fulfilled not by the mountain and its temple being raised higher, but by them being transformed. And how does this happen? It is Jesus who gives us the answer. The Temple, he tells us, (Matt 21:6) is only a building. He says, “The time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.” But he also says “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days,” and then St John explains “The temple he had spoken of was his body.” (John 2:19)
For Isaiah, and for all Jews, the Temple was the holy place where God’s presence was focussed in a unique and powerful way, so much so that they could only stand and worship outside, and never go into its heart. It was the place that all Jews aimed to visit if they possibly could. That’s why at Pentecost there were Jews of every nation to hear the first Christian proclamation. But for us there is something “Greater than the Temple here” (Matt 12:6), for God has given us himself in Jesus, and it is that incredible gift that once again we prepare to celebrate in this Advent season. “Wake up” says St Paul, “Stay awake” says Jesus; but oh how easily we allow the darkness, the troubles of this world, to overwhelm us. Don’t for a minute imagine that somehow we have it worse than they did. Isaiah was longing for peace in a time of impending war, as the ferocious Assyrian army drew ever closer, slaughtering people as it did so. St Paul was soon to face execution at the hands of the Emperor Nero, and we all know what happened to Jesus. Yet all of them, Jesus most of all, could see beyond the darkness. That’s why when Isaiah tells us to “Walk in the light of the Lord” we know that however dark the path we tread, Jesus the Light of the World walks with us.
But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t dark, that somehow we are suddenly immersed in radiant light. We Christians do not pretend that all is sweetness and light. Jesus calls us to face the darkness with him. We are not called to sit around hoping he will help us, hoping he will solve all our problems and all the world’s problems. We are called to get up, to wake up, to walk in his light. But to walk in light is to walk within something which is never still, within something which is always moving. If light didn’t move, we would look at the sun and feel and see nothing, in fact we wouldn’t exist; and although in biblical times they didn’t know such scientific facts as the speed of light, they certainly knew that light was mysterious and that in some way it revealed the presence of God.
There is however a certain comfort in knowing that even when people feel they are just too exhausted, too downhearted, too depressed to walk towards Jesus, we can cry out for him to come to us. Jesus stands at the door and knocks, and all we have to do is open the door. We do not have to go to him, because he will come to us. That’s why, although we can encourage each other with Isaiah’s words “Come let us walk”, although we may sing at Christmas “Oh come let us adore him”, most of our Advent prayers echo almost the last words in the Bible, when we are promised that Jesus will come to us. It is what we proclaim in the Creed every Sunday “He will come again in glory” and we sing every Advent “Rejoice rejoice. Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel”
But we don’t mean by this simply that Jesus will come to us in the future at the end of time, whether that’s the end of our time when we die, or in the end of all things; for although we do believe and proclaim this truth, we also mean that Jesus comes to us in all sorts of ways in our ordinary lives, so that instead of looking back with regret at past mistakes, or looking gloomily at the present, we always look forward to the next unexpected way in which God will come to us and work within us. I was taking an Assembly this week and I talked to the children about the inspiring work of the Lifeboats as portrayed in Saving Lives at Sea or that of the Ambulances; and I told them “Every time you see those flashing blue lights, in those people God is at work, so give praise to him.”
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