December 17, 2017 - Third Sunday in Advent - God Sometimes Moves from Third Person to First Person Pronouns

When scripture readings awaken both head and heart there are often entwining echoes like there were for me in the Isaiah reading this morning. We sang this in today's Gospel Acclamation, "You have the words that awaken our souls. Alleluia we sing".

Almost a year ago the Gospel reading was Luke 4:21-30 where Jesus read the first four verses of the Isaiah passage in the synagogue. I wrote then that it passed  the "shiver* test at that moment where there is a prickle at the back of the neck. We also read this last Wednesday in relationship to today's Gospel reading about John which I wrote about in my last blog entry.

In the Children's Time Pastor Ray preached about how leadership and showed the children gathered around him a flashlight. Just as John the Baptizer testified to Jesus as the "light of the world" drawing attention away from himself so Jesus, as he first stood up, reading scripture and preaching, testified that the spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus. Jesus drew attention away from himself with a simultaneous acknowledgement of the spirit of the Lord within him.

Pastor Ray shone the light of the flashlight on himself and asked "Can you see where you are going this way" and then observed  "A leader cannot light the way for anyone when he is shining the light on himself". This was all about servant-leadership for both John and Jesus.

Reading Isaiah 61:1-4 without referencing Jesus and in the context of today's Gospel makes you wonder about the identity of the person speaking. Who is this prophet? Pastor Ray preached about servant-leadership yet I doubt most people's impulse is to identify with the speaker. I cannot proclaim God's good news. I don't see liberty of the captives or the release of those in prison in real life unless I perform some mental gymnastics,  Why, and is this good?

The persona even adopts the Lord's identity in verse 8 of the reading "For I the Lord love justice, I hate robbery and wrongdoing". Reading this today I feel like when the spirit of the Lord is upon me that moving from third person references to God to first person is an invitation to understand God in a new light with a different understanding of identity. This provided shivers in a new way, I came to a different understanding than I had when I went into worship. This is an important part of the transformation described in these Isaiah verses.

Worship began with the congregation singing Hillsong's Here I Am to Worship by Chris Tomlin. The lyrics captured a complex emotion and foreshadowed the meaningfulness of worship today. Certainly it was chosen for the opening words "Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness / opened my eyes let me see" but every lyric reflected the beauty of this Sunday service and our Advent journey this year in unexpected clarity.