Last week a good friend of mine went to be with the Lord. In a final conversation with him – in this world – one of the things we talked about was the hope we have in God whose loving action led to Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus’ death is reckoned to be foolishness by the world. Consider what the Apostle Paul writes in First Corinthians, chapter 1.

Foolishness…? Writing about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ Paul says in verses 18 and 19: For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart”.

Paul wants us to know that when Jesus died on the cross the power of God was uniquely at work. He wants us to know that God in his wisdom has addressed the root problem of the human dilemma in a way that no other religion or philosophy has.

Our world has made incredible strides in the field of science and technology. We can peer into the vast spaces of the universe and map the human genome, but there is always something that trips us up, especially the persistent inability to find a path to perfect peace with one another.

William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, was once asked why he wrote it. He responded: I believed then, that man was sick – not exceptional man, but average man. I believed that the condition of man was to be a morally diseased creation and that the best job I could do at the time was to trace the connection between his diseased nature and the international mess he gets himself into.

In First Corinthians chapter 1 verse 18, Paul is telling us that where human wisdom has failed to find answers, God himself has stepped in and acted. The man who hung on a cross between two self-confessed criminals on a hill outside of Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago, was God’s one and only eternal Son. Crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor in Judea, the Son of God, who is the source of our life, died the death we justly deserve.

That day the all-holy God acted in love and provided a solution to our human dilemma in a way that nothing else could. For in his death, the sinless Son perfectly satisfied once and for all every righteous requirement of God.

A moral universe. Paul is saying that we live in a moral universe. Despite the strident voices in the public square, we are not here by chance simply to make the best of a fleeting life. We are image-bearers of our creator God. Our deepest problem is that, designed to know and enjoy a rich relationship with the living God, we worship the desires of our own hearts – ourselves and whatever catches our attention. But we were designed for so much more – and for eternity.

The good news is that through the cross, God in his wisdom and love offers a new start and a new way of living to everyone who turns to Jesus Christ in heart-felt repentance and faith. The cross is not simply good advice. It is not even news about God’s power. It is the place where God has destroyed all human pretence and indifference, even arrogance.

It was something very strange that God did when Jesus died, but there is a rightness to it. Paul tells us that God has deliberately ordered things this way so that we arrogant, self-centered people cannot, and will not, find our own solution.

More foolishness…? In verse 21 Paul says: God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. This is breath-taking. Through the announcement of Christ’s crucifixion, a message that seems senseless and inane when we first come across it, God has determined to rescue anyone who turns to Jesus as their Savior and Lord.

The implications of this are humbling. God, in his wisdom, has determined on a plan that to human eyes seems so ludicrous. Furthermore, it means that all people (it doesn’t matter who we are) have an equal opportunity to benefit. Priority isn’t given to the highly intelligent or the elite. God’s offer of salvation is open to anyone who, by his grace trusts him at his word, to anyone who relies on him, who turns to him and believes in him.

The message of Christ crucified is God’s strange wisdom that subverts the wisdom of the world and provides the one and only solution to our human need – turning our hearts to our true home with God, and giving us motivation and a model for working out our relationships with one another.

In the conversation with my dying friend, we talked about death and the hope of a future that God in his wisdom and love holds out to us. There will come a day when we will meet again in the perfected age to come.

Reflect: For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart” (1 Corinthians 1:18-19).

Prayer: Almighty Father, look graciously upon this your family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed and given up into the hands of wicked leaders, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

As The Lord’s Supper is often confusing, let me step aside from my usual practice of providing a Bible reflection and make a few remarks about key themes that were crafted by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1533-1556.

Cranmer was used by God to re-form the Church of England as a biblically-grounded, gospel-focused church. He achieved this through recovering the unique nature of the Scriptures as God’s written self-revelation, the development of The Thirty-Nine Articles, the Homilies (sermons on essential doctrines of the faith) and his 1552 Book of Common Prayer – which sits behind the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. To this day the 1662 BCP sets out the doctrine and principles of worship for the gathering of God’s people in the Anglican Church around the world.

To understand the shape of The Lord’s Supper we need first to appreciate Cranmer’s view of human nature which Dr Ashley Null summarizes as: ‘What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies. Such is the nature of our broken relationship with God that the desires of our hearts dominate us. When we gather as God’s people our hearts need to be addressed and changed, and that can only be achieved by God – through his Word and his Spirit.

So, at the commencement of The Lord’s Supper, we pray: Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, so that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

We pray for the outpouring of the Spirit of God on the lives and hearts of everyone present, not on the elements of bread and wine on the Table. The prayer rightly calls down the Spirit of God on everyone gathered in the name of Christ Jesus.

And to remind us of God’s expectations, Cranmer called for the recitation of the Ten Commandments. Jesus’ summary of the commandments is sometimes used today – followed by a response: Incline our hearts to keep this law. Cranmer’s intention was to let the Holy Spirit work through the Scriptures to change hearts.

In the flow of the liturgy, the Scriptures are read and a Creed – a statement of belief – is said. A sermon is given, indicating that we can come only to the Lord’s Table through a response of faith to God’s Word. Prayers are said for the church, leaders in the wider community, and the needs of God’s people and others.

The minister then exhorts everyone with words that echo Paul’s warning in First Corinthians chapter 11, about eating the bread and drinking the cup without heartfelt repentance and a deep desire to live out Christ’s commands.

The warning leads into a general confession, followed by a pronouncement of the promise of God’s forgiveness in the Name of Jesus, for all who truly repent of following their heart’s desires rather than God’s holy law. The biblical ground for the promise of God’s forgiveness is underlined by what are called ‘comfortable words’ (e.g., John 3:16;1 John 2:1-2).

With the exhortation and response, Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord. we are exhorted to lift our gaze to the Lord of heaven and earth. We are also reminded that Christ is not physically in the world. Rather, he is in heaven.

In this context our hearts are lifted up to the Lord on high with words from Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, known as ‘the Sanctus’: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory. Hosanna in the highest – period, full stop.

In Cranmer’s 1552 Prayer Book there is no following acclamation: ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ – words that reflected a false theology of ‘the real presence’ of Christ in the bread and the wine. If we read Luke 13:35 carefully we will see that Jesus spoke these words of himself and of his forthcoming sacrificial death. This work was completed once and for all through his crucifixion. Cranmer’s aim was gospel clarity, not ambiguity.

The themes of confession of sin, God’s grace and forgiveness, continue with the Prayer of Humble Access. The focus of our prayer is to the Lord whose nature is always to have mercy…

Cranmer’s prayer of consecration – the setting apart of the bread and wine for The Lord’s Supper – follows. It recalls God’s all-glorious act of redemption that was achieved through the Lord Jesus Christ who, in his death on the cross, made there … a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world and thereby instituted a perpetual memory of his precious death until his coming again.

The prayer continues, asking that the bread and wine become for us the body and blood of Christ – not literally but spiritually in that the Spirit of God feeds our hearts and minds, with the benefits of what Christ has done for us.

It is important to notice that the sacraments are not administered to give us a nice warm feeling. Nor, as Cranmer’s 1552 Prayer Book makes clear, are they are a re-offering of the sacrifice of Christ. They are not something we do to achieve some merit in our relationship with God. Rather, the sacraments bring us through an outward sign, what God has done for us in Christ. For the true believer in Christ, they bring real spiritual benefits.

As God’s people eat the bread, they are exhorted to Take and eat this, in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on Him in your heart by faith, with thanksgiving. And in taking the cup all are exhorted to Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for you and be thankful. As we receive the bread and the wine, we are spiritually partaking of the benefits of Christ’s death. When we truly believe in Christ, they bring us spiritual benefits.

How important it is that when we come to The Lord’s Supper, we have reflected afresh on what Christ has done once and for all time to satisfy in full God’s righteous requirements for our sin and for the sins of the world.

The Lord’s Supper concludes with a prayer of self-offering (oblation) based on Hebrews 13:15 and Romans 12:1-2. With these prayers God’s people are sent into to the world to live for Christ and to change the world through the gospel.

A prayer. Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip us all with everything good that we may do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

© John G. Mason

The late afternoon storms last Tuesday afternoon (Australian Eastern Summer Time) brought down a huge neigbouring tree on to the Cammeray Church site – one of two church properties where I am part-time interim senior minister. No one was harmed – for which we thank the Lord. But the building itself has suffered structural damage making it unusable for the coming months.

It brought to mind the devastating fires in Los Angeles, USA as well as the loss and devastation caused by war – not least in Ukraine at this time. Where is God? Why does he allow such things to happen?

Now I need to point out that there are no complete answers to the question, ‘why do people suffer in a world where a good and loving God rules?’ It would be misleading to say we have a full explanation. In fact we can only begin to provide some answers with certainty because of God’s revelation of himself in Scripture.

How important it is then that in the midst of the unexpected in life, we encourage one another with cool, clear minds that are grounded in the Bible. The Psalms, for example, constantly reflect on the vagaries of life and evil (the unprovoked, interventionist war in Ukraine, for example) that we experience, reminding us that the wisdom and strength we need are found in the Lord God.

Psalm 46 begins: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging (Psalm 46:1-3).

The Psalm encourages us that God is the sovereign lord over every aspect of life – over nature, the enemies of God’s people, and the world with all its tensions and conflicts. Written in a time of crisis, the confident faith in the Lord’s ultimate control is most encouraging.

Furthermore, while we might fear the instability in nature and events around us, we can be assured that God not only knows what is happening but is in the midst working out his greater and ultimate and very good purposes. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;… but we are assured of God’s final word: he utters his voice, in judgment on the nations.

If you will allow me a personal note, on September 11, 2001 Judith and I were living in Downtown New York City, in close proximity to the Trade Towers. When the towers collapsed our building was impacted. We were without a home for some 6-weeks and my fledgling New York ministry was also affected. We had to move our apartment and start afresh. Tim Keller who had invited me to start a new gospel-focused Anglican church in Manhattan later told me that he had thought that Judith and I would return to Sydney. But the Lord in his grace brought us through the challenges.

In the midst of the unknown, Psalm 46 was one of the Bible texts from which we, along with many others, drew comfort and strength.

Psalm 46, verse 4 says: There is a river, whose streams make glad the city of God….  Under God the waters no longer rage but are found as life-giving streams for his people under siege.

It is not surprising that the Psalm moves to a climax with a command, Be still, and know that I am God (verse 10). This is not so much a word to God’s people – although that is there – but rather primarily God’s word to the turbulent seas and rebellious world.

It is a command that anticipates Jesus’ words to the stormy seas: “Peace! Be still” (Mark 4:39). It is the same powerful voice of authority of Jesus when he commanded the deceased Lazarus: “Lazarus, come forth!” (John 11:43).

Psalm 46, verse 10 continues: God will be exalted among the nations; he will be exalted in the earth.

If such a God is with us, we can have every confidence that when we turn to him he will hear us and sustain us. Despite the awfulness of our experiences at times, God is our refuge and strength.

And the Psalm concludes: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

A huge broken tree falling on a church building in storm-tossed winds can stir us to frustration and even anger as we work through the challenges of the necessary ministry adjustments. The same can happen when God’s people make mistakes, or experience illness or other personal challenges.

Or, in the goodness of God, it could be another way the Lord builds us up in the riches of his love and forgiveness, and opens opportunities for us to testify to our faith in the community. These are my prayers. Are they yours?

Prayer. Almighty Father, we commend to your goodness all who are in any way afflicted or distressed, especially those who are known to us. May it please you to comfort and relieve them according to their needs, giving them patience in their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. All this we ask for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

With the elections in the UK and the US last year and upcoming elections in other democracies we wonder about the future. Good and upright leaders are rare. Indeed, while every election shows that no leader is perfect, most people long for someone who will use their position to provide for the security and welfare of a nation. In a fallen world the freedom to elect leaders is important and very precious – something for which we should pray.

When we read the history of Israel in the Old Testament we learn that the prophets spoke of a unique leader whom God would send. Isaiah chapters 1 through 39 reveal God’s condemnation of his people for their self-worship and their disregard of him. Isaiah had warned of God’s judgement and in 586BC the Babylonians demolished Jerusalem and took its people captive. But Isaiah is not all negative, for he opens a window on something new and lasting that God planned to do through a very special king.

In Isaiah chapter 61 we read: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me;… Isaiah 61 continues by telling us what this Spirit-led figure will do: He has come to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor; And the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn… (61:1b-2).

It is not until we come to the New Testament that we see the real significance of these words.

For Luke chapter 4, verses 17 through 19 tells us that Jesus, as guest speaker in the synagogue in Nazareth, opened the scroll of the book of Isaiah at chapter 61. He read: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me,… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Period. Full stop.

He didn’t complete Isaiah’s words: …and the day of vengeance of our God, but went on to comment: “Today these words are being fulfilled in your midst”.

By leaving Isaiah’s words incomplete, Jesus implies that there are two stages to the ‘Day of the Lord’ – the day of favor, and the day of justice. His first coming inaugurates the time of God’s favor, or mercy – the era of God’s rescue operation. His return will be the time of God’s judgment and the establishment of Jesus’ rule in all its perfection and glory. Everyone will see it and feel it.

It’s important that we notice how Jesus applies Isaiah’s words to his public ministry: he says he has come to the aid of the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed.

When did he do this? After all he didn’t provide food and clothing for all the needy around him; he didn’t release any prisoners, not even John the Baptist. Why? Because he has a bigger plan.

Words such as poor, blind, captive and mourn in Isaiah and the Old Testament as a whole, are often used as metaphors. The poor is often a reference to the spiritually poor, the blind, to the spiritually blind, and the captives, to those who are captive to self, sin and death. Those who mourn are aware of their own broken relationship with God as well as the brokenness of the world in its relationship with God.

That said, there were times when Jesus literally fulfilled Isaiah’s words. He did feed people who were hungry; he did give sight to some who were blind; and he did release people who were captive to the powers of evil. In each instance the miracle is a picture of God’s compassion and his ultimate purpose to provide life in all its fullness and freedom for his people. The events pointed to the beauty and perfection of the rule of God’s king.

By reading from Isaiah chapter 61 in the synagogue in Nazareth that day, Jesus assumed the mantle of the anointed servant-king of Isaiah’s vision. He was announcing that the final great era of God’s mercy had dawned.

Yes, he introduced a tension between the is and the yet to be of God’s rule, but it is a tension we need to work with, for it is God’s plan. It’s important that we see this for we need to live with this tension in our lives.

Many around us have thrown God out of their lives and view political power and their own world-view as the solution to the world’s ills. But no matter how good human leaders might be, they will always fail us. How wonderful it is to know that the day will come when Jesus Christ will return in all his kingly glory to usher in a new heaven and a new earth where truth and righteousness, peace and joy will prevail forever.

Before he departed from his followers, Jesus commissioned them with the primary task of proclamation – announcing God’s good news of release to all nations. What’s more, he continues to raise up men and women to carry on this task, to give people everywhere the chance to turn to God. Isaiah tells us and Jesus repeats: ‘Now is the time of God’s favor – the era of God’s grace’. The opportunity to respond to God’s good news won’t last forever.

Now is the time to listen up and to respond. In Jesus we find the leader we long for: God’s king who will come in all might, majesty, dominion and power.

Do you believe this? Are you prepared? And are you keen to help others to be ready for the return of the King?.

A prayer. Almighty God, we thank you for the gift of your holy word. May it be a lantern to our feet, a light to our paths, and strength to our lives. Take us and use us to love and serve all people in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

There are many things in life that baffle and trouble us. If God is almighty and all loving, why does he allow pain and suffering, evil and injustice to run riot through the world? From the wildfires in Los Angeles to conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, why does God allow us as individuals to go through so many of the things we do?

If we are to understand the trauma and trials of life, we need more than human wisdom and understanding. Abraham Lincoln once remarked: I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.

Wisdom. When the Bible speaks of wisdom it speaks of the complex matrix of intelligence, knowledge and power within a moral framework working together towards a good outcome.

Wisdom is the practical side of moral goodness. Because God alone is good, and because he alone has the power always to achieve his goals, his ways are always wise. Wisdom is an essential part of God’s character.

Isaiah chapter 42, verse 21 through chapter 43, verse 7 provides us with two scenes of God’s wisdom. The first speaks of tough times and God’s justice. The second speaks of peace and contains some of the most tender words of God’s love.

Tough times and God’s justice. The first scene portrays God’s people in exile in Babylon. Like refugees today, they were rootless, homeless, and friendless in a foreign land. But far greater than their personal loss was their sense that God had deserted them. They hadn’t believed prophets like Jeremiah; rather, they had preferred to listen to the popular preachers in Jerusalem who had told them that all would be well.

But it wasn’t. In 586BC their city had been destroyed, the temple demolished, and they had been deported. In Isaiah chapter 42, verse 24 we read: Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler, and Israel to the robbers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? Where was this only wise God?

Yet against all the odds, God’s ancient people survived. Indeed, no passage of the Bible expresses the renaissance of these people more clearly than Isaiah chapter 43, verses 1 through 7.

Which brings us to a second scene – a picture of God’s wisdom and love. It opens a window on God’s infinite wisdom and power at work.

In Isaiah chapter 43, verse 1 we read: This is what the Lord said, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Isaiah tells us that God took the growing embryo of our life and shaped it according to his good and wise purposes. But more than that, he redeemed us. For even though we have denied him and sought our independence from him, he bought us and brought us back to himself, even at great cost to himself.

We find this picture emerging in the Old Testament when he rescued the slaves in Egypt and shaped them into a nation. And when he returned the exiles in Babylon to Jerusalem and re-instated them as a people. But we see the greatest picture of God’s redemption when we turn to the New Testament. There we read that he has not only created us but has also redeemed us through the death of his one and only Son.

As Paul puts it in First Corinthians chapter 1, verse 18 and especially verses 24b and 25: Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser that human wisdom, and God’s weakness stronger than human strength. Jesus’ crucifixion seems foolish to world, but God in his infinite wisdom planned it.

Presence. God has not just redeemed his people. He promises to be personally present with us. Back in Isaiah chapter 43 we read in verse 2: When you pass through the waters I will be with you;…  God doesn’t promise that his people will be immune from tough times. He says when, not if. Furthermore, he speaks of his people passing through the waters not over them.

For the people of Isaiah’s day, it meant that God would be with them in the land of exile. For us who live on the other side of Jesus’ cross and resurrection, it’s an even richer statement, for we find that God has come amongst us in our pain and has participated in it.

This is the meaning of the manger in Bethlehem, and the cross outside Jerusalem. Christianity is not about a God who emails us sympathy notes. Rather he bore our sin and carried our sorrow. He descended to the lowest parts of the earth to rescue us. Immanuel: God is with us.

No other religion comes near this – a God who comes into a suffering world and suffers with us; a God who comes into the world and dies for us; a God who comes into the world and becomes a curse on our behalf. No other religion has even dreamed of this, let alone actioned it.

God wasn’t just satisfying some passing whim when he created and redeemed us. His plan and purpose, which he has been working out through history, is to establish a people who love him and glorify him.

Prayer. Lord our God, fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: have compassion on our infirmities; and those things which for our unworthiness we dare not and for our blindness we cannot ask, graciously give us for the worthiness of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

Martin Luther King Junior’s 1963 Washington Speech, “I have a dream”, fired the hearts of American people across the racial divide to a new vision and energy to promote harmony and peace. Yet within five years Martin Luther King himself was dead, gunned down by an assassin’s bullet.

Is there any hope for our world where divisions, conflict and war continue? Or will there always be death and destruction?

Come with me to Isaiah chapter 60 where he speaks of a city yet to rise. With the Babylonian conquest of the Kingdom of Judah in 586BC, Isaiah’s first readers had lost their city, the temple (the symbol of God’s presence) and their king. Yet in the midst of the darkness and despair Isaiah provides shafts of light revealing God’s ultimate plans. We get glimpses of this in chapters 25 and 35 and especially in chapter 60.

With the close of chapter 59 Isaiah introduces the theme of a renewed city (verse 20), and in chapter 60 he speaks of God’s City – a place where the dark experiences of our present world will give way to light. Gloom will give way to glory.

Isaiah pictures the sun rising over Jerusalem as a metaphor for God’s future city. His readers would know the rising sun appears over the Mount of Olives before striking the city below, driving away the darkness and flooding the whole scene with the glory of its light. It’s a sight that tourists still marvel at today.

Significantly, Isaiah’s words came true. For against all odds the Jewish people did return to Jerusalem and rebuild it. Cyrus the Mede had risen and conquered Babylon and in 520BC he decreed that the Jewish people could return to their homeland.

But there’s another layer to Isaiah’s prophecy. He didn’t just speak of the city of Jerusalem rebuilt after the exile. He was taking up a theme found in chapter 25, where God’s Messiah, his king, would come down to earth. God would bring in a whole new order, a new creation, where Messiah would host a banquet far beyond anything that anyone dreamed.

Yes, the return of the exiles and the re-building of Jerusalem was part of God’s plan, but the earthly city Isaiah is speaking about is a picture of a greater city yet to come. Isaiah uses the earthly city of Jerusalem as a metaphor: God himself will rise over Jerusalem, filling the whole of the city with the light of his presence: Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

The imagery of light and darkness is often used to portray God’s creating work. In Genesis chapter 1, we read that thick darkness covered the earth, but that God’s light overcame it. In Isaiah chapter 60, darkness is a metaphor for moral evil and spiritual blindness.

The darkness of moral and spiritual failure is a shroud that embraces all people and covers all the nations. But, in the same way God’s light pierced the darkness in creation, now Isaiah sees God’s light piercing the darkness of human failure and the emergence of a new city.

At the centre of this new world is God – God’s throne and God’s city. Here there will be no need of a sun or a moon, for God’s glory will shine forever. God’s city represents everything that was promised in the original creation – relationships with God and with one another where there is truth and love, joy and peace, forever.

Furthermore, God’s light will shine world-wide. People everywhere will be drawn to it. In verse 3 we read: Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Lift up your eyes round about and see; they all gather together, they come to you.

Nations and kings will come to Zion, not to conquer it, but to acknowledge God and submit to him. Those who refuse, verse 12 warns, will perish: For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid waste.

It is one of the ironies of history that the power of Rome which crucified Jesus in the first century capitulated to him in the fourth century when the emperor Constantine was baptized.

It is striking proof that Isaiah’s words were no idle dream. The kingdoms of human power would fail; they would amass their wealth only to lay it down at the feet of the king of kings.

It’s an inspiring and encouraging picture. How much more should it encourage us, who live on the other side of the coming of God’s Messiah, the Lord Jesus. With Jesus’ coming and his resurrection from the dead, we have greater assurance that God’s plans will come to pass. God’s rule and God’s City will be established in glory and greatness forever.

What then should we be doing in the meantime? Part of the answer lies in our need to be biblically rich in understanding God and his purposes.

We need to believe what we read in Colossians, chapter 3, verse 4 for example: When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. While Jesus Christ is already enthroned at God’s right hand, his rule remains hidden for the present. In this meantime, he wants people to come to him in faith, trusting him for who he is and what he has done for us.

This means in part, that we should not withdraw from society with its issues and concerns. Rather, to quote Jeremiah’s words to exiles in Babylon: But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (Jeremiah 29:7). We all have a task to serve the best interests of the community around us.

We also have a greater task to assist the lost in being introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet sadly, the majority of churches in the West have lost their zeal to promote this good news.

In chapter 60, Isaiah wants us to see the restoration of ancient Jerusalem in the 6th century BC as a picture of God’s promise of a far greater city, when the dominion, power and glory of the Lord will be revealed in all its awesome majesty. Come what may, no human authority, no evil power, is greater than God.

As we read in Colossians chapter 2, verse 14, when Christ died, God defeated the powers of evil, sin and death. The day will come when that reality will be seen in all its fullness and glory.

Prayer. Almighty and everlasting God, ruler of all things in heaven and on earth, hear with mercy the prayers and petitions of your people, and so grant us your peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

© John G. Mason