Open your Bible to the 12th chapter of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah is arguably one of the most important, valuable documents in all of human history. It includes some of the most amazing, most specific and well documented prophecy anywhere. It prophesies the destruction and exile of ancient Judah and also its restoration and return. Most importantly, it prophesies the coming Messiah with stunning precision. Shockingly, when the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, the book of Isaiah was the only manuscript preserved virtually in its entirety. It was found wrapped in protective linen inside a pottery jar and among the seven scrolls first discovered and first published. It almost seems as if God made a special point of protecting this particular scroll! I suspect He did so because this scroll almost single-handedly destroys the foolish argument that our Bibles can’t be trusted. This most ancient scroll (1,000 years older), is almost a verbatim copy of the Isaiah we read today! This scroll taught us that the scribes were very good at their jobs and that good archeology is a very good friend of our faith. But it isn’t scribes, archeology, the reliability of Scripture or even prophecy I want to focus on this morning. All that stuff is fun, but that’s for another time.
This morning we (sort of) begin this year’s Advent celebrations. I know Thanksgiving week isn’t the official beginning of Advent, but it has always been to me. Our Advent theme this year is very simple – the Light of Christmas. We will focus on the individual light each precious aspect of the traditional Advent calendar sheds on our eternal hope. And it seems only fitting we begin our Christmas party with the light of eternal gratitude burning in our hearts.
In the first part of Isaiah, terrible, awful judgment against Judah was prophesied. But in chapter 11, Isaiah went on to prophesy that even though Judah would be cut off and destroyed by the Assyrians, out of the stump of their broken nation would come the One who will one day restore them. And in chapter 12, Isaiah excitedly broke into a prophetic psalm of praise as he described the grateful way the people of God will assemble to sing in that glorious day. I like the way the New Living Translation phrases the passage. Listen closely to Isaiah as he said…
In that day you will sing: “Praise the LORD! He was angry with me, but now he comforts me. See, God has come to save me. I will trust in him and not be afraid. The LORD GOD [Yah Yahweh, God Himself, Very God of Very Gods!] is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” With joy you will drink deeply from the fountain of salvation!
In that wonderful day you will sing: “Thank the LORD! Praise his name! Tell the world what he has done. Oh, how mighty he is! Sing to the LORD, for he has done wonderful things. Make known his praise around the world. Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy! For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.”
The light of gratitude glows from this passage, doesn’t it? Isaiah said when Messiah comes, the people of God will gratefully do two simple things; drink deeply and shout loudly.
Look again at the first three verses of the passage. Do you see the light of gratitude shining through; the reasons Isaiah prophesied we would gratefully drink deeply?
Isaiah said God was angry with His people; justifiably disgusted with sin and adulterous behavior. He had every right to be! But now He comforts and saves us and, because of that, we trust Him to the degree we are no longer afraid of anything. God is not only our strength, He has not only made a dry path for us across the river just as He did for Moses crossing the Red Sea and Joshua skipping across the Jordan, but He is also our song. He is our joy! He is our pleasure in life. He is not just brute and blinding force, but the brilliant, loving Light of Life! And so we drink deeply of the overflowing fountain of His salvation. We gratefully enjoy the same cool, living waters Jesus offered the Samaritan woman; waters welling up to eternal life.
How deeply are we drinking of the delicious and lightly shimmering Living Waters? How is our gratitude shaping us and enlightening us as a community? Are we intentionally bathing ourselves in the brilliant, refreshing waters of life God offers us or are we just barely keeping ourselves alive; contenting ourselves with polite, powerless, religious, little Sunday sips? While anything is better than nothing, we weren’t designed for just anything. Almighty God designed us to gratefully drink deeply! Gratefully drink deeply of His Word, His Son, His Spirit and His Body, the community of believers. Allow the light of gratitude to glow in our hearts.
Let’s prayerfully stop right now and drink deeply...
Fill my cup, Lord – I lift it up, Lord!
Come and quench this thirsting of my soul.
Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more;
Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole!
Isaiah prophesied we would drink deeply of the salvation of our Lord simply because we are so very grateful to be able to! Where once we were thirsty, where once we wandered in a dry and thirsty land, where once we ourselves were condemned and carried away into a blind, abysmal Assyrian exile of sin and suffering, we have now been found and brought home again. Our cup has been filled to overflowing and we are sloppy grateful for that. Our gratefulness enlightens us; it is always the first light shining out of any genuine Christmas community.
Isaiah says we are so sloppy grateful we not only drink deeply, we shout loudly. We don’t just enjoy this wild and wonderful spring, we employ it! This wonderful spring of Living Water we have discovered, this spring of Living Water that has wonderfully discovered us is flowing so constantly and so boldly we couldn’t keep it to ourselves if we tried. Interestingly, my African Bible Commentary says any tribal person living in an arid land, discovering a flowing spring or deep well of water would never think to keep it to themselves. There are some things just too important for all of our survival to keep to ourselves.
Just look at the colorful, noisy second half of this passage. Isaiah prophesied the people of God would do a bunch of wonderfully noisy and grateful things. We won’t sit around church buildings sniping and backbiting each other. Isaiah said the truly enlightened and truly grateful church will sing thanks and praise to His Name. We will gratefully tell the nations everything He has done. We will always be prepared to give an account for the hope that is within us! We will make sure everyone around us knows exactly how mighty our Lord is. We will shout His wonders to the world. We will announce to everyone that the Holy One of God is among us!
And if you look carefully at the original language of this passage, you discover very something interesting and wonderful going on. The singulars in the passage become plurals. When we get to the “you” of verse 4, we see plural pronouns in the Hebrew. Isaiah prophesies we will enter our salvation individually, but we will enjoy our salvation communally! Each one of us must enter the salvation of our Lord as individuals, but we are intended to enjoy that watery, wonderful light of salvation communally. We come into the Light alone, but we enjoy the Light together. And even more interesting, in verse 6, where “the inhabitant of Jerusalem” is mentioned, the Hebrew language there switches into a feminine form, which some scholars take as perhaps a tender allusion to the bride of Christ, the body, the church. All these cheerful little lights say we become part of something enormously bigger and more wonderful than ourselves. We are gratefully joined into a refreshing, brilliant, shining star genuine community of Christmas light! Not only do we drink deeply and shout loudly, but we do it all together!
How loudly does your life shout or shine out your gratitude? How many people around you are finding their way to the Living Water because the brilliant Light of gratitude in your life has gratefully pointed the way? How wonderfully sloppy and overflowing is the gratitude of your heart and that of this church? Jesus is calling us to come drink deeply and shout loudly!
Henrietta Mears, one of the most famous and effective Sunday School teachers ever, was well known for asking herself some questions before teaching. She would say, “Henrietta, are you proving your Christian life is a joyful, happy thing? Do you honestly look glad you are a Christian? Does your life radiate joy, gratefulness and enthusiasm? Check yourself carefully on this before you teach it. Make sure your Christian life is contagious.”
Let’s prayerfully stop and ask God for help to shout loudly and shine brightly…
Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me.
See, on the portals, He's waiting and watching, watching for you and for me.
Come home, come home. Ye who are weary, come home.
Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling, calling, "O sinner, come home!"
Drink deeply! Shout loudly! Let the light of your gratitude reveal your participation in the community of Christmas; the community of Christ. In the coming weeks, we will add all the other, more traditionally Advent lights into the conversation, but I submit to you that we won’t be ready to enjoy those pretty Christmas lights if we don’t fully embrace this grateful one first. So drink deeply of God this Thanksgiving week! Drink so deeply you can’t help but shout and shine loudly this Advent!
May our LORD open our minds and hearts to see all He has graciously done for us! May we both drink deeply and shout loudly our gratitude for all He has done! May the intensity of our gratitude lay a foundation for our LORD to build the Christmas community He desires!
Amen.
