The Beauty of The Saviour

Once upon a time a prince was searching for a maiden who would become his wife and then, when he was king, would be queen with him. One day while running an errand for his father he passed through one of the poorer sections of the town and saw out of the window of his carriage a beautiful young woman. On his part, it was love at first sight. In the coming days he arranged as often as possible to travel on the same street and each time he saw the young woman his love grew more and more.
But how would he seek her hand? He could order her to marry him. But even a prince wants his bride to marry him without coercion. He could dress in his most splendid uniform and arrive at her front door in a carriage drawn by six horses. But if he did that he could never be sure if she loved him or had simply been overwhelmed by the splendour of his position in life.
The prince decided on another plan. He gave up all his princely advantages and moved into the town, coming not with a crown but in the garb of a peasant. He lived among the people of that place, shared in their life, spoke with them, ate with them. He met the young woman as one who was a part of her life and in time she came to love him for who he was and because he had first loved her.
There is wisdom here in this fable, but still we’re not sure about it. There was always a chance that as a peasant he would be dismissed by the object of his love. It’s better to go with the sure thing. Coercion works. Making an unmistakable impression is always a good strategy. At least that’s what God’s people said to him. As you are able, please stand and we will hear the word of God from Isaiah 64 beginning at the first verse.
Isaiah 64 is poetry that is meant for the time of exile. Some of you may know that scholars are divided on the number of authors whose work has been combined into one book of our Bible. Isaiah’s work as a prophet begins prior to the exile of the people in the southern kingdom of Judah. But included in this wonderful book are words that are meant for the time of exile. I lean in a conservative direction and simply accept the idea that one servant of God was used by God to see not only the present circumstances of the people but also the future.
It is for the exile that the prophet gives words which are to be spoken to God. They are words of reminder. The people want God to live up to God’s name. When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence (Isaiah 64:3). O God, those were the days!
I think these words were meant to be the companion of people who had heard the stories of former glory. What stories they were. There were the stories of Abraham, past his prime and then some, who along with Sarah was given a son, Isaac.
There were the stories of Joseph, sold into slavery and likely forgotten by his brothers, mourned as dead by Jacob, who by the power of God at work in spite of everything rises to be second-in-command to Pharaoh.
There were the stories of Moses, the reluctant deliverer, who takes a bunch of slaves in Egypt, manages to keep them together during a 40 year wilderness sojourn, and finally gives them over to Joshua after putting them on the edge of the Promised Land; and for good measure, he met with God on a mountain and received the law to the accompaniment of thunder and lightening.
There were stories of Solomon, son of David, under whom Israel was unified and through whom the nation achieved its greatest political influence as well as a time of relative shalom. Those were the days, O God, when you showed who you are. We knew it and the nations around us knew it also. O God, those were the days. Is there anything stopping you, O God, from bringing back days like that?
Is it a universal mark of human nature that the past is always coloured in favourable shades? Guess when this was said; “I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words.…When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint.”
What would your guess be? Last week; during the protest years of the 1960’s? Actually the author is a philosopher named Hesiod, from the 8th century B. C.
Our first church was Calvary Baptist in Cobourg. I turned the ripe old age of 24 a few weeks after I began my work there. I looked as if I might still be in high school and some of the older teens soon learned I was an easy target for their jokes. Two of the guys told me one day that things had really gone down hill since I had arrived. “We used to need chairs in the aisles,” they told me. “Some people used to go to the movies on Saturday night and then come right to church to line up for a good spot of Sunday morning.”
When I went to Windsor I learned about my long ago predecessor at Temple Baptist, Harry Nobles. He was such an influential man in the city that on at least one occasion there was an attempt to convince him to run for mayor. O the good old days.
And of course, it’s true here at Blythwood. Some of you will not likely know this but there is a choir room here on the mezzanine level. Wander down there some day and look at the pictures on the wall of choirs that filled the choir stalls.
Less than 20 years ago there were enough folks here on a Sunday morning to support two worship experiences, one contemporary and one traditional. This is the 15th year of Out of the Cold and I have lost count of the number of times I have been told, “when we started the programme, we did it all by ourselves without anyone’s help.” O God, those were the days. Is there anything stopping you, O God, from bringing back days like that?
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence (Isaiah 64:1, 2).
These are not the only words, however, given to people longing for God to make his presence known. Like a whisper intruding into a rant comes verse eight of our text. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. I take this to mean that the prophet calls upon God’s people to understand that in the end God’s work is not so much about the mountains quaking at his presence as it is about you and I being available to God so that we can be spiritually shaped according to his pleasure and purposes.
To put it another way, it’s a waste of time asking God to tear open the heavens and invade the world because it has already been done at Christmas. God in the person of Jesus has become part of our world, pitched his tent with us, to use the words of John’s gospel. The beauty of heaven has been captured in a child, a person, a Saviour, a friend, and as the objects of God’s grace we now know what it looks like to be shaped by God, to more faithfully resemble the pattern of the work of his hand.
Christian, don’t ask for God to tear open the heavens and make his power known. That’s what happened at Bethlehem.
Church, don’t ask for God to tear open the heavens and make his power known. Instead focus your heart and mind on the spiritual power that is ready to be released in the life of anyone who truly says to God, I am the clay, you are the potter; mold me in the shape of the Saviour.
It’s a risky strategy. You see that, don’t you? It’s a strategy that gives God’s people an excuse. We can’t be expected to be faithful in our world. It’s not like it was back in the good old days when God made his presence known in fire and earthquake. Back then everyone could see that God was God because of the marvelous things that he did; now, not so much. Back then the place was packed. Back then everyone went to church. O God, those were the days. We could really step up the tempo of things around here if only God you would bring back those days. Frankly, God, we’re waiting for you to do your part.
And God says, how could I do more than what I have already done? The heavens have been torn open so that the Christ could humble himself, empty himself, take the form of a slave, and be born in the likeness of one of my people.
How could I do more than what I have already done? Through this Christ, this Jesus, it is possible for the people of God to be shaped according to true love, true grace, true compassion and true beauty.
How could I do more than what I have already done? Yes, I could have made the world so that you had no choice but to obey. I could have made the world so that worship was a robotic response and not a freely given gift of love. But what joy would there have been in that for either you or me.
Don’t bother asking God to throw open the skies and make his presence known on the earth—that’s what God did at Christmas. Instead, ask yourself about the response you have made to God’s great embrace of us and our world in Jesus. For in that response will be the answer to our longing, in that response will be the witness that truly shows the world that heaven has come to earth.
Charles Wesley, the great preacher and poet of the Methodist Church points to this truth in these well-known words:
Finish, then, Thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in Thee;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

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