Scripture: Isaiah 60: 1-7, 19-22; Revelation 21: 22-27
Sermon: The Nations Shall Come to Your Light
Topics: advent, ants, aroma, fragrance, Jerusalem
Preached: December 6, 2015
Rev. Mike Abma
Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
2 For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
3 Nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
4 Lift up your eyes and look around;
they all gather together, they come to you;
your sons shall come from far away,
and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.
5 Then you shall see and be radiant;
your heart shall thrill and rejoice,
because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you,
the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
6 A multitude of camels shall cover you,
the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense,
and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.
7 All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you,
the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you;
they shall be acceptable on my altar,
and I will glorify my glorious house.
God the Glory of Zion
19 The sun shall no longer be
your light by day,
nor for brightness shall the moon
give light to you by night;
but the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.
20 Your sun shall no more go down,
or your moon withdraw itself;
for the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your days of mourning shall be ended.
21 Your people shall all be righteous;
they shall possess the land for ever.
They are the shoot that I planted, the work of my hands,
so that I might be glorified.
22 The least of them shall become a clan,
and the smallest one a mighty nation;
I am the Lord;
in its time I will accomplish it quickly.
Revelation 21: 22-27
I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 25Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.26People will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations. 27But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practises abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
INTRODUCTION ANTS
A while ago I watched a Nature documentary on ants.
An abandoned colony of grass-cutter ants was found.
A bunch of entomologists – people who study insects –
poured liquid cement into the ant colony simply to get a sense of the size and
scope of the ant colony.
Once the cement hardened, they began to excavate.
After removing tons and tons of dirt, what they found was amazing.
Under the earth was a huge ant-city,
as big or bigger than a city bus;
a maze of tunnels and chambers
able to house millions and millions of ants.
The documentary also showed how these ants achieved this kind of engineering feat.
Ants marched out of the colony carrying dirt
Ants marched down designated paths to get food.
Then ants marched back carrying leaves as big as their bodies.
A great procession of ants!
Watching those thousands and thousands of ants work
all marching in line made me think of that song:
The ants go marching one by one hurrah hurrah….
But here is the thing that caught my attention.
The minute another ant,
even another leaf-cutting ant from another colony
joins the march,
or tries to enter the ant-city
there is trouble.
The foreign ant is immediately identified and either run off or killed.
How can ants tell a foreign ant when they all look exactly the same?
Well, ants apparently can smell each other.
Each colony, each ant-city,
has its own peculiar scent, its peculiar aroma, its unique pheromone.
To be different automatically means you are a threat, an enemy.
ISAIAH 59 and the REBUILDING OF JERUSALEM
The end of Isaiah is addressed to God’s people who had returned from Babylon
to their city, Jerusalem.
It is addressed to people busy rebuilding their city.
It is addressed to people dreaming about what their city once was
in the glory days of King David and Solomon.
They dreamt of restoring those glory days:
making Jerusalem
a worshipping city,
a righteous city
a city of gladness once again.
But though they were working hard,
it was not working.
Like ants,
the Israelites saw everyone different as a threat.
They were becoming hard, suspicious, cold.
In Isaiah 59,
the prophet describes Jerusalem, their city,
not as worshipping, but as quarrelling;
not as righteous, but as rigid;
not as a city of gladness, but as a city of gloom.
Isaiah 59 ends on a sad note:
there was no justice, no peace, no joy.
All was darkness and all was fear.
ISAIAH 60 — THE VISION
Then there is Isaiah 60.
It bursts forth like a sunrise after cloudy, stormy night.
It bursts forth with a vision of what could be, what should be.
Wake Up, People! Arise, Shine!
What follows is a dramatic vision with 3 main characters,
all glowing, all radiant.
The main character is God.
Arise, Shine!
Your Light has come.
The glory of the Lord is shining on you.
God is the one giving his people a new start.
They thought they were dead-and-gone in exile.
But God was giving them new life, new hope.
That is God’s glory – to give life to those who think they are dead.
To give hope to the hopeless.
The second main set of characters of this vision are God’s people.
They are glowing, they are radiant, because of the goodness of God.
But they are glowing with a purpose:
to be a light to the nations,
to attract others to their city and to their God.
That is their glory.
And lastly, and most surprisingly, the third main set of characters
are the nations, the non-Israelites, the non-Jews, the pagans.
Surprisingly, they are also glowing and radiant.
Why? Because this city is their city too.
And they are bringing their very best into the city,
to serve and worship and adore God.
That is their glory – offering their very best to the Lord.
THE REAL WORLD BACK THEN
This vision is breath-taking, glorious!
But this vision is almost too bright, too dazzling, too brilliant.
It looked and sounded and seemed too good to be true.
It seemed so far removed from the real world.
In the real world,
Jerusalem was still mostly rubble;
In the real world
their neighbors were mostly trouble.
In the real world, Jerusalem was busy
building walls, not offering a welcome;
posting guards, not greeters.
JOHN’s VISION OF THE NEW JERUSALEM in REVELATION 21
But the dream of Isaiah 60 lives on.
God’s people have always been dreamers:
we dream of a better country;
we dream of that city whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11)
Centuries after Isaiah,
John, the disciple of Jesus,
was exiled on the island of Patmos.
Life was still hard.
Followers of Christ were being harassed,
imprisoned, killed.
But John has a vision much like Isaiah’s.
A vision of the long-dreamed-for city
descending from heaven to earth;
a “City of Light” pushing away the darkness.
Like Isaiah’s vision,
John again sees the nations coming to the Light,
bringing their very best.
What will they bring?
Will Americans be bringing breakfast food.
Will Indonesians and Malaysians be bringing badminton.
Will Canadians….well what will Canadian bring?
Maybe hockey…but maybe comedians.
Canada has a lot of good comedians.
But here is the point,
the main point
where John’s vision differs from Isaiah’s vision.
In John’s vision,
the source of the light is made more specific.
In John’s vision
it is the lamp that is the source of the light.
And the lamp is the Lamb.
And the Lamb is Jesus – Jesus is the source of the Light.
This Advent season, this darkest time of the year,
we remember what John says about this Light.
We remember that in the first chapter of his gospel,
John tells us that this light entered our darkness
as a small flickering flame,
as a smoldering wick,
as a vulnerable infant.
And yet darkness did not overcome it.
Darkness did not snuff it out.
This light is Jesus, and He is the Light of the World.
REAL WORLD NOW
The challenge is, how do we live out this vision, this dream
in the real world right now.
A real world with its real problems.
How do we live out this vision
when Paris, the City of Lights,
has become a city of darkness?
When San Bernardino, a city of warmth,
has become a city of horror?
How do we live it out,
when the world we live in
pushes us and tempts us
to be fearful,
to be suspicious
to be as closed and insular as ants?
FRAGRANCE OF CHRIST
Talking about ants,
you know that I began this sermon talking about the way ants can smell ants
from different colonies
and how these different-smelling ants are automatically enemies.
But there is something else you should know about ants,
something redemptive.
Ants get their unique scent or smell from their Queen.
And since ants are very social creatures,
they share that smell
by touching each other,
by living closely,
by sharing food.
Now here is the interesting thing:
if you put differing ants from differing colonies together in the same place
with just a mesh screen between them
so they can touch and can share
but not kill,
in time, all the ants will have the same scent, the same aroma.
In time, the enemies will become co-workers in the same colony.
In time they will become citizens of the same ant-city.
In 2 Corinthians 2:14
Paul describes Jesus as our King leading the great procession,
the great march to the Holy City.
Paul also describes Jesus as having an aroma, a fragrance.
Anyone who knows Jesus as King,
spreads that fragrance.
Whoever knows King Jesus
spreads that fragrance
of love,
of mercy,
of grace,
so that, in Christ, enemies eventually become
co-workers in the same kingdom,
and citizens of the same city.
Only the fragrance of Christ
can overcome our instinctive distrust of others.
CONCLUSION
We end this service at this table.
We end this service in the sharing of Christ:
sharing his body and sharing his blood;
sharing the fragrance, the aroma of Christ.
A sharing that welcomes others,
that draws in them in,
that disarms them and us.
This sharing is an anticipation of,
a foretaste of,
that holy city, the New Jerusalem,
where shadows have vanished
and darkness is banished
as forward we travel from light into light.
Yes, we live in a dark world.
Yes, we live in a difficult world.
But take the bread, take the cup.
Arise,
Shine,
for our light has come,
and the glory of God has risen upon us.
0 Comments