Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is one of the world's most famous graphic artists.
- this guy can draw people on staircases that go downwards and upwards at the same
- Hands that keep drawing themselves
- Sea & Sky where the repeated pattern of fish below that as they fade and press upwards take on the form of birds in flight
For Escher it was like he could see what was hidden in the spaces and imagine what feels like for us the impossible, [1] Isaiah has the same kind of imagination. He alerts us to the hidden and seemingly impossible things of God; just as we see in today’s Bible reading. It all feels like for God’s people they are slaves trapped in the reoccurring patterns of want and waste, sin and suffering, with no way out, and no light at the end of the tunnel. We are more situated people than what we realise. God we soon see has other ideas about that and in Isaiah we are introduced to a suffering servant who becomes saviour and lord of those he saves. It is like in Jesus we watch a fish become a bird. In the visceral language of Isaiahwith tired, aching, empty people of Godbeing met with the image of God coming down to us. At this intersection of Isaiah we see him reaching up with God reaches back and out to his people with longing and fillingas God doesn’t leave his people empty; He revives our souls. We meet the surprise of God, that he has been on the move towards us, and in the business of changing us even when we weren’t seeing it. In the highs and lows God has been there always for us through Jesus, seeking us out to know his love and see his joy as enough. The first thing Isaiah tells us is God’s coming is the longing of his soul, ashe wants to feel God’s presence, for God to intervene; that is God to shake up the world. This is not by seeing the enemies of God smashed and destroyed; it is instead a call to listen in a little closer to Isaiah’s prayer. As this prayer is one of the most radical prayer we will readas Isaiah prays for God to change his enemies into worshippers, this is uncomfortable graceas Isaiah teaches us to pray. The question is have you got an expansive view of God? Notice the movements of Isaiah in verses 1-3with what he prays for God to do.
1 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! 3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
Look again at those verses 1-3 as Isaiah asks God to come down for God come among us and intervene. Do you see the passion of his prayer that with the smallest but most important word Isaiah prays “Oh”, right down to the exclamation mark at the end of verse 2. This isn’t theatrics or well-polished rhetoric as these are the heart wrenching prayers of Isaiah who longs for God to come down, to walk amongst his people; to come and mark the lives of his people with truth and love for things that are right, to see testing and trouble not as opportunities for us to shake our fist at God. We know the place for growth is to enlarge the view of God’s place in every part of our souls. So do you sense his longing transform our souls and shape us as only you can God? Do you pray for God to make us aware that the pain of growth and change to being more conformed to your likeness is worth it; for God would you come so we would tremble before you. He repeats it again at the end of verse 9
Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people.
Now set this prayer in it’s context with what is going on in the lives of God’s people Isaiah lives amongst. It all comes on the back of a sad portrait of untransformed people. Look back at Isaiah 59:1-2
1 Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Own up to our lives before God as sin, judgment leave us hanging in the mess. Isaiah presses home the reality of where we live that each one of has a heart that is an idol factory. Isaiah 64 Verses 6-7
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. 7 No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us overto our sins.
Even our best doesn’t cut it as we can’t earn righteousness our good works don’t stack up. There’s no trading off the debt of sin with the goodness of what we do. As it is we are selling ourselves short, as what we need is something we can’t do for ourselves. We need transformation, it’s radical grace and uncomfortable mercy. Isaiah comes at us with a kind of Exodus illustration. The images of this chapter keep us looking back to all that God did, with how he brought enslaved people to the land he had promised. This is how God led the people and fed the people and rescued the people. Their response, was continual complaint. Their complaints “We had it better in Egypt”, nostalgia. They further said “Where we sat around our cooking pots and ate the garlic and the leeks“ which just left out the slavery and the misery of the people of God crying out to be freed from under the yoke of their enslavement. That is what sin is like, as we distort good with wickedness, and we replace a broken faith in Christ with forgetting. Isaiah’s heart is breaking, and mercy is what he prays for. As we read in verses 8-9
8 Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, LORD; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people.
Look out for the work of God on the move in your body & soul right now we get pointed to Jesus and how he is the potter in 2 Corinthians 4:7-12
7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake,so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 12 So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
Jesus is the one who will wipe away every tear, and His is the voice that orientates us right to life. He is the truth of all things. So the question is how is that showing in a wise lifestyle? Or looking out for the good of someone with words that build up, forgiving words? How are we developing a fundamental attitude to take the other persons welfare into your heart? Because that’s exactly what God has done for us over and over again. We come at a variety of struggles and hardships in our lives. He has come to us in the midst of our mess and brokenness and sin, and brought grace and mercy and forgiveness and hope. When Isaiah prays he has a candid conversation with God look how he reaches to God at the end of his prayer. Isaiah 64:11-12
11 Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins. 12 After all this, LORD, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?
Will you pray with me for God to come and change us without restraint, and for God to do his will in us for his glory; just like a clay pot being molded in the potters hand, will we bend our knees and submit our will to God to mold and shape us as he wants? What will that mean for this week, and in what part of my life that’s going on right now am I trying to hide in the darkness with it, keeping it close and not opening it up before God? Is there something I’m struggling with I want to hope for God’s grace to hit in on my pain with new hope as Isaiah gets us looking at what it is we hope in; is the life transforming hope of Jesus Christ enough for today, as we face a struggle, or experience a pain, or struggle with that reoccurring sin? The invitation is to confess what we should to God and one another and reach out for prayer from someone for God to keep shaping and molding us in his image.
Let’s pray…
David Hassan @ Tamworth Community Presbyterian Church 8/4/18