He Found a Way
March 10, 2001
A Communion Service
How many of you have ever purchased something that you had to assemble? I’ve done a fair bit of that over the years. I’ve bought and assembled a couple of children’s bicycles- they look simple, but watch out! We’ve bought and assembled quite a number of items from Ikea- a couple of desks, chairs, baby high chair, bookshelves, and a computer desk. Maybe you have, too. Hey, I think the top, in difficulty, of the buy and assemble kinds of things is a barbecue. Have you bought and had to assemble one of those? I remember one of the two that I’ve done and the first time having parts left over.
Now, when we might be sweating and fuming over assembling something doesn’t something always happen? Isn’t there always somebody who comes around and says something like, “Have you read the instructions?” “Why don’t you read the instruction sheet?” Now, we know that most of us don’t ‘need’ to do that, right? Well, wrong, as we find out and, hopefully, will admit! Often, it’s hard to put ‘ready to assemble’ items together without the instructions. Having, and following, the instructions often make assembly easy as we follow the directions A-B-C, or Step 1-Step 2-Step 3. (Then, again, sometimes the instructions are written in some version of English that makes following them a bit more than difficult, too!) It seems, though, overall, that it’s hard to just ‘know’ how to put things together, and we need a guide, of some sort, to be able to do that well.
It’s not only with made-to-assemble items that we might have difficulty with knowing how to put things together.
Let me tell you about some people, a long time ago, who had the same trouble and on a much bigger scale than dealing with furniture from Ikea. The story focuses on one person, named Isaiah.
Isaiah was born before 750 BC in Jerusalem, and had a very devout father, named Amoz, who gave him his name which meant, “may the Lord save”. Jerusalem was relatively peaceful at the time and probably Isaiah grew up in an affluent home. It would likely have been spacious with exterior walls in rough, stucco-covered bricks, and the interior walls of carefully fitted slabs of smooth, buff-colored limestone.
Custom says that Amoz took charge of Isaiah’s education at about the age of five, and that the most important lessons concerned the covenant the Lord had made with the Israelites. Amoz stressed its rigid code of justice and protection in exchange for righteous conduct, and those lessons influenced Isaiah for the rest of his life as a prophet of the Lord. As he grew older, he was tutored, either privately or with his brothers and other boys, by the priests who kept the Torah, which included the laws, history, poetry and other scriptures of the nation. He would have been taught to form numbers for basic arithmetic. Besides his hours of class, he would have more carefree times, too where he would sing and dance with boys and girls of his age in the streets of his neighborhood, and would wrestle and box with other youths or compete in tugs-of-war. He’d, also, play some intellectual, indoor games resembling chess and cribbage.
While he was growing up, the economy boomed as King Uzziah began to develop Judah’s resources and foreign trade. But not a lot of that prosperity reached the lower classes. There were heartless moneylenders and merchants who cheated buyers with false weights and measures. The courts were polluted with bribery, and even the priesthood was corrupt and ignored the plight of the underprivileged. Isaiah was a sensitive young mane and must have been increasingly troubled by the rampant injustice and frustrated by his inability to fight it.
When he was in his early twenties, a profound emotional experience opened a path to action.
King Uzziah died of leprosy about 742 BC. The coronation of his son Jotham was timed to coincide with the new-year festival. Hundreds of people, wearing white festival robes, were waiting for the eastern gates of the Jerusalem temple to open at dawn. New Year’s Day, the Festival of Trumpets, was the only time those gates were unlocked.
Many of us have had exciting experiences in times of special worship during our days- times when we were so excited and when we experienced the presence of God in unusual ways. This may have been one of those times for Isaiah. When the first light appeared in the east over the Mount of Olives, the gates swing open. Sunlight streamed into the eastern courtyard, across the great altar near the center and the sanctuary at the western end. Jotham, in coronation robes of purple embroidered with threads of gold, led a solemn procession into the courtyard. It may have been during this ceremony that Isaiah suddenly had a soul-stirring vision of God’s temple. He writes, “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim… And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’” At this time, Isaiah had a feeling of being unclean and unworthy and he wrote of how God visited him and made his mouth and heart clean.
Through this vision, whether it occurred at that time, or another, Isaiah understood that his mission was to speak in the Lord’s name and to beseech his people to return to the laws of the covenant. If they didn’t heed God’s words, they would be destroyed. And all indications are that Isaiah embraced this ‘calling’ with seriousness and energy. He exchanged his rich clothing for the traditional sackcloth and sandals of a prophet and began preaching to the people. He married a woman, whom he called ‘the prophetess’ and had a son whom they named “a remnant shall return”, which was a symbol that if the people of Judah did not repent, only a few would remain after the Lord had punished them for breaking the covenant.
As Isaiah’s ministry developed, the Assyrian nation was rising and threatening Judah. King Jotham died in 735 and his 20-year-old son, Ahaz, faced the threat of this aggression. Although the kings of Israel and Syria formed an alliance to rebel against Assyria and asked Ahaz to join them, he refused, and the coalition invaded Judah to force him into line.
Ahaz panicked and, with his faith being weak, he appealed to pagan gods for help. He even sacrificed his own son to the Canaanite deity Moloch, but these efforts proved futile. What a heart breaker that must have been for the king, and the people, too, as this would be the next king who was sacrificed!
One morning, Ahaz went to inspect the waterworks near the Gihon Spring. Court advisors and army officers accompanied him. This was an important source of water for the city and was crucial; it had to be protected, and was something that had been there for centuries, since being dug by the Canaanites.
While the king and his men were discussing ways of protecting the water supply, Isaiah came to them, leading his four-year-old son, Shearjashub, by the hand. The Prophet approached Ahaz, to assure him that faith in the Lord was his best defense. He tried to encourage the king, and spoke to him about how the alliance between Israel and Syria wouldn’t stand.
Shortly after that, Isaiah realized Ahaz would not heed his advice. He thought he might need visible proof of God’s power, so Isaiah challenged him to ask a sign of the Lord, but the king refused, and Isaiah responded that God would give a sign. The sign had to do with a young woman’s conceiving and bearing a son and calling his name Immanuel, meaning “God with us”. Isaiah went on to declare that before this child knew how to refuse evil and choose good, the land of Israel and Syria would be deserted- this meant it wouldn’t be very long from that time. (Remember that this prophecy spoke of someone at that time, but a more important somebody a little later who would REALLY be the focus.)
God was telling Ahaz, and the nation, of His commitment to help the nation put things together properly. They were in trouble, and the situation was going from bad to worse. Ahaz was trying to put things together, but he couldn’t. He made a bigger mess and was left with pieces left over that shouldn’t be left over. But God made a declaration, and it had to do with a child- a very special child- that was to be born. In essence, God declared, “I’ll put everything together. It will take some work, but I’ll do it.”
So, through Isaiah, He declared:
Isa. 9. 6- 7- it puts it this way in the Living Bible: “For unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder. These will be his royal titles: “Wonderful,” “Counselor,” “The Mighty God,” “The Everlasting Father,” “The prince of Peace.” His ever expanding, peaceful government will never end. He will rule with perfect fairness and justice from the throne of his father David. He will bring true justice and peace to all the nations of the world. This is going to happen because the Lord of heaven’s armies has dedicated himself to do it!"
God declared His commitment to make this happen and that He wouldn’t let anything get in the way of His plans to get things put together right. And nothing did. Go d made sure everything was ready when it had to be ready. At the time of this declaration, Judah was in the midst of distress and great affliction, and her people needed hope and a deliverer. They couldn’t put everything together- or much of anything, for that matter- just like we can’t get that barbecue or bicycle together, sometimes. They needed help. God declared His promise and that nothing would get in the way.
And nothing did. It all happened right on schedule. God made sure everything was ready when it had to be ready, at a time the Bible calls “the fullness of time.” Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem at just the right time, the shepherds were in the fields at just the right time, the angels in the heavens, were there are just the right time, and a bright star in the sky was put there at just the right time. God found a way to package it all in just the right way at just the right moment.
The New Living Translation declares: “The passionate commitment of the Lord Almighty will guarantee this.” God found a way to do what had to be done so the nation could put things together right!
We have to think about the fact that there was no way for the nation of Judah to put things together right without God’s involvement. Their situation went from worse to worse- eventually, they ended up with the most wicked of kings named Manasseh and there is a tradition that that king martyred Isaiah.
But God declared that He would find the way.
Think about the fact that there was no way, even just when Jesus came, about 700 years after Ahaz and the giving of the prophecy!
There was no way for a glorious, holy God to relate to fallen men and women! God had to provide the way for this to happen, and it happened through the God-man named Jesus.
Phil. 2. 5- 8- This speaks of something so incredible- we are used to the ‘idea’ because we’ve heard these verses so many times, but it’s quite an incredible idea!
There was no way for people to tap into God’s grace and power. Jesus was always telling the religious leaders of His day that they didn’t have it together!
There was no way for sins to be forgiven. The Pharisees, the religious leaders of Judah in Jesus’ day, had a tough time with this one. They didn’t believe they needed to be forgiven, so that, alone, makes it hard for sins to be forgiven.
John 8. 33- 42, 21- 24!
There was no way to escape judgment. In the passage called “The Beatitudes” this is very clear. The standard was too high. For example: Matt. 5. 21, 22. Who is not guilty or who would not be guilty of this?
There was no way to achieve the Kingdom of God. This was the highest and greatest hope and the people had all sorts of ideas about the way it would work out. But it couldn’t without God putting it together the right way.
John 3. 3, 5- there was a need for even the most religious of the nation to do it differently than they were!
Conclusion:
We have to recognize that not all that much has changed since the days of Isaiah and Ahaz. Oh, many centuries have passed, but people, including ourselves, are no more capable of putting our lives together properly than ancient Judah was. We may not be confronting the Assyrians, but we’re confronting the enslaving forces of greed and power, secularism and plurality, individualism and pride. God foresaw this state, and our constant inability to put things together properly, so He provided the way. Not only did He find the way, but also He provided the way, and in doing this, with it all focused on that child promised in Isaiah’s prophecy, He showed and continues to show His greatest love.
We have to devour and deeply consider what He tells us in John 3. 16 & 17! This is the lengths He would go to in order to make sure our lives can be put together. This is the length He would go to in order to reveal and work out His passionate commitment. This is what He was prepared to do in order to guarantee the survival of not just a physical race and nation of ancient Judah, but all humanity. What happened in Judah 2700 years ago simply represented the state of every one of every age. It wasn’t something unique to that time, but is as real today, too. Apart from God’s way, we can’t put things together properly. We simply cannot.
John 14.6- Jesus said that He was the Way. We might be puzzled by that description of Him, but not when we recognize that, without Him, there was NO WAY! There was NO WAY for people to connect with the Holy God and NO WAY for people to come into God’s family Kingdom! Jesus was unique. In no other religious system do you have such happening as happened here. Jesus, part of the heavenly trinity, divested Himself of that and came to earth to live as a man and to die as a man. He lived the perfect life, providing the way for you and me to live the perfect life. At least we can have that way imputed to us!
Before us is the table of the Lord. And the Lord bids those of us who understand and who have accepted Him as THE WAY to come to this table. Each time we come and take of the bread, representing His body and life, and the wine, representing His blood and life, we encounter Him in different ways. We encounter different aspects of His fullness. Today, we come to the table laid with the symbols of ‘the way’. Jesus declared that He was THE WAY, the truth, and the life. Well there was no way. But God figured out the way. He provided the way. And that way is Jesus!
Let us pray, then we’ll be able to come to the table and we’ll be able to take those precious symbols of THE WAY provided to us by our passionate and committed God!
Prayer
Invitation to the Table.
