Outstretched Arms

Sermon for 2004 December 12, St Mary Magdalen, Sheet

Bible readings: Isaiah 35:1-10, Matthew 11:2-11

Well, it’s happened – the inevitable – my children don’t believe in Santa Claus any more.

I found them the other evening, writing very carefully and quietly. "We’re writing letters to Father Christmas – even though he doesn’t exist" says my son. And then "My friend Jack says God doesn’t exist either". Moment of parental panic… oh dear, I always knew this Santa business was a bit dodgy – haven’t I now gone and muddied the waters when it comes to Christian faith?

Well, I needn’t have worried. The conversation that followed reminded me that children are very good at discerning one kind of belief from another. But the question has to be asked – what is the difference between the elaborately constructed story of Father Christmas and the stories of miracles that we tell from the Bible and the notion that God loves us and cares for us?

[Possibly insert bit about the desperation of the elaborate construction, against the reality of answering those who do not believe in God]

One answer could lie in just how wide God’s arms are stretched out compared to Santa’s. Father Christmas brings presents to good children. If it turns out that he doesn’t exist, well, it’s disappointing – though strangely enough the presents seem to keep coming! But the claims made for our faith are much wider, they embrace everything in our lives. [In the context of healing, this is important, because what God the Healer is offering to us is not a system of relief of symptoms, as many people seem to expect from the medical profession, but wholeness].

Our readings today were a prophecy, in Isaiah, and its fulfilment, in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus reports back to John the Baptist that the blind receive their sight and the deaf hear. It’s a direct fulfilment of some of those verses in Isaiah. But actually looking at verses like that is slightly "dangerous". In earlier years of studying the Bible I got very excited about the number of OT prophecies that had that kind of direct fulfilment in the NT. It seemed to be fashionable, particularly with Matthew’s gospel for example, to list those verses that he quoted as directly having been fulfilled. But that was such a partial picture. I can’t believe Isaiah wrote some verses to be picked up in future scriptures and others just as nice padding. No! The whole of Isaiah, in fact the whole of the Old Testament, finds its fulfilment, its completion, in Jesus. If we just look at the ten verses we heard today as an example, in that wonderful passage we can see just how wide God’s healing and compassionate arms are outstretched.

We have wave after wave of Advent hope and promise:

Wow! What a wonderful picture of the hope we are given!

It’s striking how many aspirations of our society are echoed in this one passage:

They’re all there in Isaiah’s prophecy – well, sort of. Actually the aims and aspirations of our age are a pale imitation of what God intends for his people. They’re none of them bad things, but they do seem more like ticks in boxes than signs of the kingdom:

In a few moments we will once again have the opportunity to come forward quietly for prayer and for laying on of hands. It’s absolutely right that we should come with our specific concerns, because God cares about every one of them.

But maybe this Advent season we could go a step further – to remember that glorious whole seamless promise Isaiah has given us – and not settle for less, but be glad that the promise is fulfilled in Jesus and that we can be made not just to feel better but – as the hymn puts it – we are "ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven" and everlasting joy shall be upon our heads.