Predictions

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
   come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
   and your labour for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
   and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
   listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
   my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
   a leader and commander for the peoples.
See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
   and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
   for he has glorified you.

Seek the Lord while he may be found,
   call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
   and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
   and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
   giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
   it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
   and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

I woke this morning to news that a large portion of the schools in the area were closed because of snow. But there was no snow... yet. My facebook page was filled with status updates that read, "When I was in school there had to be actual snow in order to have a snow day."

Impending snow.

And as I poured my second cup of coffee I wondered what would happen if it didn't snow. What would the administrators do/think about that? And somewhere along my trek from the kitchen back to my sofa and blanket, it began to snow. 8am.

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At 8:20am, it looked like this.

It didn't happen like that for Isaiah. The word of the Lord didn't return fulfilled in a 20 minute turnaround. The prediction of God's purposes working together stayed a prediction... or did it?

It's midway through Advent that I struggle to hold onto the meaning of Christmas. 2000 years after Jesus' birth, I wonder what new birth are we looking for - again and again. I wish for a sense of longing while I sit in my warm home with my second cup of coffee. I want to feel the longing of those who predicted fulfillment, who believed in shalom.

I wish to know the third writer of Isaiah. Was he (presumably he) a person of great faith? In what ways did he cherish the tradition passed down to him? Was he distracted at times by the daily routine of his world? What made him see the coming of God or the presence of God as a real thing to want? And what gave him the courage to say it aloud?

How do I, midway into December on Advent 3, come closer to the felt reality of Isaiah and his prediction of an everlasting covenant, of seeking God and finding God, of God's purposes being fulfilled? An article by Deacon Greg Kandra about the "war on Christmas" might be helping.

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The real war on Christmas is the number of people who will go without food and adequate housing. The real war on Christmas is the teenage girl who has been thrown out on the street by her parents because she is pregnant. The real war on Christmas is the stranger that will not be welcome just because he looks different than the rest of us. The real war on Christmas is the fact that most Churches will be virtually empty on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day yet the retail outlets will be jam packed. The real war on Christmas is that we choose to focus on the nonsense while our Christian brothers and sisters around the world are being killed for no other reason than they are Christian and we stand by and do nothing! That is the real war on Christmas.

For those things, I long for fulfillment of God's purposes. I hope for and wish for God's presence to rain down. And like Isaiah, I've seen the sky open up and water the earth. I will draw faith from what I have seen as I believe for what I want to see.

This image taken at 8:30am.

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