Welcome to our Sunday morning service. Join us in person,  or watch the live stream on our YouTube channel.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxBzxjBb3xU8ra2NHwvD_9A(the service can also be viewed at any time afterwards.)

The Reading and Reflection for Sunday can be found below:

61 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and release to the prisoners;
² to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
³ to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
⁴ They shall build up the ancient ruins,
    they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
    the devastations of many generations.

⁸ For I the Lord love justice,
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
    and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
⁹ Their descendants shall be known among the nations,
    and their offspring among the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge
    that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.
¹⁰ I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
    my whole being shall exult in my God;
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
    he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
¹¹ For as the earth brings forth its shoots,
    and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
    to spring up before all the nations.

Over the last few days, we have seen on the news, images and stories that tell of the end of the Assad regime. Those images of people so excited about returning to Syria.

I watched one news clip where political prisoners who had been held in jail for several years were released and reunited with their families.

Imagine what that would be like.

The doors flung wide. Being told that you are free. Some of the prisoners were in shock and disbelief.

It must be an extraordinary experience.

Being set free. Returning to your homeland after being a refugee. Some of the people interviewed crossing the border back into Syria were in tears.

Not to trivialise what is happening there.

But see if you can remember for a moment something you have been wanting for a very long time. And you think, if you had that thing, if that happened, life would be so much better. I am sure I would be happier.

 I can think of nothing as momentous as returning to a homeland or being released from prison.

I have to say that my dreams, when I was younger, were much more material things: a bike, a motorbike, a bigger motorbike, passing exams, finding someone—anyone—who would go with me to the high school ball, getting a car, wife, children, and a boat.

Most of those things I imagined or thought about before they happened.

Of course, I don’t mean to equate the value of getting my first motorbike with the dreams I had of finding my wife, or having children. They’re very different.

But, in some form, they all sat in my thoughts and imagination before they became a reality.

The dream of home ownership, the hopes we have for the children in our lives, the concerns we have for loved ones -

Some of those dreams and imaginings are noble and good and lead us to do great things—but perhaps some of the dreams we have are illusions and prevent us from dealing with the challenges of the present.

My grandmother agreed that having more money won’t make you happy but, as she said,  "at least I would be comfortable in my misery."

Isaiah speaks to people who are no longer longing for things to change but are seeing their dreams and hopes fulfilled. Like the people we see coming home to Syria, the Hebrew people have returned to Jerusalem.

There is a kind of catch in this. You have yearned for this to happen, and now it has happened. And you discover that the problems and issues you had before that happened are still with you after that event.

The people whom Isaiah has been speaking to have dreamed about restoration. They have dreamed about coming back to their homeland, back to Jerusalem, back to the lives, as people told them, of how good it used to be.

After everything was lost.

They are back and they have found that things still aren’t right. They are still broken-hearted.

"61 The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

to bind up the broken-hearted."

Binding up the broken-hearted.

The ancient Hebrew people didn’t really have a word for the grey stuff in our heads—our brains. They saw the heart as the source of not only feelings but also thoughts and logic.

To be broken-hearted. The Hebrew for a break is shavar. It is a word that was usually applied to a broken spade or spear or bones. They were no longer able to be used for their purpose anymore.

Every time I used to drive into the garage, I saw the broom I drove over a while ago. It is now useless. It is well and truly shavared.

Shavar and lave for heart. To be broken-hearted is about something going wrong with our very sense of being—our sense of place, purpose, belonging, and identity. If I am broken-hearted, my behaviour and my thinking will not be right.

Isaiah might look at aspects of our society and conclude that there is a profound need to bind up the broken-hearted.

Remember too that this is the very passage where Jesus began his ministry in Luke Chapter 4:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour."

To confront our circumstances. Broken-hearted, without sight, poor, imprisoned. These are real things. Our scripture has very little time for abstractions.

And across all these circumstances, Isaiah and Jesus speak a word of hope.

"3 To provide for those who mourn in Zion—

to give them a garland instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

the planting of the Lord, to display his glory."

The planting of the Lord.

I remember many summers ago at Great Barrier, I went over and talked to our neighbour Allan, who was a very good gardener. He’s no longer with us. There is now a seat as you walk down to the beach engraved in his memory. He would share lettuce and herbs with all his neighbours. I remember going over there, and he was planting some seeds that looked quite unfamiliar. He had this smile on his face. And I said, "What are you planting there?" And he said, "Kauri seeds." He had that smile on—a kauri tree-planting smile. That crazy smile.

And we have this phrase today to tell us what is on God’s mind: for the broken-hearted and oppressed. They will be called “oaks of righteousness”—the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

God is the planter of oak seeds. The gardener. We might not be able to fix things, but we can have faith and trust in the tree-seed-planting God.

To look for where the seeds are being planted today.

And especially those of us where things maybe haven’t entirely worked out, to look and see where God as the gardener might be working and sowing.

And the interesting thing about this passage is that there is a little twist in its tail.

We go from the image of God being the planter of seeds to this:

"11 For as the earth brings forth its shoots,

and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,

so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise

to spring up before all the nations."

The image shifts from God as the planter of seeds to God as the garden. The garden causes what is sown to springup. "The Lord God caused righteousness and praise to spring up before the nations."

Today, Isaiah is speaking to those who have lost their way and see little future—who are damaged and hurt—despite the fact that they seem to have what they were wanting.

Disillusioned.

Isaiah speaks to them about a tiny seed. And he says they—you—will be called oaks of righteousness.

Look for the seeds that have been planted.

Isaiah is speaking about the hope we find in God’s love, but also an intention—the purpose at the heart of the Good News that Jesus brings.

"For he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,

he has covered me with the robe of righteousness."

This knowledge of God’s grace and presence provides the ground for our nourishment, for us to grow.

We’ve lived this way for so long we’ve become used to it. Living in a strange land. Imprisoned or captive for so long. Broken-hearted or grieving or anxious for so long, it has become normal. We’ve forgotten the most important things.

Those people thought the regime would last forever. But something happens. The statues are pulled down, the prison doors are opened wide, the refugees are welcomed home. We hope and pray that that excitement will lead to a lasting peace and prosperity for that broken country.

But here, in Scripture, we find excitement as well. And though we might have heard these words many times, heard the Christmas story many times, let's imagine the excitement of this discovery.

A word is spoken. A saviour is born. A crucified one is raised. And the future is open for us.

It is the discovery that God is not done with any of us. That there is a divine promise in all that we read today.

Even for the broken-hearted, there is the promise of new life, growth, healing, and hope.

AMEN