Comfort for the In-Between Times

Well, merry Christmas everyone. My name is René, another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. You know this week NPR did a story on Christmas cards for 2020. And they were talking about how all the Christmas card companies are saying, "Let's just admit it, 2020's been a weird year." And so we've got to design our Christmas cards to match what people are feeling.

And well, here's some of the designs that they actually came up with. First one says, "A holiday wish for Christmas delights, oh, silent nights and a quarantine-free new year." Can I hear you say amen? How about this one? "Merry Chris Mask." This next one might be my favorite, "2020 as a dumpster fire." And of course the dumpster is wearing a cartoony smiley face like a Rankin Bass cartoon. Or this one, "Merry Christmas from a distance." There's two face mask penguins with a measuring tape between them.

Some of them seemed a little bit grim to me like this, "Stay home and have a happy holiday." That's just kind of sad. But here's what we're all feeling. Fingers crossed, 2021. We hope it will be better. Now, no matter what you think about all of these Christmas cards, the truth is this is exactly what people are feeling like right now. Check out these stats. In 2019, last year, just 11% of Americans said they felt stress or anxiety in the previous week. Right now, 2020, 50% of Americans say they felt depressed in the last seven days.

And the feelings come from things like this. Somebody told me, "René, emotionally, I feel like I'm in exile, living apart from loved ones, not seeing friends, working from home, exile." I thought that's such a great word for what people are feeling right now. Somebody else said, "It feels like we're living on hold in an in-between time." Like pre-COVID, post-COVID, those are real life. And right now, we're just living in the in-between time.

I saw an interview where somebody else expressed it this way, "The limbo is the hardest part." We all do better when we know when the ending is going to be. We don't have that. So it feels like a one-way ticket to limbo. Think of all those words. Limbo in exile, on hold, in-between time, one-way ticket to limbo. You know what I think it feels like? I remember when I was a kid, eight years old in Switzerland, I got stuck in an apartment elevator for a long time. It was over an hour, but it felt like forever to me at eight years old.

I was all alone. Through the frosted glass doors, I could see I was literally in-between floors, and I had no idea how long it would last. And that's exactly what it feels like right now for so many of us. Well, here's the good news. There's a part of the Bible written specifically for people living in the in-between times, living in limbo, feeling like they're in exile. And it's the part of the Bible that you heard read earlier in our Advent reading, Isaiah chapter 40.

This is a chapter of the Bible that was meant for exiles, for people living in the in-between times. Here's the context. It was written for people around 600 B.C. The city of Jerusalem has fallen to the dread Babylonian army, and the residents of Jerusalem are being carried away, captives into exile in Babylon. Now, we know from a historical standpoint that their exile would last 70 years, but they didn't know that. To them, it must have felt like they were living in the in-between times.

They were literally in exile. They felt like their life and their life as a nation was in limbo. When would they get back to Jerusalem? Would they ever get back to Jerusalem? Did God know about how they felt? And that's when God taps a prophet on the shoulder. We know him as Isaiah. And God says, "Isaiah, my people are freaking out. My people feel like I have abandoned them. They're living in the in-between times. They don't know when this is going to end. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to speak comfort, comfort to my people."

And Isaiah chapter 40 starts with that verse. "Comfort, comfort my people, my people living in the in-between times. My people feeling like their life is on hold. My people feeling limbo. Speak words of comfort to them." You know what I've just done? I've just explained to you the historical context of the very first line of the famous musical composition Handel's Messiah. We hear that a lot around Christmas time.

And personally, I'm a huge fan of the Messiah. I especially love the feeling of anticipation as the Messiah begins. The audience has filed in, taken their seats. The orchestra is finished tuning. There's a rustle of pages as everybody turns to the first part of the folio. And then a tenor walks out on stage and begins to sing the first line. Listen to the first two minutes of Handel's Messiah. So, so beautiful. Every single time I hear that, I just get goosebumps.

Because I'm feeling, I think, the spirit of these words where God says to you and to me and to the ancient Israelites, "Isaiah, comfort, comfort my people." And this is really the whole message of Advent, isn't it? Comfort for people living in the in-between times. I was listening to a fantastic sermon on Isaiah 40 by a pastor in New York named David Biscrove, and he has a great quote. He says, "Advent is about how to live between once upon a time and happily ever after." Isn't that great? And that's where we all live right now.

We talked about it the first week of the series. Advent, really, in the Bible, is two adverts. The first advent is when the Messiah was born, Christmas time. But then the second advent is when the Messiah returns. Once upon a time, happily ever after. And you and I live in the in-between times. How do we do that? Well, Isaiah has words of comfort for people who live in the in-between times. The Messiah is coming.

And in Isaiah 40, he gives three sources of comfort and hope that if you really believe them, will absolutely change the way you go through your in-between times. Three truths in Isaiah 40, no matter what guilt or grief or great challenge you face, number one, remember God's grace is greater. God's grace to you is greater.

Let me go back to the Messiah for a minute. Smithsonian Magazine recently did a fascinating article on George Frederick Handel, the composer of the Messiah, and they talked about some stuff I absolutely did not know. And I thought I knew a lot about the Messiah. But here was what I thought was the biggest reveal. Let me show you. This is the very first published Messiah. This is when it just first started. And you'll notice a little clue on the cover about where the Messiah was first performed.

It wasn't in a capital of the world like Paris, London or Rome. It was in Dublin, Ireland. And this was when Dublin was very impoverished. And it wasn't even in a church or a concert hall. It was in a music hall where kind of more popular entertainments were premiered. Why? Handel wanted it to be a benefit performance for a prison, a debtor's prison.

In those days, if you were in debt, you were thrown into prison until you could pay your debt, sometimes for life. And you were thrown into cells like this, cells of mass incarceration. They would dump people, sometimes hundreds of people, in these cells that had bars on the top. They were literally just pits. And so many people lived in these debtors' prisons. And George Frederick Handel said, "The world premiere of the Messiah is going to be a benefit concert in Dublin to release people from the debtors' prison." And 100% of the proceeds went to this, and literally hundreds of debtors were set free and brought back to their homes.

And I love this because that is what the Messiah came to do, to set us free from our debt of sin and shame so that he could bring us home. And that's where Isaiah goes in Isaiah 40. Look at the next verse, verse 2, "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Now pause for just a second because it can sound at first as if God has punished her and so they have paid for their sins.

But it says her sin has been paid for. As Isaiah himself points out, I'm going to show you this next weekend later on in Isaiah, there is one who is coming. And upon him, God is going to put the burden of all of our sins, and he is going to pay all of our debts. The one who paid for our sins is the Messiah. And so, look at the next verse, "A voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God." He's saying, man, lift up your voice. God is coming to save you.

And in every single one of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they relate these verses to John the Baptist. He was the one calling in the desert. He was the one preparing the way for the Lord. And then John the Baptist points to Jesus and says, there is the one we have been waiting for, the long expected Messiah, who is going to be born in order to go to the cross to show that God's grace is greater, greater than your sin, greater than your sorrow, greater than your shame.

Now, you might say, hey, that's easy for you to say, but you have no idea what I've done. No, but God knows. And nothing is going to keep God from bridging the gap, bridging the distance between you and him. Watch this next verse, verse 4. Here's how much God wants to reach you, to forgive your sin, to get you into relationship with him. Every valley shall be raised, every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level. The rugged place is a plain.

This is saying, no mountain is too high, no valley is too low, no ocean is too wide to keep God away from you. Kind of like that old song, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no mountain high enough to keep me away from you. That is how much God loves you. And then in that day, when the Messiah comes, the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. This means we've got his word on it. God's grace is greater than all your sin.

This is why Jesus Christ was born on that first Christmas. This is so, so, so important for you and I to know. And that leads right into the second point Isaiah makes here, no matter what I face, God's power is stronger. God's grace is greater and God's power is stronger. I love this part. A voice says, cry out. In other words, God is calling this prophet who's writing this to call out. And I said, what shall I cry? And here's the first part of his message.

All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers, the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. What's this all about? Let me explain it this way. I've had the privilege of leading many, many trips to the Bible lands, and Israel and Jordan and Rome, places like that, Turkey. And the truth of what Isaiah says in those verses is never more poignant than when you stand in these ruins of once great civilizations.

Like, for example, we went to visit Delphi. This was the holiest site. This right here was the holiest temple in all of Greek culture and religion. Even kings could not come into the Holy Apollis there unless they made huge, incredible sacrifices and contributions. Now school kids on field trips climb all over it. Or this is the Acropolis at Athens, the center of human civilization in many ways for centuries, the birthplace of democracy, the center of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato. Now it's haunted by lizards. It's in ruins.

Or the Forum in Rome, once this street was the nerve center of Western civilization. Now it's a street of ruins populated by a famously huge population of stray cats. This is Isaiah's point in these verses. These kingdoms look amazing now, but did God's word outlast all of these kingdoms? Absolutely. They withered and they fought. Well, and will God's promise to you outlast everything that opposes you here? Absolutely.

But not only do kingdoms fade, guess what? You and I fade. It says all men, meaning of course all human beings, you fade, I fade. The glory of our youth and strength does fade. And if you feel sometimes like you're a living example of that, type Amen in the comments section. I'll tell you a funny story that brought this out to me. One weekend a few years ago, I showed up to preach here, and sitting all across the front row here in the auditorium were friends of mine from high school, some of whom I had not seen for about 40 years.

And they were sitting unannounced. They decided several weeks before to do this as a surprise to me. And so as I get up to preach, I look down and I recognize one person, my friend Mark, and then I started, my brain started connecting the dots. Well, they're so and so, they're so and so. And amazingly, miraculously almost, I remembered every single one of their names afterwards when I went to greet them. This is a miracle because sometimes I don't remember the names of my own three children, and yet I remembered their names.

But here's why I bring this up. This was us in high school. Yes, there I am in the middle. I'm not the person in the white dress, the person with the thick, lustrous head of practically black hair. And here we are the exact same bunch at Crow's Nest after church that day, exact same bunch. My point is this, glory fades. All our glory was as the grass of the field, and the sun has been shining on this field for a very long time.

And this is kind of what Isaiah is getting at in this verse. He's saying, "I know you're getting old, and I know the glory of these empires is incredible, and I know the promises of God sometimes sound like mere words, these promises that there'll be an end to this in between time, and that God's going to make everything okay, and that there's going to be a Messiah. These promises sound so ephemeral, and it's the problems that look permanent. It's the problems that have flesh and blood.

But the reality is all of that is temporary, and it's God's promise that will outlast everything else. And so you can be this confident, verse 10, "You who bring good tidings," good news, the gospel to Zion, "go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid." He's saying, "If you've got good news, don't be bashful about sharing it."

And let me just add my two cents here about the Christmas candlelight service, the online candlelight service. I just watched the whole thing this morning. I was like crying the entire time. It is so beautiful. It's like a beautiful, wonderful candlelight service. We filmed most of it right here in the auditorium. Like Mark said, get yourself dressed up starting Tuesday night, December 22nd, and then it's available for free to watch as much as you want after that.

Invite your friends, tlc.org/christmas. Lift up your voice. You've got good news. Don't be afraid. Shout it out because people need hope. And that online Christmas candlelight service is all about hope, and some people's lives are going to be changed through that service. I'm confident of it. Pray about that. But God says, "Listen, you've got good news, so say to the towns of Judah, 'Here is your God.'" This is talking about the coming of the Messiah here.

"See, the sovereign Lord comes with power, and His arm rules for Him." See, His reward is with Him and His recompense accompanies Him. He's saying, "I have a reward for those who are my chosen ones, those who've done good, and I've also got recompense justice for the oppressors." It looks like their kingdoms are great and majestic now, but they will fail. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a famous German pastor during World War II.

For his part in a plot to overthrow Hitler, he was arrested by the Nazis and put in prison. And he was in prison during the last Christmas season of his life. And very touching, he writes a series of letters to his fiancée from prison. He is imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II, and yet he writes this about Christmas. He says, "We become so accustomed to the idea of divine love at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us, that the God of the universe draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us."

Now watch this. This whole idea comforted him in his prison. Watch this. He said, "We ponder the incomprehensibility of our lot." He's speaking personally. His lot that he's in prison by the Nazis. And he said, "And we are assailed by the question, 'Why?'" And then, when everything is bearing down on us so much that we can barely stand it, the Christmas message comes to us and tells us, "Our ideas are wrong. Our eyes are at fault. That is all. God is still in the manger. He is still right here. And no matter what man tries, they cannot circumvent God who is secretly revealed as Lord and rules the world and our lives."

He took comfort in the promises that one day even the Third Reich would fall, and it did. And although Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis, he took comfort, and I take comfort, in the resurrection. That evil will not ultimately triumph over good. That one day this empire will stay in ruins, but Dietrich Bonhoeffer and all who place their trust in Christ will rise again to be with the Messiah in his beautiful kingdom that will last forever and ever and ever.

And when you and I feel oppressed by life, we need to remember that it's our eyes that are at fault. That is all. God is still in the manger. He is right here with us. And listen, I want you to get this. This is so much bigger than mere positive thinking. I saw an article this past Tuesday that said, "Toxic positivity" -- I love that phrase. "Toxic positivity is on the rise. Are you guilty of spreading it?" Subhead, the simple truth is we can't heal grief with cat memes or fix heartbreak with good vibes.

That's really true. When we are really in our darkest moments, we need something much, much deeper and much richer than that. We need someone to come and sit with us in our sorrow. We need to learn how to have our eyes fixed on him, not just positive thinking, not just good vibes. And this is one of the reasons that we're beginning a series in the new year based on the bestseller "Anxious for Nothing" by Max Lucato, which itself is based on Philippians chapter 4 in the Bible.

This is all about refocusing from your anxiety to God. For all the details, go to tlc.org/calm. This starts in two weeks, the first weekend of January. We're starting virtual Zoom-based small groups. You can pick up your copy of this book here at the church office. Again, go to the website for all the details on that, because when you feel like you're in the in-between time, when COVID rages and you've lost something and grief has struck you and your marriage is stressed and the kids won't behave and your car won't start, you can choose to remember God's grace is greater, God's power is stronger.

And finally, God's love is closer than you can imagine. Verse 11, Isaiah has just described how God can level mountains and raise up valleys, this powerful mighty God. And then he says, "And he tends his flock like a shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms, carries them close to his heart. He gently leads those that have young." You know, those famous Ann Gettys photographs of small children being held in their big mighty father's hands. That's what I think of when I think of this verse.

God, he came to hold you. Why? Because he loves you so much. You know, I remember holding my own kids when they were newborns and how that was just the best part of my life. But you know, to this day, when my kids, all three of them are grown now, all three of them are married now. But when they text me, when they call me, when they drop by to see me, it is still the best moment of my day, the best moment of my week. I still love them so much.

And this verse is saying, "You're the best part of God's day." You are God's joy. Jesus described himself as the good shepherd who was born on Christmas so that he could pick us all up as a shepherd, "tends his flock like his little lambs." This is so, so important for you and I to remember. Isaiah's saying to the lost sheep of Israel and to you and me, "I know it looks bad right now, but this, your Babylonian captivity, your COVID pandemic exile, it's just the in-between time." He's still got you and me and the whole world in his arms.

And believing this makes all the difference. Let me close with this, an amazing video that I first saw in 2014. It's about an elderly woman named Gladys Wilson. Gladys has Alzheimer's, unfortunately, very advanced. She's now completely unresponsive. She can't say a single word. Her disease has caused her to completely withdraw. But she has a wonderful live-in caregiver named Naomi Fyle.

And Naomi has discovered that the most effective therapy for Gladys is singing songs that Gladys once learned as a child about the Lord Jesus. And I want you to look at just 60 seconds of what happens in a typical session with Gladys. Remember, Gladys is normally totally nonverbal and nonresponsive. Watch the screen. Can you open your eyes now? Do you see me? Feel safe in the warm? Yes? Can you sing with me? He's got the whole world in his hands. He's got the whole world in his hands. He's got the whole world in his hands. He's got the whole world in his hands.

He's got the mothers and the fathers. He's got the whole world in his hands. I know it's not brilliant students at the Academy of Ancient Music singing the Messiah. But it gets me just the same. Because the message is the same. Believe it. God's grace is greater. God's power is stronger. God's love is closer than anything that's out there. I've seen this as a pastor again and again. When I truly believe these things, when I internalize them down deep, that is when I have true comfort and hope.

When I believe that Christmas is God shouting to all you exiles, to all you people feeling like you're living in the in-between times, like a stalled elevator in between floors. God shouting to you, "I love you so much that nothing in heaven and earth could keep me away from you." And he speaks comfort, comfort to his people, saying, "It's going to be okay because I have you in my hands." Let's pray together. Would you bow your head with me?

Heavenly Father, thank you for your love. Thank you that your grace is so great that you sent your Messiah Jesus to forgive all of our sins through his sacrifice on the cross, to give us power stronger than anything, that your tender love is closer than anything. And my prayer this week is that that message streams out through our Christmas services. I pray that there will be people in heaven because of what happens through that online Christmas service this week.

Father, help us to spread that word. And God, I just pray that you'd help us all to open our hearts to that grace and that power and that love right now. And I ask you especially to bless everybody's health. I ask you to bless everybody's safety. I ask you to comfort those who mourn, strengthen those who are weak. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.