Feel Your Way

 

(Before we even get started, let's get the obvious question out of the way.  Did anyone else read the title as Sandy singing to Danny in "You're the One that I Want" from Grease?!?!?  That's NOT what we will be referencing, but I'm singing it, too.  😄)

Isaiah 59:9-15

Acts 17:16-31

Isaiah 59:16-31

Isaiah is a prophet of God who served during the reign of at least 4 kings of Judah--Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.  The main message of the book of Isaiah is given to him in a vision from God.  Isaiah often uses the phrase "This is the LORD's declaration" to remind his listeners that what he is telling them is directly from God Himself to His people.  I cannot begin to summarize the book of Isaiah in a few paragraphs, so I hope you'll read it for yourself!!  But starting in chapter 59, we find the headline "Sin and Redemption."  If Israel, or Judah, or WE can't find God, it's because  OUR sin has separated us from Him.  It's our sins that have hidden His face.  Their works were sinful works; Our works are sinful works.  We have no hope--no hope for light, for righteousness, for justice, for brightness.  All we bring to the table is darkness, shadows, obscurity, gloom. We put our trust in empty and useless words.   We growl and moan in agitation, because we know what we are--poor, wretched, blind--and we

know there is nothing we can do about it.  We grope along a wall in a darkness so dark it's blinding. Only to find out the darkness is within us--sin has left us for dead.   

We don't follow God, we revolt at His plan, our lies come straight from our heart.  Living the right way for the right reasons is not our knee jerk reaction; in fact, we will probably try a million things before we "resort" to that.  This attitude spills over into the public square, the marketplace.  No one sins in a vacuum-- it affects our hearts, our homes, our communities, our world.  

Isaiah, carried along by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the LORD's declaration, confirms the solution.  God sees.  He saw there was no hope, no justice, no one to argue our case.  So He suited up.  He put on righteousness like a breastplate, a helmet of salvation, clothes that shouted vengeance, and over all of that--zeal.  He has come to repay His enemies and redeem His people.  He will renew His covenant with them--not one that has to be worked out again and again, but an everlasting covenant.  

  

Paul, an apostle to the early church, is in trouble for preaching the gospel, and his friends have whisked him away to a "safer" place--Athens, Greece--where they hope to meet up with him.  While he's waiting, he is deeply distressed by Athens, a city filled with idols.  He sees much of what Isaiah saw--no righteousness, no truth, no justice, no light, no hope. So he reasoned and debated in the synagogue--the place of worship; and in the market place--the place people would gather to hear the latest ideas and teachings.  Finally, the people brought 

Paul to the Areopagus, a public square known to hold trials for treason and murder.  It was a high court where people would plead their cases, looking for justice, truth, wrongs made right.  They've surrounded themselves with idols--blind, shadowy, obscure, useless, unfeeling statues made by human hands; figures with even less power than the humans who made them. The crowd was perplexed by Paul--is he just babbling nonsense, or is he introducing new foreign gods?  So Paul singled out an altar dedicated to an Unknown God...likely built as a place for generic sacrifice and worship,  in case they forgot to assign a certain god to any particular trouble they might have.  

And Paul, carried along by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the LORD's declaration, confirms the solution.  He stands in the public square and discloses the true identity of the "unknown God."  Creator God, the One who made everything, cannot be contained in a temple, is not made by man, and does not need our service.  In fact, everyone here is alive and breathing because of Him alone.  God has laid out everything--families, time, properties, homes--to point to His creative order.  God did all of this to guide us--the ones groping along the wall in the darkness--so we can FIND him.  And the Redeemer promised in Isaiah is not far from them.  He is Jesus, crucified and resurrected.  He is the warrior, God Himself in the flesh, suited up in righteousness, salvation, vengeance, and over all of that--zeal.  Zeal for us to be with Him--in Him--for in Him we live and move and have our being.  Paul teaches the crowd that God commands all people everywhere to repent and receive the assurance of salvation.  

So...what?  What do we learn from this?  Where is our marketplace, our public square?  Of course, we have public meeting places where things are hashed out and discussed.  But I think we'd all agree that the internet has changed so much of that.  Now we have social media, skype, zoom,  who knows what else has cropped up as we've gone more and more online.  I won't lie and say I don't love social media.  I do.  Mostly.  It IS our public square.  Where else can we go to see the newest ideas and thoughts?  Cleaning hacks, recipes, parenting hacks, reels, new music, new trends,  facebook, instagram, twitter, tiktok.   Everyone putting their highlight reel out for the world to see.  But if we look closely enough, we will see there are people walking among the idols, groping along the wall--the darkness is blinding them.  What will be the first thing we say?  Will we give some advice about picking yourself up and dusting yourself off?  Will we offer sympathy and camaraderie? Will we send good vibes and words of affirmation?  Will we--God forbid--laugh at or blame them for their struggle? Or will we--like Isaiah, like Paul--confirm the solution?  Jesus--wearing the breastplate of a priest, the helmet of a king--has come for us!  He is our warrior, ready to avenge those who bear His Name.  He is wrapped in zeal--He disregarded the shame of the cross because He finds great joy in pursuing us.  Jesus is the hope, the light, the justice, the brightness that solves our darkness.  No more groping along the wall--Jesus found us.