“With joy you will draw water from the well of
salvation” [Isaiah 12:3]
Reading: Isaiah 12:1-3
Isaiah writes in the context of national apostasy.
The people have fallen away from faith and their
worship has become sterile. The judgement of God
is upon them and even now, in their theology, the
armies of Assyria are marshalling to bring about the
sentence of God on his fallen people. Death and
destruction and Exile await Judah and Jerusalem,
just as befell Israel and Samaria.
But in the midst of all this the prophet declares a
message of hope. The Advent promises are
interwoven within the text: beyond this a day will
come when God will have his place again, and
“on those living in the land of the shadow of
death, a light (will) dawn”. [Isaiah 9:2]
“In that day you will say, “I will praise you O Lord.
Although you were angry with me, your anger has
turned away and you have comforted me. Surely
God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord is my strength and my song; he has
become my salvation. With joy you will draw
water from the well of salvation”. [Isaiah 12:1-3]
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It is Page
a great
promise.
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Bring your buckets!
One day in spite of what might be:
“With joy you will draw water from the well
of salvation”. [ibid]
In the prophetic narrative this day will be when the
people learn and understand where they have gone
wrong in their spiritual life and religious observance
and turn again to God. It is described by Isaiah as a
time of restoration and blessing and glimpsed in
human terms in Nehemiah’s description of the
rediscovery of the Scripture in the rebuilt
Jerusalem; [445 BCE] where
“they bowed down and worshipped the
Lord with their faces to the ground ... the
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people had been weeping as they listened to
the word of the Law.” [Nehemiah 8:6,9]
It was a rich time in their history as God became
present, but only possible because of their
recognition of him and his claim upon their lives and
what their response had been: in effect it proved to
be a costly and humbling recognition.
The old song tells its truth:
“With a sorrow for sin must repentance begin,
Then salvation of course will draw nigh”
[Anon SASB 1953 and previous]
And I guess it describes a recurring theme in the
Bible and through the cycle of history, as faith ebbs
and flows and spiritual reality becomes formalism
and then culture, and loses its meaning to
succeeding generations.
‘God has
no grandchildren,’ [anon] has been well said. And
the truth is that the Jews would move again from
God, and repent again and somehow, just like us,
wish we were better people and more consistent
and understood the Mind of God better and knew
him better and communicated that in a better way
to keep the flame of faith alive.
Written in 1867 Matthew Arnold’s poem On Dover
Beach
has
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written,
more so:
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The Sea of Faith
Was once, (...) at the full,
and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
[Matthew Arnold On Dover Beach 1867]
We imagine the world of 1867 as one of religious
orthodoxy and high church attendance. The truth is
that the decline we observe now has its beginnings
then, and Matthew Arnold was right. But there
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would be a Revival in his lifetime, the Second Great
Awakening followed, and a third revival, though
smaller, at the end of the nineteenth century, called
The Salvation Army.
We learn from what we observe and experience:
the truth is that,
James writes to the Church in the first Christian
century in the context of their own frustrations with
each other, and maybe frustrated mission:
” You do not have because you do not ask
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God.
When you ask, you do not receive,
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because you ask with wrong motives”
[James 4:1-3]
“if my people, who are called by my name,
will humble themselves and pray and seek
my face and turn from their wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven, and I will
forgive their sin and will heal their land.” [2
Chronicles 7:14]
However we translate that into our history;
whatever awakening or revival or renewal or
movement of the Holy Spirit we identify as our
point of reference.
But ‘if’ becomes the key.
“O shall we never learn the truth all time has
taught
That without God as architect, our building
comes to naught”
[SASB 827:3 John Oxenham]
We folk of course have been on a journey through
these late summer and autumn months to
recognise the challenge of Mission. We see the
challenges of the world in which we live, the
demands of the lives we lead, and yet recognise in
spite of all that, the continuing obligation upon us
to be Christ in our community, to show him to the
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world. Mission and prayer have been strategically
woven together and offered to us; a Mission
Discovery Day engaged more than a hundred
members of this congregation, and some of us have
expressed an idealised vision of what our church
future might be; now we are asked to test that
vision and bring it all to God in a Missional Week of
Prayer.
To bring our buckets.
I can remember a song from my childhood sung by
Burl Ives (1959) There’s a hole in my bucket.*
The hole is this word “If”
“if
my people, who are called by my name, will
humble themselves and pray” [ibid]
If they will, then they are ...
[SASB 653:2 john Newton]
“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust
and not be afraid. The Lord is my
strength and my song; he has become
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my salvation. With joy you will draw
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water from the well of salvation”.
[Isaiah 12:1-3]
God has promised that to us.
Somehow like generations before us we have to
claim and draw on that promise.
Jesus said:
“The water I give him will become in him a spring
of water welling up to eternal life” [John 4:14]
Both for ourselves and for those we serve and
influence in mission.
“... coming to a king,
Large petitions with thee bring
For his grace and power are such
None can ever ask too much”
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*There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
The stone is too dry, dear Liza, dear Liza,
The stone is too dry, dear Liza, too dry.
Then mend it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then mend it, dear Henry, dear Henry, mend it.
Well wet it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Well wet it, dear Henry, dear Henry, wet it.
With what shall I mend it, dear Liza, dear Liza?
With what shall I mend it, dear Liza, with what?
With what shall I wet it, dear Liza, dear Liza?
With what
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| I wet it, dear Liza, with what?
With a straw, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
With a straw, dear Henry, dear Henry, with a straw.
Try water, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Try water, dear Henry, dear Henry, water.
The straw is too long, dear Liza, dear Liza,
The straw is too long, dear Liza, too long,
In what shall I fetch it, dear Liza, dear Liza?
In what shall I fetch it, dear Liza, in what?
Then cut it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then cut it, dear Henry, dear Henry, cut it.
In a bucket, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
In a bucket, dear Henry, dear Henry, a bucket.
With what shall I cut it, dear Liza, dear Liza?
With what shall I cut it, dear Liza, with what?
There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, a hole.
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With a knife, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
With a knife, dear Henry, dear Henry, with a knife.
The knife is too dull, dear Liza, dear Liza,
The knife is too dull, dear Liza, too dull.
Then sharpen it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry
Then sharpen it, dear Henry, dear Henry, sharpen it.
On what shall I sharpen it, dear Liza, dear Liza?
On what shall I sharpen it, dear Liza, on what?
On a stone, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
On a stone, dear Henry, dear Henry, a stone.
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