Living for Today
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
December 30, 2007
I remember a story from a few years ago. An eighty two year old woman appeared on Good Morning America. She had just gotten a face lift, breast implants, botox injections to smooth out the wrinkles, lip resculpting, and a chemical peal. I really don’t know what some of those things are, but it all had required seven hours of surgery and had cost $25,000. When she was asked why in the world she would do this, she replied that there was no point in waiting until she got any older.
Somewhere on the planet this very morning, according to geneticists, is a child who will still be alive 150 – 180 years from now. .That sounds so incredible until you consider how our lifespan has increased over the years.
When Jesus died at around age 33, he would have been pretty old for that part of the world. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the average lifespan in the U.S. was 49. Many women died in childbirth. Many more people died of disease. If you lived to be 60, you were pretty old.
My grandfather died in 1965 at the age of 74, which was relatively old for that time. One of Toni’s grandfathers died in 1971 at the age of 64 following his fourth heart attack. Had he been around now, his doctor would have insisted that his wife quit fixing his breakfast bacon and eggs in lard. They would have performed a heart cath or bypass surgery, and he would have lived a lot longer.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the average lifespan in the U.S. is approaching 80 years. The retirement age is being pushed up and there are people in their 80’s who are running marathons.
Let’s go back to our child for just a moment. If the scholars are correct and this child lives until the year 2157 or maybe even 2187, she will have her own children sometime around 2030 or 2035. Those children may be alive in 2205. Imagine that. Your newborn’s children may still be alive more than 200 years from now.
What could you do if you lived to be 180 years old? You could take more vacations. You could spend more time at the office or place of work. You could plant a bigger garden or plan for a longer retirement. Maybe instead of planting a garden, you could plant trees and expect to see them grow to maturity.
As amazing as all of that is, I’m not sure that lifespan is all that important. I’m not at all sure that we should be so concerned about the length of our years. It seems to me that we ought to be more concerned with the way we live in the years we have.
As we stand on the cusp of a new year, it seems to me that we ought to be more concerned about the state of our souls than the length of our years.
Are we just spending more time on earth, or are we spending more time trying to love God? The prophet Isaiah speaks about loving God like a new bride delights in her husband. What if we spent more time trying to love God like that? Will there ever be enough time to love God like that? Will we ever take the time to love God like that?
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that it doesn’t much matter how much time we humans have, because we remain essentially the same. I would invite you to remember, just for a moment, the last hundred years. The 20th century was dominated by war, genocide, and the absence of sustained peace between nations. Unfortunately, the 21st century isn’t looking to be much better. We haven’t really increased in decency or morality in proportion to the lengthening of our years.
Whether we live to be 50 or 150, our spiritual goal ought to remain the same as it was in the time of Isaiah…to pursue eternal life and salvation through our commitment to and our love of God.
The Scripture lesson for this morning begins at verse 10 of chapter 61: but for just a minute, let’s go back to the very beginning of that chapter. It begins with a description of the Anointed One who is to come.
The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
If those words sound familiar to you, it is because they are the ones spoken by Jesus in the fourth chapter of Luke, when he was asked to read the Scriptures at the synagogue in Nazareth. You will also remember that, after putting the Isaiah scroll down, Jesus said, “Today, this has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Isaiah is speaking about a time when the Messiah will come to rule. The prophet’s goal was to pursue salvation and eternal life through this Messiah…no matter how much time we have to do it. Our goal, he says, is to rejoice in the Lord with our whole beings and become a crown of beauty in the hand of God.
Here we are, just a few days after the birth of Christ, the Messiah, the One who changed the world…but lived only for 33 years. Maybe, just maybe, he could serve as a model to remind us to try to look at life the way God sees it, because we are judged not by the length of our years, but by our deeds in the years we have.
A few years ago, I sold my boat. It was an eighty-five horse (my father-in-law who sold it to me in the first place insisted that it was bored out to 105 horses, but I have no idea what that means) tri-hull speed boat that the kids love to ski behind. Although it was not built for fishing, I spent many happy hours in that boat not catching fish. One of my colleagues always tells me that you can’t call yourself a fisherman unless there are fish on the stringer once in a while.
That same sort of logic is at work in Isaiah. Isaiah 61:1 says that the earth brings forth its shoots as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up. You see, a garden is measured by its produce, not by its size. In the same way, a life is measured by its deeds, its love, and its devotion to God, not by its length.
II Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4 both say that a thousand years is like a day to God. It is not how long we live that matters, but how well we live and how well we love in the years that we have.
Isaiah says that our souls are like gardens. We all know that gardens with rich soil produce abundant growth. But the soil must be worked, tilled, and turned. The plants must be tended. Gardens with ill worked, poor soil produce little growth and bitter taste.
It doesn’t matter how long the garden has existed. Unless we care for it, it will fail. Weeds will choke it. Blights will infect it. Insects will eat it. And the produce will be worthless. The expectation of God is that, whether our lives end at 50 or extend to 150, we will live a dedicated life always seeking God, just as a plant always seeks light from the sun.
We live in an interesting time. Christmas has come and gone. The Christ for whom we waited has come into our midst. The Anointed One upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests is here. This is also the time between the times. This is the time between the first and second Advents…the first and second coming of our Lord.
The Apostle Paul, on occasion would say something like he said in I Corinthians 7:25. He would say something like this. “Now I don’t have a word from the Lord on this, but here is my opinion.” That is what I need to say here. This is my opinion. You can accept it or not, but I would only ask that you give me a hearing.
I am amazed when I walk into Christian bookstores and see the number of different titles which speak of the Second Coming of Christ. The Left Behind series of novels (and the key word there is “novel” – they are not Scriptural) has sold millions upon millions of copies. Radio and television preachers sometimes seem to have a fixation on the Second Coming.
Well, it seems to me that we spend far too much time thinking about and concentrating on the Second Coming when we haven’t got the First Coming down yet. The babe which we welcomed into our midst must a few days ago has profound implications for the way we lead our lives right now in the present.
Jesus has come and expects to rule in every area of our lives…our relationships, our time, our finances, our worship and devotion, our service and outreach, our politics, our national life, our attitudes toward our friends and neighbors…and our enemies! Jesus wants to have an impact on our wishes and desires, our deepest needs, and our fondest dreams.
Jesus has come and expects us to put away everything that stands in the way of faithful devotion and service to him. He doesn’t desire to be one of many attractions of our hearts…but the ONLY attraction.
So, I’m not so sure why we are so worried about the Second Coming when we don’t have the first one quite figured out yet. The Second Coming, it seems to me, will take care of itself, if we take care of the First Coming. If we live the sort of lives Jesus expects, we won’t have to worry about whether or not we will be ready for his return, because we will be.
Jesus has come into our midst to bring good news, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim release and liberty and the coming of the Lord. The prophet Isaiah was looking forward to that time when all men and women would rejoice in the Lord with their whole being and thus become a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.
It doesn’t matter how long we live, if living for Christ isn’t our goal. It doesn’t matter how long we live if we don’t strive with all of our being to pursue eternal life and salvation through commitment to the Messiah.
As we stand on the threshold of a new year, let us be more concerned about the state of our souls than the length of our years. Let us strive to be more like Jesus, to love Jesus as a bride loves her groom, and to cultivate our gardens so that they may produce abundant spiritual growth…today.
