CCV@Home Livestream video link:

https://www.facebook.com/christchurchviennava/videos/555185372035709

John the Baptist, languishing in prison, questions and doubts–Jesus, are you the one? Jesus replies, the sick are healed, dead raised and good news is proclaimed to the poor. The kingdom that Jesus came to bring does not look like any other, but everywhere Jesus goes the effects of the fall are undone. Jesus invites all of us to participate in and experience this Kingdom of God, even if we struggle with skepticism and doubts.

Prepare the way of the Lord, Isaiah declares. But how? To prepare you need to know what you are expecting. Our expectations–what we are looking for in life and from God–affect our ability to receive what God is offering.

“As you go,” the Lord instructs through Isaiah. God plans to bring his kingdom like waters and blossoms in the dessert and he invites his people to anticipate and participate in faith, not just to wait around.

The Christmas season rarely lives up to our expectations. This is because, as Isaiah reveals, what we are really longing for is heaven and shalom. And what we truly need is the knowledge of God, the justice of the judge and the hope of the Messiah. Advent is a season to live into that points us to these deeper needs and wants and can shape our year round lives.

Isaiah calls Israel to trust Yahweh and not the power of the nations, to live in true wisdom not in human and to walk in the Light in the midst of a dark world. Isaiah is the backdrop and message of Advent and the longing of God to come and right all wrongs.

Isaiah 6:1-8 & Luke 22:44-49

How do we keep the gospel fire burning? A renewed vision of the greatness of Christ, a renewed compassion for the lost and a renewed readiness for the gospel. Using Isaiah’s vision and calling in Isaiah 6, The Rev. Lewis Lew, Assoc. Dir. of Missions for the Diocese of Singapore and Dean of the Anglican Church of Nepal, invites us to be compelled by Christ, the world and the gospel to respond to God’s call with: “Here I am, Send Me!”

Mark 10:46-52 & Isaiah 42:1-7

Jesus heals Bartimaeus, the blind beggar on the side of the road outside Jericho–making him well physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually; Upending cultural values of who’s In and who’s Out–and inviting us to see ourselves as desperate and needy as the blind man.

God’s heart for the poor is vividly portrayed in the Prophets condemnation of Israel for their lack of Justice. God calls us to align our hearts with his in radically generous justice–giving of ourselves for all the poor and powerless.

Includes God in Life testimony on Foster Care by Sasha Swanson, Tatiana Shults and Christie Vaudo.

The Magi come from afar to worship Jesus the newborn King and return to their lands with the news of the Christ, inviting us to see those who are different and strange as part of God’s plan and to see our call to love them.

Recording includes God in Life testimony (at minute 23) by Jake Gramlich who shares about his own coming to faith.

In Isaiah 56, the prophet reveals God’s heart for the Eunuch & the Foreigner–Outcasts in Israel. A message of grace to all outcasts that also compels us to love the Stranger too.

God’s passion for justice and mercy pushes us out into a world of poverty, slavery and violence to care with God’s heart for people in hopeless darkness.

The religious leaders try to trap Jesus with a question about paying taxes to Caesar. Jesus doesn’t evade the question, he overturns it–challenging their view of Kingdoms and inviting all to come and be a part of his upside down Kingdom by giving themselves wholly and completely to God.