Here is your God

I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered

On a day of clouds and thick darkness. Ezekiel 34:12

 

Read Isaiah 40:9—11

This day is drawing to a close. I have lived the active part of it. Now I reflect before God. And because I have faith I can ask, ‘Where did I see your hand today? Where did I see your coming?’ I know that others may not see the coming of God at all. In the story behind tonight’s reading the thing everyone would have seen, believers and unbelievers alike, was an event in international relations, Jewish exiles returning home. But the seer sees deeper: ‘Here is your God.’ Later, when Zechariah became the father of John the Baptist, he saw the coming of God in that: God ‘has visited and redeemed his people.’[1] So — I will need to slow down for this — by faith I will see that even the ordinary events of today have been filled with the visitation of the Lord.

 

Lord my God, you have visited your people. You have come to your people. You have come in events freighted with meaning. You have opened the eyes of your faithful ones to see that it is really you. Because I have faith I have been grouped with Isaiah and Zechariah and Elizabeth, with Mary and Joseph, with Simeon[2] and Anna,[3] with unnamed shepherds and wise men. You have gathered us in your arms and carried us in your bosom, led us as a flock. Open my eyes to see your leading and your coming to me today.

[1] Luke 1:68 NKJV

[2] Luke 2:25—35

[3] Luke 2:36—38