Wednesday December 20, 2023
Theme: “God Visits His People”
Text: Isaiah 52:1-6
1. Wake up! wake up! put on your finery, Zion! Put on your festive clothes, Jerusalem, holy city! For neither uncircumcised nor unclean shall come into your house any more. 2. Shake off your dust, get up, sit up, Jerusalem! Loosen the bonds from your neck, Captive, daughter of Zion! 3. For thus says the LORD: You were sold for free, and you will not be redeemed with money. 4. For thus says the Lord GOD: Of old my people went down to Egypt to sojourn there; Then the Assyrian oppressed him without cause. 5. And now what shall I do, saith the LORD, When my people have been taken away for nothing? His tyrants cry out, says the LORD, and my name is reviled all day long. 6. Therefore shall my people know my name; This is why he will know, on this day, That it is I who speak: here I am!
Let's remember:
Oppression comes to an end on the day when the Lord God appears among his people. When the Lord said: Here I am! That's it, nothing will be the same again. Here I am! It is the expression of a caesura, the expression of a break between the painful past time and the now joyful present. It is a simple announcement coming from God, and which marks his visit, it is enough to reassure a people who have long been anguished. The presence of God is a sure guarantee of security and consolation. God’s “Here I am” is a precursor to the defeat of our oppressors. It is an opportunity to curb, an opportunity to renew our alliance with Him and to give thanks because a new page opens when God visits his people. It is therefore the opportunity to wake up and put on the finery, the opportunity to put on our festive clothes. Life changes when God says, “Here I am.” It is then that we shake off the dust to mark our independence from darkness. This is where we get up and change our perspectives, we see life differently than through the prism of defeat. When God announces his approach, the bonds of captivity are already loosened from the neck, the yoke falls and freedom is graciously acquired. What would still hold us captivated when the Lord says, “Here I am”? Nothing! On the contrary, everything kneels before this resounding voice which panics the world of darkness and routs all the workers of the devil. All those who tyrannized us will disappear before our face because of the terror that the voice of God will inspire in them. Have a great Wednesday of joy. Amen
Alain Louz.-