This post offers visual resources for the week of December 11, 2022 in the Revised Common Lectionary and the Narrative Lectionary. It is the third Sunday of Advent and we light the candle of Joy. John the Baptist questions Jesus from prison. Are you the one? Jesus comments that John is Elijah (RCL). Isaiah offers a picture of the Messiah as one who will shine a light for the nations (NL).
This sermon explores the vision Isaiah had in Isaiah 6:1-8 and the three responses it evoked in him. It also connects Isaiah’s context to our own context in 2020. Isaiah’s vision came in “the year King Uzziah died.” It was one of “those years.” That was the year the Assyrian Empire began its invasion, and things went from bad to worse. We’re not having a great year in 2020 either. See how the new perspective Isaiah gained in this vision can evoke the same three positions in us and bring about the healing we need.
A visual meditation on Isaiah 5:1-7 and Isaiah 11:1-5. Isaiah compares Judah to a vineyard. It was expected to produce the sweet wine of justice and righteousness, but only produces the wild grapes of bloodshed and caused an outcry of pain. The vintner lets is fall apart. One day, though, a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse who will be a vine that leads with Justice and Righteousness.