The Third Sunday of Advent

December 12th, 2010

“The Advent King’s Cure for Our Myopia”

Isaiah 35:1-10

Myopia is a disease that affects nearly 70 million Americans. I have myopia. In fact, I have a
severe case of myopia. It’s not deadly. It’s not life-threatening in any way in and of itself, but it does
effect how I live and the things that I do every single day. Some of you probably have myopia – but
perhaps you know it better as being “near-sighted.”
If you are near-sighted, you know that it affects your everyday life. You have to put on glasses or
wear contact lenses to be able to see sharply enough to perform simple everyday tasks like driving a car
or even watching television. Myopia sufferers also have tremendous difficulty in the dark, because their
eyes do not adjust to the absence of light very well. Without assistance, the myopic live in a blurry, dark,
undefined world where they are severely disabled, and subsequently prohibited from seeing important
things clearly.
Myopia is “near-sightedness,” and oh, how Christians suffer from it – no not the physical disease,
spiritual near-sightedness. The prophet Isaiah is going to put some glasses on us today that help us to see
how the “glory of the Lord” made flesh, the advent King, our Lord Jesus Christ, cures our spiritual near-
sightedness. He first sharpens our present perspective through fulfilled promise. He sharpens our view
of our present circumstances, enabling us to see farther, beyond the here and now. Essentially, what we
see with our physical eyes now, the deformity, the deficiency of a sin-laden world and a sin-infested
existence, what we see is NOT what we’re going to get in the end. And that gives us confidence to, “face
the evils of each day with fresh confidence,” as we so often pray.
And secondly, he navigates us home to heaven. He invites us to cling to him and his cross as he
leads us along the Way of Holiness that will bring us from the exile of this temporal abode to our final
rest, our homeland of heaven.

I. He sharpens our present perspective

Those who suffer from myopia live in an extremely blurry world. Those of you who have myopia,
you know how difficult it is to decipher anything without your glasses or contact lenses. Even when I’m
watching television, if I’m not right up close to the screen, all I see is background, I can’t make out the
images, the people, the places clearly, and what I have to give me any understanding of what’s going on is
what I hear. For the myopic, without our glasses or contacts, we have to be a bit more attentive to what
we hear, and that fills in details that we couldn’t see or recognize otherwise.
We are all spiritually myopic. Every single human being has had their spiritual vision impeded,
distorted and blurred by that sin disease that entered the world at Eden. It affects us today, that ancient
disease. Even now, our understanding of God and his will are imperfect, flawed, and our view of our
present circumstances is just as blurry, because it’s difficult for us to think and to look beyond the
challenges of the here and now, specifically the challenges of being a Christian in a predominantly anti-
Christian world. That can wear on us. That fact burdens us immensely, all because our vision is blurred
by sin.
 God has a cure to sharpen our vision so that we see beyond the here and now to the far-reaching
fulfillment of his promises – and that cure is his Word of salvation in Jesus Christ, a Word that helps us to
fill in what we cannot clearly see in our blurry sinful state. Here is his word, verses 1-4:
“The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the
crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be
given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our
God.”
Life, rejoicing, joy; quite the opposite of what we experience in the here and now, and completely
opposite from what the Israelites had and would continue to experience when they went into exile. What
do we see now, but death and little reason to rejoice. What we see now is every reason to be down, and
precious few things which we are joyful about. The Advent King changes all of that! The glory of the
LORD, the majesty of God made flesh changes all of that!
We have every reason to rejoice even now, when our physical eyes see a parched world and a
wilderness of unbelief. We have every reason to join with Christians around the world and with the
saints in heaven to sing our “alleluias” because once again the Glory of the Lord made flesh, Jesus Christ
has gone into action to give to mankind and therefore to us what we could never give ourselves – life
eternal; full citizenship in the homeland of heaven. How splendid, how glorious and in such an unusual
way too – through a cross, through blood; his suffering for our eternal glory – amazing!
The problem is, it’s difficult for us to look that far ahead, isn’t it? We’re myopic, spiritually
speaking! We can’t see this glorious end with 100% absolute clarity. So we need to listen! If we can’t
see clearly, we must listen! That’s what near-sighted folks do when they try to watch television without
their glasses on – they have to listen. How ridiculous it would be to turn on the television, not be able to
make out the picture clearly and then turn the volume down so that you can’t hear it, or worse, hit the
mute button. Pointless! Even the captions wouldn’t help, because you can’t see them! You need to listen!
The same is true when it comes to God’s promises in Scripture. Just as the Israelites should have
listened to the prophets who spoke, who served the people by clarifying through Word what they could
not see with their eyes, the advent of the Christ, so also today we have to have our ears open. We
absolutely cannot press the MUTE button on God. His Word not only clarifies his Messianic plan for the
world, sharpens in us our need a Savior, and warns us to keep our eyes open in these last days and to be
constantly prepared for the final revealing of the Glory of the Lord, it also clarifies why we can be joyful in
the context of much suffering – because eternal glory awaits! You can’t see it, nor can I. It’s blurry, off in
the distance. But with our ears open, we will have reasons to be joyful as we await the eternal and
perfect joy of heaven. Romans 8:18 reminds us of that very thing: “18 I consider that our present
sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

II. He navigates us home to heaven

Now, as challenging as it is to watch television when you’re near-sighted, there are other everyday
tasks that are nearly impossible to do without eyesight assistance, like driving. If you’re myopic like me,
then you know that it’s not wise to drive a car without your corrective lenses. In fact, it’s illegal according
to the laws of the State of Michigan (Ohio). It’s dangerous, deadly. And besides those reasons, many
near-sighted people couldn’t see the road signs anyway, so you wouldn’t know where you were going
unless you had a GPS device that could keep telling you, “Go (here), turn (here), your destination is
(here)” and even then, there would be difficulty.
 The myopic lack sharpness and clarity, and they lack the ability to navigate themselves around
without some kind of assistance, usually corrective lenses. I suppose you could look at myopia as a form
of blindness.
We are spiritually blind by nature, and even in our Christian faith, we are myopic, near-sighted,
blurry, darkened in our hearts and our understanding of God and his will, all a result of that first
debilitating disease introduced to the world at Eden. For that reason, the Spirit directed the prophet
Isaiah to give us some clarity, and after foretelling Jesus’ miracles of healing the lame, the mute, the blind
and the deaf, he says this:
“8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey
on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; ...only the redeemed will walk there, 10 and the ransomed
of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness
and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
There’s no place like home! This is the time of year when people return to the places where they
grew up, where they established so many traditions and memories, and if someone has been away from
home for a while, it’s a joyful thing to walk in the door to be embraced by family, by the people that love
you and care about you.
We have a hymn in our hymnal that begins, “I’m but a stranger here. Heaven is my home!” How
true! And since our myopia is so severe, since our spiritual vision is so blurred, we need a navigator to
bring us there – and that’s exactly what we have in “the way, the truth and the life,” Jesus Christ. That’s
exactly what we have in “the light of the world” who enlightens our dark hearts with his Word.
But unlike a conventional GPS that gives demands and directions, “Go here, turn here, make a u-
turn here,” our advent King navigator simply calls out to us: “Cling to me, and I will get you there! Hold
on to me and I will bring you home! Trust in me, my cross, my blood, my sacrifice, my death, my
resurrection, which was all for you, the ransom price demanded for you to enter heaven. Hold on and
never let go. Come to me, cling to me, cling to my Word and I will give you rest.”
Cling! That’s what the blind often have to do, hold on to the leader to get where they need to go.
In these last days, fellow myopic Christian friends, it is all the more important for us to take our faith
seriously, to take God’s Word seriously and to have it constantly in our lives, especially the public
receiving of God’s grace in worship. For every time that you spend time in corporate worship, in
Scripture study, in personal meditation, at home, at church, whenever the Word of God is open to you,
there your navigator calls out to you: “Me, cling to me, blind one, myopic one and I will bring you home.”
Myopia isn’t a life-threatening condition. But spiritual myopia can be eternally life-threatening
without divine intervention. Our God has graciously provided the cure for our myopia through the
advent King, who sharpens our present perspective and navigates us to our heavenly home, all through
his Word. Cling to that Word, cling to that Savior for dear life, and to be sure, in the end, he will lead you
to your heavenly family, who is right now ready and waiting to welcome you with a homecoming that is
without compare. Amen.