This was also our Harvest Thanksgiving service. We sang a new harvest songs which you can sing along to here.
Chapter 9 of Isaiah introduces some hope to the doom and woe which features so heavily in previous chapters.
‘The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light’
It’s hard for us to understand how miraculous light was for the people of Israel as we all grown up with the assumption that light is always available at the flick of a switch. As people connected to the land, the Israelites would have understood how important light is for a good harvest.
We had a look at a video experiment which demonstrated the phototropic properties of plants very well. You can see that here.
In Isaiah’s time, when the harvest was good it was cause for great celebration because it meant security and survival for the coming year. So harvest for them was an enormous celebration, like getting a new job for us, or graduating from university, or winning the lottery or at the birth of a new child.
And it’s through the birth of a baby that God’s salvation comes to us for ever and ever.
You can hear the talk here Isaiah 9_2-8
