We start off the season of Advent and a new Annual Focus year (“We are the Body”) with a talk about what it means for us to “swap bodies” with Jesus and become the Body of Christ, the Church.

Sermon Text: Isaiah 64:1–9 

[1] Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence—
[2] as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
[3] When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
[4] From of old no one has heard
or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him.
[5] You meet him who joyfully works righteousness,
those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;
in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?
[6] We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
[7] There is no one who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
[8] But now, O LORD, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
[9] Be not so terribly angry, O LORD,
and remember not iniquity forever.
Behold, please look, we are all your people.