Wonderful

I always struggle with November; the clocks go back and the afternoons are so dark and gloomy. This year it seems as if we have had endless rain and this has turned my allotment into an uninviting soggy place, so there’s really nothing to report from there. I would normally start to write this in my head sitting on my bench but it’s too wet to do that, so I’ve retreated to the chair by my Aga, a much cosier spot.
 
In Oasis, our Friday women’s group, we are looking at the coming saviour. Now that is a much more uplifting thing to do than looking at the rain. In Isaiah we have those fantastic verses where Isaiah is looking forward to a king who would be like David and have radical faith to save Israel from the Assyrian threat. This is the king described in the famous poem in Isaiah 9:1-7: 

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them … For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on his shoulders; and his name will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

In one of his sermons Charles Spurgeon expands this text, focusing on one phrase. He says “If we can discern any brightness in our own hearts, or in the world's history, it can come from nowhere else, than from the one who is called "Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God."”
 
He begins with this - “"The government is upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful." Beloved, there are a thousand things in this world, that are called by names that do not belong to them; but in entering upon my text, I must announce at the very opening, that Christ is called Wonderful, because he is so. God the Father never gave his Son a name which he did not deserve.
 
"His name shall be called Wonderful." And first that Jesus Christ deserves to be called Wonderful for what he was in the past; secondly, that he is called Wonderful by all his people for what he is in the present; and in the third place, that he shall be called Wonderful, for what he shall be in the future.”
 
Wonderful for what He was in the past, Jesus was at the beginning, creating this wonderful world, temporal and spiritual.
 
He is wonderful for what He is in the present. Is he wonderful to you? Think of your own journey in faith and the times when the Lord has been close to you, in the darkness and in the light-filled moments.
 
His name shall be called wonderful in the future, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." This is so movingly set to music in Handel’s Messiah and never fails to lift me out of the darkness of these gloomy days.

Photo by Sydney Angove on Unsplash