A Visit from the Prophet Isaiah during Advent

Pastor or Lay Reader: Man had disobeyed God. Man had sinned. Man would die. This was no secret. Man had been warned that the wages of sin were death. There were voices of warning - and of promise. Warnings of death, but others promising God would send life. Many voices (Isaiah enters and introduction fades as Isaiah shouts) Some were heard, many were ignored.

(Isaiah walks into the sanctuary shouting at the people:) Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; Cease to do evil; learn to do good.

(Then he pauses and looks around at the congregation) Excuse me, I was talking as I usually did to the people of Israel. My name is Isaiah, son of Amoz, and I was asked by our Lord to be a Prophet. I don't know why I was asked to be a Prophet. Who knows why our Lord asks any of us to do anything? It was certainly not because I was living a perfect life so that I could tell others now to live a perfect life. It was a frightening thing to be face-to-face with our Lord.

(Read Isaiah 6:1-8 from your favorite translation)

Isaiah continues to speak:
From that time on, for the next 40 years, I was a Prophet for our Lord and I tried my best to do everything that He asked of me - even when I didn't understand what He was asking. Sometimes He would tell me to go to the rulers of our land and tell them of all their sins. This was not an easy thing to do; the rulers often killed people who dared to oppose them in any way. Sometimes he would ask me to do strange things. Like the time I was told to go naked and barefoot - for THREE YEARS - as a sign of the fate that awaited Egypt and Ethiopia. I'm glad I lived in a part of the world where I could go naked and barefoot for three years and survive to tell about it. I understand you are at the beginning of what you call the Advent Season, a time of waiting for the coming of the Lord. It is difficult to wait and hope. In my time, over 700 years before the coming of the Lord, it was also a time of waiting and hope. A much more difficult time, we didn't know when the Lord was coming, and many of my people had lost all hope. Our people were suffering from wars with the countries around us; there was gluttony, greed, social injustice and corruption. In the midst of all of this trouble, our Lord gave me a gift; I was chosen to be the first to tell the people of what was to come, the Messiah!

(Read Isaiah 9:2-6 from your favorite translation)

Isaiah continues to speak:
It was a beautiful prophesy, the greatest story the world had ever heard, but many did not understand or forgot as we all waited those many long years. I did not live to see the coming of the Messiah. But, I was one of the first to tell of His coming. There were many others after me and the story has been told over and over again as the people waited for the coming of our Lord - just as you wait today. It is well worth the wait! It is a story that is well worth the telling. Go and tell it to the world!