In this morning's first lesson we have what I am sure Isaiah originally meant to be an exciting, but nevertheless reassuring prophecy: "Behold the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare. Before they spring forth I tell you of them."

Most of us don't automatically like new things, especially in the Church. We live in a secular culture where former things go out of fashion so quickly, and new things established with all the certainty of the former things, that we may well be lost in a swirl of change, come to threatened, out of touch, alienated, "Nothing is the same" is the often hurt, bewildered comment, or the disapproving, critical comment, of a people swept along by amazing change.

In reaction, I think many of us look to our faith, our God, for comfort, look to the unseen, the transcendent, the eternal, for reassurance, for a balance to the hectic progression of former things passing away and new things rushing toward us.

Yet here, in the Old Testament Lesson from Isaiah, we hear that God himself is an author of change - some change - not all. Some change is unfortunate and not divine at all.

One of the hardest things for devout religious people to accept and understand is the nature of our continuing understanding of God's revelation of himself. I suspect most of us tend to like the really important things in life, and especially things about God, to be certain and solid and well-defined, not subject to change. By and large, that is OK and that's appropriate - desirable even.

On one point there is absolute certainty, at least in the classic Christian understanding of God. God himself, his very nature is not changeable. But we must learn to leave it at that. God does not change. Unchanged, unchanging, unchangeable - "eternally immutable" in the Church's official, if grandiose phrase.

That does not mean that our understanding of him does not change, mature, ripen, deepen, evolve, develop. It does not mean that our perception of his will for us never changes, it does not mean that our realization of what our response to him entails does not change. All of those things change. God does not, but those things do. Throughout the Old Testament, you can see growth and development clearly - you can watch a more comprehensive, more astute, understanding of God unfolding in the consciousness of the people of Israel.

Not realizing this is what gives scoffers and enemies of the Faith what they consider their best ammunition - they will quote (probably inaccurately) some obscure bit of Scripture from the earliest period and then hurl outraged wonder at believing Christians along the lines of: "How can you worship a God who . . . whatever", relying on some undeveloped passage that is not in any fashion definitive for the Church, or characteristic of the Christian vision of God, or in accord with the full integrity of Scripture.

God does not change, but we do. And our world does. Our lives do. And our Church does. And that hurts, but it happens.

God himself does not change. But, as the prophet perceptively realized, he does "declare new things" and we need to be attentive, deeply and perpetually attentive to him and his self-communication, and our ongoing, deepening understanding of that communication.

I think there is a common enough human craving for stability, for predictability, for reliability. And there is some aversion to change in all of us, the intensity varying from individual to individual. I don't see anything in Scripture, or in the teaching of the Church, that says you must always delight in all changes. Indeed, there are manifold suggestions that you need to discern amongst all the changes and chances of this mortal life to determine what is good and what is bad, what is of God and what is not, what might even be actively opposed to God. False prophets and false christs will arise, we are warned, seeking to draw away, if possible the Faithful from following the changeless vision of God given us in his self-revelation.

But this is not to say that any and all change is bad, undesirable, or suspect. There is, for example, this morning's lesson from Isaiah, the teaching that some change proceeds directly from God. Sometimes, God does like us to do things differently, see things differently, understand things in a different way than we once did, to remember that we are always looking through a glass darkly, and that, from time to time the vision we catch will change, sometimes it will be clearer, and there will be times, let's face it, when the glass gets even darker and we see yet more dimly.

"Do not be alarmed," says Isaiah, "do not even be surprised - former things do, from time to time, come to pass, achieve their fulfillment, serve their purpose and then pass on, pass away, pass by. And new things are declared, and different things spring forth.

I think many of us fret that while change may be unavoidable it is also undesirable, not a good thing, not a joyful thing, but a risky thing, likely to be unwelcome. Isaiah will have none of that timidity. Change: little change, big change, is all somehow bound up with God's plan and purpose for us, and the perceptive Christian will hearken to the voice of God with a patient and fine-tuned ear, ready to catch the whisperings of God's accompanying advice and counsel as changes appear in our lives.

Pointless change, silly change, change for change's sake, is not of God, and resisting that sort of change does not make us pig-headed. But we have to careful that we do not categorically reject change that may be good, and might be of God, just might be part of God's care for us. All change must be examined carefully and confidently to determine if the change is of God, if God himself is the author and source. If so, then it ought not to cause much alarm, for God promises to be with us in the entire process, advising us, alerting us, warning us, counseling us, letting us in on just what are these new things he now declares and these new things about to spring forth in our lives and the life of our church and our world.

Together we will, we must, face change in our parish in the year ahead. Changes in how we relate to each other, changes in how we support each other and minister to each other, changes in what we expect, and receive, and offer, and work toward. Some of that will be unsettling, even confusing, but perhaps we will see that it might well be of God, and a good thing for us.

Isaiah, that great and holy and brilliant prophets tells us today: Be well-advised: God will declare new things. But be well-assured: he himself will be with us always, in all the changes we live through, even to the end of the changing ages.