Isaiah 64:1-9 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence-- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed. We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.
Isaiah challeges us to ask: What do you keep watch out for?
Recently, with the serious downturn the world economy has taken and the looming threat that my husband Grady was going to loose his job, I began to watch out for deals. I now comb grocery weekly ads and coupons on the internet to find deals and reduce our family’s spending.
Some are watching the stock market closely to see if we are going to have any savings to retire on, or whether we are going to have to work longer or take on a part time job.
Some might be watching signs in our bodies or the bodies of friends or family, to see if an illness is getting worse or better. Watching for fever spikes, or new symptoms that indicate a treatment is working or not.
Others watch over their children, looking for signs that they are growing up well adjusted, or whether they are succumbing to the myriad of temptations that the world throws at them.
All of these things we watch over have something in common, we are looking for hope in the midst of sometimes what seems a chaotic and changing world. Hope does not live in a vacuum but comes out of a deep felt human need.
As we end our Thanksgiving celebrations, we enter into a season in the Christian year called Advent. It is a time of hope and watchfulness. As we approach one of the most sacred days of our year, Christmas. It is a time, that we spend in reflection, pondering what hope does Christmas bring? We know that Christ has come, so why do we need to keep watching and anticipating? Can’t we just get on with it all? What are we watching for as Christmas approaches if Christ came over 2000 years ago?
We are watching for God’s activity in our lives. For his presence. We are anticipating Christ’s return and until that time we are hopeful to catch glimpses for God’s will for our lives.
It is very easy to get lost in all the rush toward Christmas that our country has made as a tradition, to lose the meaning of Christmas. To lose what we as Christians anticipate with the joyful tidings of Christ’s birth. So the church almost over two thousand years ago, maybe in anticipation of our busyness, established a season to pause and reflect on what the birth of Christ means.
Over the four Sundays of Advent we learn and talk about hope, peace, joy, and love… We learn what the activity of Christ, born as a human, brings all these things to our world.
Today we especially talk about hope.
But to understand hope, it is important to know what we kind of hope we are watching for. Is it the hope of a newborn baby in a stable who is the embodiment of God’s love for us, is it for a shepherd, is it for a political Messiah, is it for a personal Savior?
As the birth of Jesus approached, we read in the NT scriptures about Mary and her hope for a Lord and Savior that would, as Luke records, “(Luke 1:52) bring down the powerful from their t
hrones, and lift up the lowly;. This was Mary’s hope.
hrones, and lift up the lowly;. This was Mary’s hope.
Meanwhile the shepherds waited in their fields, Luke 2:8 keeping watch over their flock by night. Now it is easy to imagine these shepherds as something out of an idyllic hallmark card. But it was dark, and it was cold and there were coyotes and all kinds of dangers around them.
Perhaps what the shepherds were watching for was something in the maze of all the stars in the sky, that would bring good tidings of comfort and joy.
And then there were the people of Israel, waiting and anticipating, hoping, but for what?
Our Scripture for today, helps us to understand the hopes of the ancient Israelites, but also sheds light on our hope today.
Isaiah 64:1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence-- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
The people of Israel were seeking God to come down. They saw God who was distant and withdrawn. They missed God’s presence in their lives. They wanted him back.
Many of us experience God this way. As some grand figure, that has created us, and then stepped away to watch us live out our lives. This God is awesome and mighty, but also distant and cold. A God who is like a watchmaker, who creates us, winds us up and then sets us down in the midst of creation to run our course.
This is a God that we hope will tear open the heavens and come down the mountain to save us from the chaos of our lives.
We want God to be our Father. A loving parent who will do irrational things to save his children. Who will love His children and give His life for them.
We want God to be with us - to be connected with us.
Abraham Lincoln once wrote: "...I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side." The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at the White House by Francis B. Carpenter (Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1995), p. 282. Also, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln by Ward Hill Lamon (Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1994), p. 91. and By REV. MATTHEW SIMPSON, D.D., Sermon at the burial of Abraham Lincoln.
Federal dead on the field of battle of first day, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Library of Congress
God is on the side of right, but for us to see that right, to know it confidently is something that requires more than a simple wish or disposition. It requires a commitment to follow God, to seek His will in all things and a humility to know that we rarely have the ability to understand it all.
For, we constantly sin, and we stop seeking the presence of God in our lives. We get distracted by the things of the world, by power and ambition, by pride and vanity, by so many things and we fail to seek the presence of God within our lives. And it is easy to blame God, to claim that He has hidden his face from us.
Isaiah tells us: There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
And because of this, the prophet Isaiah weeps and proclaims that "We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away."
No longer rooted to our creator, we are at the whim of our sinfulness and worldly evil.
But all is not lost, and the prophet Isaiah in a bold assertion makes his claim on God.
"Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people."
You made us, you own us, you are responsible for us, we belong to you, that is what Isaiah boldly asserts.
And that is the Advent claim we can make as well.
God sent Jesus to us, so that we may always know with full assurance, that God is with us, Emmanuel. Two ancient Hebrew words, for God (El) and with us (Emmanu). God is with us yesterday, today and tomorrow.
He will not forsake us, he will not abandon us, for he has created us, and He has sent his only son
to claim his family relationship with us. He will forever be with us, to help mold us, his creation, not so that we all become identical jars of clay, but that we would become jars of clay filled with hope, peace, comfort and joy.
Water Vessel from the William Itter Collection
Paul tells us that He, God, who started a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ comes again. God is with us, and His bond with us is not broken by time or space, and He will continue to mold us, and form us, until the day when his work will be completed in Christ. Until then God remains with us..
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote,
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees it takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”
We can choose this advent season to stay wrapped up in the busyness of commercialism. We can pluck up possessions rather than take time to spend in quiet contemplation and prayer, missing the many ways that God surprises us daily in small acts of the sacred.
We can opt to remain in the gloom of your circumstances, failing to experience the peace of Christ, that comes from knowing Him.
We can decide to watch signs of the times and become lost in our own self made desperation, bypassing the hope of God in Jesus Christ to redeem the good out of any situation we might find ourselves in.
Or like the prophet Isaiah, we can ask for forgiveness for the sins of the past, and we can share stories of God’s presence in your lives this past year. And when we do this we free ourselves to turn towards the rising star in the East and become watchful for the hope and promise of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us for this upcoming year.
How will God, the Potter, shape us this upcoming year? What promises does he hold for us? What hope will he bring to this world? So that on Christmas day, we may join creation in singing praises to our God, who did not abandon us, even when we sinned, but chose to send his only Son to us, to tie the binds that unite us forever in solidarity with Him.
So what are you going to watch for this Advent season?
