Isaiah 64: 1-10
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence— 2 [a] 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! 3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. 4 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. 5 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. [b] 6 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. 7 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[c] us into the hand of our iniquity. 8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people. 10 Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.
1 Corinthians 1: 3-9
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my[a] God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— 6 just as the testimony of[b] Christ has been strengthened among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
When I was writing the play with Mary & Joseph for this morning, I kept thinking that the person I related to most wasn't even in the play, and that was Mary's mother. This was not what she expected from her daughter! Mary was supposed to get married first, then get pregnant, stay home while pregnant and have her baby with her family around her. She was not supposed to get pregnant, travel across country, risk having the baby away from home and then finally get around to marriage.
And this Advent is not what we expected, is it. We're supposed to all be together in church this morning, we're supposed to be planning all sorts of social gatherings, and family visits and concerts, planning all sorts of special Christmas activities. This is not what we expected and we're not happy about it.
We see some of those same emotions reflected in the reading from Isaiah. I've always struggled to use that reading, wondering how it was relevant to Advent, but this year it has new meaning for me. Listen again to the opening words.
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!”
That's raw emotion! I read those words this year and thought, now I get it.
I think many people wish God would just tear open heavens and take care of the mess going on down here. It was bad enough a year ago with climate change and crazy politics, but this year we have Covid to deal with as well. If only God could fix it, make it all go away so we could celebrate Christmas as usual.
In an odd way, we're like the Hebrew people of this reading. They had been exiled in Babylon for 70 years, kept away from their homeland, and now were finally allowed to return. Their arrival in Israel should have been joyful and exciting, but instead it was a massive disappointment because everything had changed.
As we heard in verse 10, the cities had become a wilderness, and Zion a wilderness as well. Jerusalem was a desolation. While the returning exiles knew the country had been conquered, they had no idea how bad it was. This was not the Israel of their collective memory, the longed for place of belonging and peace.
I think many of us feel somewhat the same way as we move into Advent. It feels unfamiliar, it's not the season we usually long for and enjoy, because we can't do so many of the things that have become an essential part of it. This year Advent and Christmas may feel like desolate place to you.
So what do we do about it? Do we cling to the traditions we can and put up with the disruption? Or is there some way we can actually grow through it? I think the readings for today offer a road map through this unusual Advent season.
Isaiah 64 starts with that very honest naming of emotions - I'm not happy and I wish you would do something about it God! I think we need to do that too, name how we're feeling ~ sad, angry, lonely, lost – the list goes on and overall I think there is a sense of grief. There's a lot of loss this Christmas and we need to acknowledge it. It's very important to be honest with ourselves and with God about how we're feeling, just like the writer of Isaiah 64.
From there, the writer then talks about what God has done in the past for the people of Israel, and this is important for us too. We need to remember that God has walked with people through situations far more distressing and difficult than what we are facing, and also remember times in our own lives when we have felt God's strength and wisdom guiding us.
It's a matter of balance, name our grief and anger, accept them, and then put them in perspective.
From there the writer talks about how the Hebrew people have transgressed. That's not something we're so keen on these days! For us, I think this speaks in part to acknowledging that we as a society have brought a lot of our problems on ourselves, but it also speaks to our accountability, that we have a role in what happens going forward.
If we all do our part to follow the directions given by the government, we have a much better chance of the situation improving. As much as we might like God to come down and make everything better, in reality, just like in Biblical times, we're the main tools God works through.
We see that reflected in verse 8, Yet O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, you are our potter, we are all the work of your hands.
1 Corinthians 1:3-9 is also a beautiful description of how God works in us: “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind . . so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift. God will also strengthen you to the end, for God is faithful.”
Those are powerful words! They are an important reminder for us, we have a choice this Advent, we can focus on what we can't do, or we can focus on what God is providing, what we can provide for ourselves and on what we can do as people of faith for ourselves and for others.
This doesn't mean being unrelentingly positive, we need to have that time to acknowledge when we feel down. As I said before, it's a matter of balance, that back and forth between sharing our sadness with God and then asking for guidance and strength to find new ways of celebrating Advent this year, new ways of putting our faith into action and connecting with each other as a family of faith.
This Advent is not what we expected! We know it won't be easy, but we have the example of Jesus who faced circumstances far more challenging than what we have before us.
As we wait for Jesus this Advent, may we be inspired to do our part to accept and to share the gifts that he brings, even when it means doing so in new and unfamiliar ways.