Advent Week 1

Welcome

Good morning once again, today we are at the start of the new church year, with the beginning of Advent.

Isaiah 64:1–4 NIV

1 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! 3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. 4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Prayer

Advent is a similar to Lent within the church calendar. During this time of year we are really looking at and reflecting on two different “advents.” The first advent, or arrival, that we tend to think about is the birth of Jesus. During these 4 weeks leading up to Christmas we read the Christmas story and are reminded of how God acted and brought his Son, Jesus, into the world as our Savior. But, there is a second advent that we celebrate as well. We also use this time to look forward to Jesus’ second coming, for him to arrive once again. We find ourselves in a position that is fairly similar to that of Israel at the end of the Old Testament. In a sense, we are in exile, waiting and hoping in expectation of Jesus’ second coming. Israel used to look back on the mighty things that God had done, like leading them out of Egypt, and they would call upon God to act once again. In the same way, for us, during Advent, we look back on Jesus’ birth and celebrate, but at the same time we look forward eagerly to when Jesus returns.

The passage we are looking at today comes from the prophet Isaiah as Israel is in captivity in Babylon. This is maybe not a go to passage to read for Advent or Christmas, but I believe it paints a good picture of what we should be doing both during this time of Advent, and throughout the entire year.

Isaiah 64:1–2 NIV

1 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!

At the start of this chapter, we see Isaiah calling upon God in prayer. And here, we are once again reminded of the importance of communicating with God, as well as being honest with God. Isaiah is looking at the situation they find themselves in, being oppressed by a foreign nation once again, and he calls out to God, he asks that God would tear open the heavens and come down. He wants God to descend once again and show his power and might to their enemies, to have the nations shake before the presence of God.

I think that this prayer of Isaiah is very applicable to all of us within our own lives. There have likely been times when you have prayed a very similar prayer to this. Something is going on in your life and you just wish that God would intervene. Another way of describing this intervention that Isaiah is talking about is to think about throwing open the windows of heaven. We want God to see what we are going through, throw open the gates of heaven, and come down and help us. This is still a prayer that we should be praying today. We need God, there is really no question about that. We need God to descend upon our lives and help us, instruct us, and teach us how to live.

So it’s okay to pray and ask God to act. And the great thing is that we know that he will in the end. We know that God will act because of what he has done in the past. God has already shown himself to be worthy of our trust, to be faithful in his promises, and so we need to remind ourselves of that. One way we do that is by doing exactly what Isaiah does in the next few verses.

Isaiah 64:3–4 NIV

3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. 4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Isaiah recalls what God has already done. He actively remembers how God has acted in the past in powerful ways that they did not expect. The people could remember how God saved them from Egypt, how he parted the Red Sea, how he tore down the walls of Jericho, how he allowed David to defeat Goliath, all of those things point us to a God who hears us when we cry out to him and then acts. But, Isiah inserts an interesting qualifier to God acting in verse 4. Isaiah says that God acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Now here is where we get to a topic that we don’t necessarily like, waiting. I can remember the pain of waiting for Christmas morning to arrive. I remember one time as a kid I asked during the summer (I believe) how close we were to Christmas because I wanted it to be Christmas morning already! I think the answer I got was something along the lines of, “ask us again around Thanksgiving.” If we think about waiting for anything, most of us probably associate that as a painful experience. We don’t like to wait. Have a question that you don’t know the answer to? You don’t have to wait to find out the answer. Search it on your phone and have it. Don’t want to wait to go to the store, order it on your phone. And forget about having to wait for your food. I know it’s true for me, that if I pulled into a McDonald’s drive thru and had to wait 10 minutes for my food I would probably be getting upset. We don’t like waiting.

But over and over in scripture we are told to wait, here are just two examples from the Psalms...

Psalm 27:14 “14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”

Psalm 40:1 “1 I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.”

While we may not enjoy waiting, waiting has a purpose in our lives and teaches us a few things.

First, waiting here means that the Lord is worth waiting for. No matter how long it takes, no matter what the process entails, we know that waiting upon God is worth it. We once again look back at how he has acted in scripture and in our lives already, and we can know that God is worth waiting for.

This is a absolutely silly example, but when I think about waiting this is what comes to mind. When Amy and I went to a Star Wars convention in May, we had signed up to meet the actor who played Obi Wan in the new movies. The day that we got to meet him we were told to be in a certain place and get in line a few hours before we were scheduled to meet him. As I mentioned, waiting is hard. I myself don’t like to wait, but that is what I was being told to do in order to meet him. And you know what? I don’t think I complained once during that hour to 2 hours that we stood in line. Why? Because I was about to meet Obi Wan!

If that is how excited I can be about waiting to meet a person, how excited should I be to wait upon God? I know that God will act, I know it, he has promised it. So why can’t I wait in that same state of excitement? God is worth waiting for, and he often changes us in the waiting.

I came across one author who described waiting on God in this way.

As believers looking at the historical arc of God’s story, we can only deduce that waiting has meaning. The time spent waiting for a message or event can be just as meaningful as the message or event itself. “Waiting ultimately reorients our stories: We are not the primary actor on a stage of our own making or choosing. Rather, God is the hero of the story. Will we be content to wait on his work? In these in-between times, what character will be formed in us as individuals and as a culture?

When you are waiting on God, do you view it as a time when God can be working on your heart? Or do you view it simply as a waste of time? God works in the waiting, and so we have to be active in our waiting.

Within the Gospels we are given an example of what Isaiah means to wait upon God. We see two people who have waited and waited for the arrival of the Savior, Simeon and Anna.

Luke 2:22–38 NIV

22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.” 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: 29 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” 33 The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” 36 There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38 Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

These two people show what active waiting looks like. Simeon and Anna were devout and persistent in their waiting. They likely had every reason to have doubt that they would see the savior, they likely wondered when God would reveal the Messiah to them, when God would tear open the heavens and descend down to them just like Isaiah desired. But they waited. They held on to what they knew to be true about God and trusted.

Another implication of waiting is the reality that God reserves the right to keep us waiting; time was made for humans, not for God. Thus, God is not in a hurry. Another implication of waiting, which is probably the least popular yet the most applicable to the text, is the reality that while God is great, God can also be gradual. When it comes to God’s moves, God’s methods, and God’s miracles, God can choose when he should act.

May I suggest that sometimes God uses slow because we are not ready for what God wants to give to us? Sometimes God uses slow because the ultimate end is not our gain but God’s glory.  We would do well to remember that God is not human, God is gonna do what God said. What we go through cannot cancel what God told us. Because God’s Word is more powerful than any struggle we go through along our way. If God said it, I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care what we have to go through. I don’t care what comes at us. None of it is strong enough to revoke, rescind, retract, reverse or repeal God’s promises. God promised to be the God of Israel, and they were to be God’s people. Thus, slow is never to be confused with no.

Our Active Waiting:

In this season, will we wait actively, faithfully living out the character of God as we wait upon the immanent presence of God? Will we turn from those ways in which our sin has hidden us from him? Will we in full repentance and humility acknowledge to him that we are the work of his hands, the clay in the potter’s palms, that we are his people? Will we, with expectancy, trust that he will once again show up in our lives?

God is going to act. We know it, we are assured of it. The question is, are you going to wait upon him? Are you going to wait like Isaiah, Simeon and Anna? Are you going to trust in God’s goodness and in his purpose even when you can’t see it?