God Breaking in on Our World

Isaiah 6:1–7 ESV

1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

Fear of the dark is a common human experience. When our children were young we’d place a night light in their room so that when the lights were turned off it wasn’t pitch black. My mother-in-law is from Springfield, OH, and I recall the first time that Kim and I traveled out there together. We were still living in NY at the time. And one thing’s for sure, when you live in NYC, it’s never really dark. Because it’s the city that never sleeps there’s always light from street lamps, headlamps, and the tops of police cars and fire trucks. Even at night, there’s plenty of light coming through your window.

We stayed at Kim’s grandfather’s house in Springfield, and when we turned off the light to go to bed I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t see Kim’s face. I couldn’t see anything in the room. Not only couldn’t we see, but then there was the sound of crickets and other noise-making bugs outside. I wasn’t shaking in my boots, but I would have much rather had the noise of sirens and honking horns, with light, than the serenity of the country with darkness.

The dichotomy between light and darkness is a reality of life, both physically and spiritually. The Bible is enveloped by the image of light, both literally and figuratively. In Genesis 1 when darkness was over the face of the deep, God’s first words in the creation account are, “Let there be light.” In Revelation 22, God obliterates all traces of darkness when it says in v.5, “And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light.”

Since the Bible is enveloped by the image of light overcoming darkness, it’s no surprise that at Advent we see the light of God breaking in on our world. At Advent we remember that God breaks in on us with his light, revealing everything, good and bad.

Through Isaiah 6:1-7, God Breaking in On Our World― particularly his breaking in on the mess of this world; our mess. God’s light breaking in on our rebellion, our ungodliness, our disobedience, our unfaithfulness, our unrighteousness, our sin. God keeps breaking in on that. This isn’t a typical Advent text, but as we see the Lord break in on Isaiah, he breaks in on us. As Isaiah tells us the story of how he was reconciled to God, he presses in on us for the same purpose, reconciliation.