First Sunday of Advent

Before we read the text I want to take a moment to speak to the season of Advent and the Liturgical Calendar at large.

The Liturgical Calendar is a yearly cycle that Christians around the world have used for centuries in various forms to stay rooted in Jesus.

It marks seasons and celebrations that correspond to parts of the gospel story and as we observe these seasons and celebrations we sort of walk through the gospel each year.

The Calendar is really divided into two parts.

The first part focuses on who Jesus is, walking through his life and ministry all the way up to the point, after the resurrection, when he ascends to heaven and sends the Holy Spirit.

The sending of the Spirit marks the beginning of the church, so if the first half of the Calendar is focused on who Jesus is, the second half is focused on who we are IN Jesus, who we’re meant to live as his people.

The Calendar starts with a season of longing and anticipation for Jesus to come, a good place to start.

That is the season of Advent (coming or arrival), which begins TODAY.

The longing of the Advent season leads into the fulfillment of hope at Christmas, then the revelation of who Jesus really is during Epiphany, then the testing of Jesus during Lent … you get the idea.

But it begins today with Advent.

So our worship during this time is focused on waiting, longing, and anticipation.

You can see that in the texts for this morning, which come from a Lectionary that follows the Calendar.

The Psalm is full of language like “how long?” and “restore us!”

The text we’re going to look at here from Isaiah has a similar theme.

Isaiah 64:1-9 - Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 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! For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. 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. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people.

This text is part of a broader lament that begins in Chapter 63.

Scholars would mark the writing of this sometime between Babylonian captivity and the rebuilding of the temple, which was destroyed.

So not only is this written in an “in-between” period, it’s a period that really lies in the wake of destruction and loss

It’s a “what do we do now?” period.

The lament begins in Chapter 63 with gushing praise for God, his kindness and mercy, and the ways he has saved his people

Then it switches to confession, saying the people responded to his kindness with rebellion

And as a result God has hidden himself

Then it gets layered

There are reminders to God that he called his people to glorify himself

But then there are questions (accusations even) about God’s distance from them

63:15 - Look down from heaven and see from your lofty throne, holy and glorious. Where are your zeal and your might? Your tenderness and compassion are withheld from us.

This interplay continues in 64

There are calls for God to act in mighty ways again

64:1-2 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 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!

Then there are almost accusations

64:7 - No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.

It’s almost as if Isaiah’s saying that God has hidden himself because of Israel’s sin but then Israel doesn’t seek him because he feels distant. Like if God would draw closer people would seek him.

Ultimately he’s trying to work out the discrepancy between what he knows of God’s powerful activity that’s recorded in the scriptures and his lived experience of feeling like God is distant.

Perhaps you can resonate with that.

“Hey God, I could use a burning bush or an audible voice or literal writing on the wall to help me know what to do.”

“Hey God, how about one of those shaking the mountains, smiting my enemies scenarios?”

“Hey God, could you just appear in a pillar of smoke or something so that I know you’re there?

Well, you wouldn’t be alone in having thoughts like that.

Truth is, it’s almost a certainty that when we follow God throughout our lives we will experience seasons where he feels distant and we’re left wondering why he isn’t doing something.

Whether we’re reading the bible or the personal writings of the saints we’ll find a lot of “how long?”, a lot of “where are you?”

So is God distant? Has he checked out?

The short answer is, no. But let’s talk about it.

The presence of God is a dominant theme throughout the scriptures and one of the defining aspects of Yahweh is that he is a God who has revealed himself to his people and dwelt with his people.

The biblical story starts with God walking with humankind in the garden.

Even in their wandering in the desert he dwelled with them in the tabernacle.

HOWEVER, we do read about seasons where God WAS silent or not coming to his people’s rescue.

Isaiah’s time was clearly a confusing one.

The temple where God dwelled was destroyed.

God’s people were scattered.

Where was he?

There were a few hundred years before the birth of Jesus that were like this as well, where God wasn’t speaking through prophets at all.

Can you imagine the anxiety of that period when God had felt some present before?

Has God totally left us? Did we rebel one too many times? Or a thousand?

But Isaiah hits on something in verse 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.

He remembers that others have been in seasons of waiting and longing too.

When you’re in the middle of the confusing season you might think it will always be like this or that God has left forever.

But he has shown again and again that he does not abandon his people.

God acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

Waiting on God is never in vain.

And when we enter into that waiting during Advent it helps us remember is that the waiting isn’t forever.

Because Advent lasts for a time and then culminates with the arrival of the Messiah.

Our waiting it fulfilled.

Isaiah himself prophecies about a people walking in darkness seeing a great light.

The light of the world became flesh and dwelt among us.

A child was born, Emmanuel, God with us.

And he changed everything about how we understand God’s presence.

He didn’t come with shaking mountains and fire from heaven.

He came as softly as falling snow.

And he didn’t float above the ground smiting his enemies.

He walked among us and suffered as we do.

And when he ascended to heaven he sent his spirit

not to dwell in a building but in his people

This is what has led people like Augustine have said, “God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.”

So it would be entirely wrong for us to ever think of God as one who is distant and removed. It is quite the opposite.

How then do we explain the fact that we still sometimes feel distance from God even AFTER Jesus has come and the Spirit now dwells in us?

We don’t really explain it.

There isn’t one simple, mechanical answer as if we could pull a lever and fix it.

But often times if we’re feeling distant it’s not God who has gone away it’s us.

We’re the ones who neglect the relationship, distracted, enticed by other lovers (so to speak).

We’re not going to feel close to him if we have disdain for his wisdom, never speak to him, and absolutely reject his authority over our lives.

That’s a good place to start. Humbling ourselves and drawing close to God in prayer.

But sometimes we DESIRE intimacy with God but we find ourselves in a dark night of the soul. It’s confusing.

And all the time, even if we’re experiencing intimacy with God we will no doubt long for him to be MORE active, bringing his kingdom, healing us and the world around us.

And of course this won’t happen fully until he returns so we’re still in a period of longing and waiting.

The goal in all our practices is to learn to draw close to him in the waiting.

Waiting on God is not a passive.

It involves lament and longing and pursuit of his voice. It involves joy and worship and remembrance to bolster our hope and keep us centered on his promises.

And that’s what the season of Advent is about.

Active, pregnant waiting.

The cool thing about Advent is that it comes at the beginning of the church calendar marking the point in the story where people in Old Testament time would be longing for the arrival of the Jesus.

But because the calendar is on a cycle it also comes at the end, marking the point where the Spirit-led church has been sent and living in the world but longing for the return of Jesus to make all things new.

Overlapping longing.

Almost as if longing and waiting are a major part of following God no matter what era we live in.

Priest and author Tish Harrison Warren write a NYT oped last year where she said

“To practice Advent is to lean into an almost cosmic ache: our deep, wordless desire for things to be made right and the incompleteness we find in the meantime.”

Advent holds space for us to REALLY sit with our hope and longing and fear and frustration.

For us to scream “this isn’t how it’s supposed to be!”

And “come Lord Jesus and fix this!”

That’s so much more substantive than numbing ourselves, not allowing ourselves to hope at all.

Warren continues

“Our response to the wrongness of the world (and of ourselves) can often be an unhealthy escapism, and we can turn to the holidays as anesthesia from pain as much as anything else. We need collective space, as a society, to grieve — to look long and hard at what is cracked and fractured in our world and in our lives. Only then can celebration become deep, rich and resonant, not as a saccharine act of delusion but as a defiant act of hope.”

An act of defiant hope, resisting despair and disillusionment.

This is what we practice during Advent.

And waiting on God is never in vain.