Come, Lord Jesus, Just Like Fire

12.3.23 Isaiah 64:1–9 (EHV)

1 Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and come down. Mountains then would quake because of your presence. 2 As fire ignites stubble and as fire makes water boil, make your name known to your adversaries. Then nations would quake in your presence. 3 You did amazing things that we did not expect. You came down. Mountains quaked because of your presence. 4 From ancient times no one has heard. No ear has understood. No eye has seen any god except you, who goes into action for the one who waits for him. 5 You meet anyone who joyfully practices righteousness, who remembers you by walking in your ways! But you were angry because we sinned. We have remained in our sins for a long time. Can we still be saved? 6 All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth. All of us have withered like a leaf, and our guilt carries us away like the wind. 7 There is no one who calls on your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you. So you hid your face from us. You made us melt by the power of our guilt. 8 But now, LORD, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry, LORD, without limit. Do not remember our guilt forever. Please look closely. All of us are your people.

Come, Lord Jesus, Just Like Fire

Isaiah prays for God to come down violently, to RIP OPEN the heavens and come down. It is a violent prayer and an urgent prayer, kind of a dangerous prayer, but also a hopeful prayer. Yet it is the cry of Advent, as we wait for God to come on the Final Day and end this world. The Bible ends with the same prayer. “Amen, Come Lord Jesus.”

Isaiah’s prayer was grounded in history. There was a time that God had done something similar to what Isaiah was describing. Once the Israelites then crossed the Red Sea and entered into the desert, God appeared on the top of Mt. Sinai. Exodus 19 describes what happened -

16 On the third day, when morning came, there was thunder and lightning. A thick cloud was over the mountain, and there was a very loud blast of a ram’s horn. All the people in the camp trembled. 17 Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. Its smoke went up like the smoke from a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently. 19 When the sound of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in the thunder. 20 The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, at the top of the mountain. The Lord then called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

Isaiah was calling for something like this to happen again.

Why did Isaiah pray for this? You could look at the history of Israel and see where they were. The Assyrians had taken the northern tribes captive, and the Babylonians weren’t far behind. It would be easy to think that he wanted God to shake them up and scare them. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here. He was more concerned for His own people, the Israelites. We have remained in our sins for a long time. Can we still be saved?

It wasn’t just a slip of the tongue or a one time period of weakness. Their sinful lives had become a regular way of life. It’s one thing to have too much to drink one time. It’s another thing to become an alcoholic, getting drunk on a weekly basis. It’s one thing to have premarital sex in a moment of passion. It’s another thing to move in together prior to marriage. It’s one thing to say something in a moment of anger and weakness. It’s another to be verbally abusive to someone on a regular basis, constantly degrading them and tearing them down. It’s one thing to have one compulsory purchase. It’s another thing to ring up thousands of dollars of credit card debt due to irresponsible spending. It’s one thing to miss church once in a while. It’s another to miss church for months on end for no good reason at all. When you don’t take the ONE sin seriously, it quickly becomes more. When sin goes unchecked you become an active alcoholic. You are an abusive person. You are an adulterer. You are not being faithful in Word and sacrament. Isaiah was lamenting the length of the sin especially, how long they had remained in it. They didn’t even care.