Isaiah 64:1-9
“Advent is Not about Waiting to Open Presents on Christmas”
By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor of Grace United Methodist Church, Soddy Daisy, TN www.gracumcsd.org
Our Old Testament Lesson for this morning is a lament from the community that raises the question of whether their waiting for God will ever end.
It’s actually part of a bigger lament that starts in Chapter 63:7 and ends at 64:12.
The people of Israel are disillusioned and they feel as if God has been absent from them for a long time.
In Chapter 63:11 the people ask God: “Where are you?
In 63:15 they lament: “Where is your salvation?”
In 63:17 they blame God for their wandering ways and hardened hearts.
And in Chapter 64:12 the people basically ask God: “Will you continue to keep silent and are we the people even salvageable?”
I would submit that these are the kinds of questions that people ask God or ask about God every day—to this day.
This passage of Scripture was written during some very dark days of the soul.
Most likely, it was while the people were in Babylonian exile.
They remembered how God was with them when they escaped Egypt.
They were kind of looking at the past through “rose-colored glasses.”
Verse 11 of Chapter 63 begins, “Then his people recalled the days of old, the days of Moses and his people—where is he who brought them through the sea, with the shepherd of his flock?
Where is he who set his Holy Spirit among them, who sent his glorious arm of power to be at Moses’ right hand, who divided the waters before them, to gain for himself everlasting renown, who led them through the depths?”
And in 63:15 they beg and wonder: “Look down from heaven and see from your lofty throne, holy and glorious.
Where are your zeal and might?
Your tenderness and compassion are withheld from us.”
These questions explore the dark side of life…the people are waiting for salvation, but they are faltering in their faith.
They are aware that they are wandering from God’s ways.
They beg God to appear to them and yet they ask: “O Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure?”
O, the guilt they must have felt!
O, the doom.
O, the gloom.
How many of you have ever felt like you were all alone in this life; how many have felt as if God had decided to leave you to your sins and punish you forever?
How many of you have felt as if, “It’s too late for me.”?
“God couldn’t possibly forgive me.”
“After all I’ve done, God couldn’t possibly forgive me.”
“God couldn’t possibly save me.”
God will never appear to me…
…my life will be an everlasting wait—in the darkness of the pain and the present loneliness of this life.”
I remember, when I was in college, I had a terribly painful period of time where I felt as if I had abandoned God, and therefore God had abandoned me forever.
I was depressed.
I was in the valley of doom and gloom.
As I walked across campus one day, focusing on my despair, I happened into the campus record store.
And through the speakers on the wall I heard Billy Joel singing: “I love you just the way you are.”
That was a turning point for me.
I remember the moment when those words sounded like a message from God to me.
“Ken I love you just the way you are.”
“Stop beating yourself up!”
“I am with you at all times, I have never left your side.”
“I have saved you through the blood of my Son.”
“I am not silent.”
“You just need to listen.”
“Your life is worth so much to me.”
“Get over yourself, and move on.”
“We have only just begun.”
“There are many miles to go.”
“Don’t be sad.”
“I love you just the way you are.”
How many of you need to hear this same thing this morning?
How many of your family members, friends, and neighbors need to hear this as well?
The voice of God calling out to us through our misery and shame…
…the voice of our Creator telling us that all will be A-Okay…
…This is what our community, our nation, our world needs to hear today!!!
And we can be the mouthpieces of God to the world, if we so choose.
We can make a huge difference in the lives of those who are waiting for the voice of God…
…we can show persons where God is…
…we can bring persons to the Christ Who died and yet lives and is always walking beside them…
…we can help them to see the Savior of the World as we, the Body of Christ on this earth, reach out to other people with unconditional love and acceptance.
What an exciting time to be a Christian!
What a reason to be alive!!!
This is the first Sunday in Advent.
Friday, was “Black Friday” the biggest Christmas shopping day of the year.
Many of us are already waiting to open those presents…
…waiting for things which will not ultimately last…
…things which will only bring a few moments or hours of satisfaction before we are off and looking, and searching and waiting for something else.
Advent is not about the discipline of having to wait in order to open presents on Christmas.
It is not so trite.
Advent is not like waiting in a doctor’s lobby for a flu shot when the doctor is running a little behind schedule—that’s just a minor irritation.
Advent is more like waiting in a doctor’s lobby with a potentially fatal case of pneumonia and not knowing for sure whether there even is a doctor!!!
Where is God?
Can God save me?
Would God even want to save me?
That’s what Advent is about!!!
John Wesley waited on the Lord for 36 years.
He experienced the dark night of the soul.
Are you still waiting?
What about those around you?
What about those who you work with?
What about those with whom you go to school?
I remember, several years back, I got talking with an older woman than I, probably in her late fifties or early sixties.
She and I used to attend the same Bible study.
I had been walking home from work, and came upon her one afternoon.
We got talking about life and God.
She had been abused by her father and by her husband for years.
She felt unworthy of anyone’s love.
And although she believed in God, it was inconceivable to her that God could love her.
“I believe in heaven, but I will never be there,” she told me.
She had been beaten up by life real bad.
Life can beat us up, can it not?
And when we get beat up we are being stripped of our dignity, of our humanity, of our self-esteem and self-worth.
During the writing of our Scripture passage for this morning the people of Israel were being enslaved.
They were a strange people in a strange land.
They were losing their identity.
They were beginning to believe the lies persons were telling them about themselves.
“God is punishing you.”
“God does not love you anymore.”
“God will not save you, for you are not worth saving.”
They were in the emergency room waiting for a doctor they feared and were becoming convinced would never come.
Have you ever felt like this?
Have you ever cried out for God to break in and set things straight while being unsure if this would or could ever really happen?
Most of us have been there many times, have we not?
But thank God for Prophets like Isaiah!
God speaks through Isaiah this morning.
God answers the people’s cry!
Isaiah reminds Israel and Isaiah reminds you and Isaiah reminds me:
“Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God beside you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.”
In other words, “you may be in the emergency room waiting, but do not fear, God is THE DOCTOR and THE DOCTOR is in THE HOUSE!!!”
“O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter, we are all the work of your hand.”
Does not God love the clay?
Will not God shape and act upon the clay?
The answer?
A life-changing and life-saving…
…re-sounding…
…affirming…
…YES!!!
Advent is about waiting, and ultimately because the Christian life is a continuous journey…
…Advent is not so much a destination as it is a lifestyle!
Advent is an answer in the affirmative that God is with us.
That God does love and save us.
And that God isn’t finished with us.
In this passage of Scripture Isaiah is telling the people, that God was present in the first Exodus and God is just as present NOW!
God shared in the affliction of God’s people during the first Exodus, even when the people didn’t know it, and God shares in our pain and affliction even now!!!
What was true in the past is true for those of us who live in the present.
The waiting is not a bad place to be.
Every morning of every day—we are to wait upon the Lord as we pray, read Scripture, learn to love the seemingly unlovable and are thus formed and shaped by mighty hands more and more into the people that the Potter Created the Clay to be!!!
We are formed and shaped by God when we become involved in ministries like “Homeless Connect.”
If you are able, please come out and help this Thursday!
We are formed and shaped by God when we take the church to the neighborhoods of our community.
This is happening at the Skate Shop down on Middle Valley Road every Saturday night at 7 p.m.
If you are able, I hope you will check out what God is doing there.
Saints, you and I are on the Potter’s Wheel.
And the Master Potter is lovingly molding and shaping us.
And one day we will be put into the kiln.
And one day we will be whole.
We will be fully finished works of art living in the Promised Land praising God for all of eternity and knowing God just as God knows us.
This is worth waiting for!
This is worth the journey!
What better reason to yield our whole hearts and lives fully to the Potter’s loving hands?
