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.
There was a consequence to their sin. 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.
Think of someone who becomes addicted to pornography. The videos become more and more violent. The desires become more and more perverted, crossing sexes and getting younger and younger in age. The alcoholic becomes more and more disheveled, and their health deteriorates. The marriage falls apart. They can’t stay on the job anymore. The drug addict becomes less and less trustworthy and loses family and friends, even ends up homeless. They become a former shell of themselves. Their lives become empty and lonely.
Isaiah uses the words “unclean” and “filthy.” The Israelites had become ritually unclean. There are some sins that are also stinkier than others. It’s kind of like garbage. You can’t throw meat in the garbage. It’s not a good idea to throw a dirty diaper in the garbage either. They are more potent than other types of garbage. So it was with the Israelites. They had spiritually become a stench - like a woman’s menstrual cloth specifically. This is what happens when sin goes on unchecked, when people live without God. We see it in our society. It’s becoming vulgar and filthy.
The worst part was in their spiritual lives. There is no one who calls on your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you. The people weren’t praying any more. They weren’t even trying to get any help from the Lord. I can sense that sometimes in reaching out to people who haven’t been here for a while, or those who’ve gone through some marriage problems, or those who are really sick. There’s a cold resignation in their eyes. It’s like they don’t care anymore or they don’t even want to try, no matter how much they are encouraged.
Isaiah prayed that if they could just see God split open the heavens again, shake things up, if God would just work a great miracle, then maybe something would change. Maybe then they’d start seeking the Lord again. There’s been a few shake ups in the past twenty years. We had a bit of a shakeup with Covid a few years back. Before that it was 9-11. Maybe you remember the Tsunami back in 2011. Now it is with the attack on Israel from the Gaza strip. People thought there might be somewhat of a revival after 9-11. Ironically, more people sought to learn about Islam instead. You’d think that if death were imminent with a disease like Covid that people would seek the Lord all the more and feel a need to receive His Word and sacrament. Instead, more Christians stopped coming to church. Attendance fell. So the church is becoming more and more like Isaiah said. There is no one who calls on your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you. Jesus asked in Luke 18:8, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” So Isaiah was seeking an earth shattering event, something that would provide pure proof that God exists, that He should be feared. Rip open the heavens!
What did God do? He answered it, but not exactly as Isaiah requested. On a dark and lonely night, in a field outside of Bethlehem, God ripped open the heavens and shook some shepherds to their core. He had angels appear to them and sing of a baby that had been born! God said, “Here’s a different answer. A more gentle answer. Instead of God in the clouds, I’ll send God in diapers. He won’t damn you, He’ll save you!” God’s answer was a different ripping of the fabric, where God came into this world through a VIRGIN, in a cattle stall, wrapped in strips of cloth. It wasn’t quite the light show that Isaiah was praying for.
But that’s the answer that melts our hearts this Advent season. God didn’t come down in the HEAVENS order to judge us. God came in the WOMB in order to SAVE us. That’s what God did to capture our attention and shake us from our slumber and bring us to repent. Just think! God became us in order to save us! And that God man did plenty of things that were eye opening. Walking on water, raising the dead, healing the lepers . . . divine things . . . but not necessarily shake in your boots type of scary. And then, at the end of His life, God seemed to close the heavens down as that same Person was dying on the cross. It was a scary event, no doubt. A centurion even beat his breast and said, “Surely, this was the Son of God.” Forty three days later, the heavens ripped open again, but God was going the opposite way, up into heaven. He wasn’t coming down, He was going up, having opened up a place for us in heaven, purely by grace. Mission complete, the opposite of what Isaiah was asking.
Now here we sit, waiting for the ultimate fulfillment, the final rending of the curtain. But people still aren’t listening! So many people are still ignoring, and they are becoming more and more belligerent against the truth. It’s getting worse and worse, just like Jesus said it would. So what do we do? We pray, “Amen, Come Lord Jesus.” As Isaiah prayed, 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. But when Jesus comes that way, the second time, it will be too late for those who have been ignoring him and living as if He didn’t exist. They will be cast into hell.
So we have to be careful for this prayer now. Why are we praying it? When people aren’t responding to the Gospel, it’s not always because they’ve hardened their hearts to what God has to say. Sometimes it’s just pure weakness and sadness. Sin has broken them down, and they don’t think anyone can do anything. It’s like they don’t care anymore or they don’t even want to try, no matter how much they are encouraged. Isaiah prayed that if they could just see God split open the heavens again, if God would just work a great miracle, then maybe something would change. Maybe they’d at least be scared straight, so that they’d start seeking the Lord again. Maybe if God just gave them a scare, a close call, maybe then they’d wake up and listen . . .
I don’t sense anger in Isaiah’s prayer as much as I sense humility and sorrow over what the Israelites have become. He says, “God, we’re just clay. You’re the Potter. You can do whatever you want with us. You can destroy us, or you can add some water to us and rebuild us. I trust you to do whatever is right.” In spite of all they’d done, Isaiah still prays for His people. Do not be angry, LORD, without limit. Do not remember our guilt forever. Please look closely. All of us are your people. Just look at us Lord. See our temple torn down. Look at our people in chains. See how pathetic we are. Look at what you’ve allowed to happen to us. But don’t forget who we are. We are still your people. We need to be saved. We need a miracle.
Throughout this prayer we see Isaiah go through all the emotions of a parent in some senses. He’s angry with God’s people over ignoring him and falling away. He wants God to come down in the clouds and scare them to death. He wants them to melt in fear. But ultimately, he wants God to have mercy on them, not to remember their guilt forever. God answered this prayer by sending Jesus once, in the crib and on the cross. Then again, He will answer it when Jesus in the clouds. Jesus will come both ways and answer Isaiah’s prayer in two different ways.
We are still waiting for the final answer, and as we wait, we do what Isaiah did. We reach out, and we pray. We want Jesus to come and rescue us from this world. But be careful as you pray it. It’s easy to get frustrated at the demise of Christianity in today’s world and see so many slide away. Keep working on them. Maybe God can shake them up in a different way, perhaps through a near death experience of some sort. Or maybe He could give them a great blessing in order to shake them up in a kind and generous way. Maybe you yourself could use a shakeup as well, prior to the Final One. I don’t know, you do. At any rate, keep praying. Keep hoping. Keep repenting. Keep clinging to Christ. Keep reaching out. And we’ll see when Jesus comes. Whenever it is, it will be just the right time. Amen, Come Lord Jesus, Just Like Fire. Amen.
