"Wait for the LORD": Advent sermon, Isaiah 64:1-9

I confess that I sang Christmas carols during Advent, so perhaps it balances things out by posting this Advent sermon during Christmas season. And though Christmas has come, I believe this message is still relevant. I preached it at Southeast Church of the Nazarene on the first Sunday of Advent, 2014.  



Isaiah 64:1-9
 

Isaiah was a prophet who proclaimed God’s message, mainly to Judah, about 700 years before Christ. This was during the time the Assyrian Empire had conquered Israel and Judah.

Many believe that Isaiah’s disciples continued proclaiming God’s word in Isaiah’s footsteps, and that this occurred centuries after Isaiah died. If this is true, it is likely that our passage tonight was written in the 500s, after the Babylonian Empire had defeated the Assyrians and captured the Israelites, and then after the Persian Empire had conquered the Babylonians. In 538, the Persian leader Cyrus the Great allowed the Israelites to return home from captivity. It may be during this time of return from exile that our passage was written.

Unlike many passages in the book of Isaiah, which tend to be God’s messages to Judah or the surrounding nations, Isaiah 64:1-9 is part of a prayer to God.

So it begins:

“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.”

The prophet prays that God would show God’s power through great supernatural, destructive acts—that God himself would come down, and by descending, cause the earth and its nations to tremble in fear! The prophet writes on behalf of a people returning to a home that is alien; their temple, their walls, their fields are ruinous and barren, and the great hope they had been expecting—God’s deliverance—wasn’t as they imagined it to be. The prophet asks God to reveal himself so that the nations would know of God’s power and the source of Israel’s strength. He asks God to reveal himself maybe also so that the Israelites themselves would again believe. 

On one level it is difficult for me to relate to this. To my knowledge, neither I nor my immediate ancestors have lived as prisoners and refugees and then returned home, only to find our home disappointing.

Yet I have felt disappointed, have felt that my expectations of reality did not match my actual experience of it. As a member of the body of Christ, these words in Isaiah seem to unearth feelings I did not realize I had. We as Christians have returned home from exile, the exile of sin; we have been returning home ever since Jesus declared “It is finished” on the cross. And when he rose again, he showed us that God has already begun creating a new heavens and a new earth, planting streams and a garden in the desert, preparing a banquet to feed all nations. 

Yet we have dwelled in this age that is supposed to be our home for thousands of years—and it is disappointing. In many places the temple seems to be crumbling, the walls are brittle, and the land is dry and cracked. Yes, the church has done much good over the centuries, but she has also been faithless, joining hands with empires more powerful than Assyria or Babylon. So often she is difficult to distinguish from unjust rulers. Yes, many of us are secure, but often it is a security not in God but in what we have mastered with our hands, walls made of sand. Yes, we may be fed, but so much of the world is not, and the earth and many of its people are crying out. 

And where is God? If only God would show himself as he once did, with fire and wonder! If only God would show our enemies—would show us—that God still performs miracles to save us. If only God would finally live among us and make things right, once and for all! Hasn’t enough time passed? 

Maybe we too have whispered this prayer from Isaiah:

“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.”

The prophet continues:

“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.”

This is who God is: God works for those who wait for him, and helps those who gladly do right and remember God’s ways. 

Throughout the book of Isaiah we see what it means to wait for God, to gladly do right and remember God’s ways. It means to be still and trust God. It means to release unjust burdens and cancel debts, to care for strangers and welcome them into our homes, to not hide from our families.

Now that I have spoken those words, I find the prophet’s next words to be almost comforting. They speak on my behalf as someone who needs to wait upon God, to gladly do right, and remember God’s ways.

Verses 5-7:

“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.”

The prophet cries that God has hidden from God’s people because of the people’s sins. That is why God will not come down; that is why God has not acted and helped God’s people. That is why God’s people have decayed.

How then can we be saved?

The prophet looks not to other people, and not to himself, but to God for salvation.

Verses 8 and 9:

“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.”

The prophet’s hope is in God—the parent who gave birth to and has guided Israel; the potter who has sculpted her into a beautiful jar fit for service; the one to whom Israel belongs, the one who is responsible for Israel. 

We are here tonight because we know that God did answer the prophet’s prayer: God did come down, though in a way no one expected. The mountains trembled beneath singing in the sky, and mighty leaders quaked at the news that a King would be born—that God would come in the most vulnerable of forms, as a baby. God did act on behalf of those who waited for him, and did help those who gladly did right and remembered his ways. 

But we are in Advent, not Christmas. First we must wait. This is why some people don’t sing Christmas carols during Advent—they wait until Christmas, or until they can hold out no longer, whichever comes first. During Advent we wait with Israel, given a promise that God will bring salvation, but uncertain if the promise will be fulfilled.

What helps us identify with Israel is that we are in a similar situation. We too are waiting—for Jesus to come a second time, and for God to completely deliver us from sin and transform the world, replacing weeping with laughing. And like Israel returning home from exile, we too may find that home—this age we live in—is not as we imagined it to be. We are glad to be home, don’t get me wrong, but it is not the home we were hoping for, at least not yet. Jesus has not yet returned. And some of us may wonder where God even is, why God does not seem to be doing anything, and if Jesus ever will return. 

Like he did to Israel, the prophet encourages us in our time: wait for the LORD, and he will act on your behalf. Gladly do right and remember God’s ways, and God will help you. Find your strength in quietness and trust, and as you watch for the morning, shine your light by sharing with those who have little and by comforting the restless. 

Advent reminds us that we are called to wait for God. This isn’t passive idleness, or complete absence of thought; when we wait for someone, we keep our eyes out, alert and expecting to find that person around the corner. If we don’t wait, we might miss the arrival. If we don’t wait, we might not be ready to welcome the homecoming. Maybe, through our waiting for God, we begin to reflect the character of God, and so become vessels through which God works in the world.

As we wait for the promised day when Jesus comes down for a second time, may we find that through his Spirit he is present with us individually and as the church, making his name known, causing the nations and mountains to tremble, and doing awesome things that we do not expect. May God forgive us anew for times we have failed to live up to our calling, and may God fulfil in us God’s word because God is our Father and our Maker, and we are God’s people. 

Many Christians practice a form of worship called waiting worship. After I close, I invite us to spend some time waiting, together, for God. By waiting together here for a short time, we can strengthen each other to become people who wait with our whole lives. If you feel prompted to speak a word for the whole group, you are welcome to do so. We believe that when we wait for the LORD, God acts--though in ways we may not always understand. Our time of waiting will end with our final song. May we be refreshed in the Lord’s presence as we wait for him.

Why I haven't been blogging lately

Yesterday my friend Alec told me he noticed I haven't been blogging lately. I told him that in large part it's because I do not know who reads my blog, and who I am writing to.

I started this blog when many of my friends were blogging. I read their interesting thoughts and wanted to share my own thoughts with them. Some thoughts, maybe, have been interesting, and some not so much. However, most of those friends no longer blog, or at least not regularly. Still, I have often shared my thoughts on this blog when I felt inspired to do so. I haven't felt that way lately (except, apparently, for this blog post, but this is a little different).

It's been six years since I first wrote in this blog. During that time I've grown and changed, and the way I express my thoughts and experiences has also changed. On one hand it's nice to keep up a blog for such a long time, but on the other hand I feel more embarrassed with each new post about what I once wrote. If I am to write as a form of ministry, I believe my writing must ultimately love, serve, and bless God and the readers. But not all of my posts have been intended to be for ministry. Many of them have been simply for fun or personal expression, and sometimes they have been sloppy.

So these are things I'll be thinking about. Maybe I'll start a new blog and focus on writing as ministry, a blog intended for a wider audience than my friends (but including my friends too of course). Maybe I'll continue writing in this blog but change my approach. In the meantime, however, I am posting this entry to offer some of my thoughts about blogging, and to express gratitude to my friend, perhaps among the very few who will read this, for encouraging me to write.

A Hopeful Advent and a Merry Christmas to all of you.

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Communication and the ministry of songwriting (essay)

I recently wrote the following article about communication and ministry for the Fall 2014 edition of ESR Reports, whose theme was "The Power of Communication." You can hear the two songs I discuss on my Soundcloud.


I graduated from ESR in May as a student in the Ministry of Writing program. I wrote fiction and non-fiction, but discovered my main form of ministry to be songwriting. While a student, I tried to become a better songwriter and musician by taking various writing classes, including a songwriting class. My Supervised Ministry involved performing songs at Roscoe’s Coffee Bar and Tap Room and Common Grounds Coffeehouse at West Richmond Friends Meeting, and volunteering as a musician at the Iona Abbey, Scotland. Since graduating, I have continued practicing and writing music, playing the guitar, and sharing songs. 

Two songs I have written recently illustrate how communication is essential to the ministry of songwriting and singing. “As you led your people in the wilderness” is a hymn, and one which my local church sang during one Sunday service. I wanted to write a song to help the church (local and global) express some fears, joys, and petitions to God. I felt that an appropriate corresponding story to the church today was the Israelites’ journey through the wilderness as told in the book of Exodus.

Hymns are different than other kinds of songs because, rather than being sung by a performer to an audience of listeners, a community of people sings hymns together. Thus, I made the first lines of each verse parallel so that people could quickly follow along and understand the hymn’s direction: “As you led your people in the wilderness. . . / As you fed your people in the wilderness. . . / As you gave your people in the wilderness. . . / As you saved your people in the wilderness. . . . “ I employed rhyme schemes to make the singing more enjoyable and to help singers remember the words. (Besides, rhyming is customary in most song writing.)

Although this hymn is addressed to God, I was also aware that the words we recite shape us, so I considered what I wanted to communicate to people through the lyrics. Hymn writers often focus on either the spiritual or the physical side of our existence, and I wanted to balance both. So, I compared manna to both the “daily bread” with which God satisfies our hunger and “[God’s] Word which makes us whole,” and I compared the water that flowed from a stone to both “living water that will not run dry” and nourishment from “gardens we have grown.”

Also, I wrote this hymn when folks at church, friends, and other people were grieving over local, national, and international acts of injustice and violence. I tried to funnel those emotions into the song: “Deliver us from those who use and harm us / From evil laws and leaders set us free.” While writing, I remembered how our prayers not only form us; they can even compel God to respond.

The second song I wrote is from the perspective of Adam, and is about his yearning to return to the Garden of Eden. In the first verse, Adam connects humanity’s re-entry into paradise with Isaiah’s vision of a world in which people beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks (2:4): “Can’t go back / Through the flaming sword / Must work the cursed ground / ‘Til we learn war no more.”

In late September, I performed this song during a service at my local church. I felt it was appropriate given the military conflicts in which our country and others began to engage. I hoped that in communicating a vision in which we relate to our neighbors and even our enemies in peace, I might persuade those who think it is right to attack our enemies to imitate Christ, the second Adam, who did not use his power to destroy his enemies but to bless, love, and ultimately save them.

Because this song is from the perspective of the first human, it communicates that forsaking war is not new, but is at the root of what it means to be human. And though “learning war no more” is prominent, the song is not a protest but a lament and petition to return to our true home, where grows the tree of life whose leaves heal the nations. Such a song can be both prophetic and pastoral, calling people to walk in righteousness and giving voice to our yearnings.

Songs communicate ideas, emotions, experiences, communal memories, and more. Singing is a life-giving activity which can engage our depths. Because we not only listen to songs but sometimes sing them, they influence how and to whom we communicate. Writing songs communicates that there are words worth singing, people with whom to share them, and a God who we believe will listen and act.

Wem of Wister (story)

Since college, I have been writing about the journeys of Dale Tuttle, professor of linguistic anthropology, based much on his Journal. In March, I self-published a print version of the beginning of his encounter of the people on the land of Dulinae in a novella called Wem of Wister. Tuttle believes the story of this young man, Wem, is the most pivotal of all the stories from that land, at least among the stories he learned. Wem of Wister is the beginning of Wem's story about how he helped to remove a curse from the land.

The novella is now available in ebook format: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/487205. Enjoy.

"Jesus is risen!", a resurrection hymn

I have written a hymn about Jesus' resurrection (and our own). The tune is BUNESSAN.

Jesus is risen!
I will go with him
Into the morning
Of the new day
Sorrow to swallow
New paths to follow
As the world opens
In his new way.

Jesus is risen!
All the world, listen:
Done are the days when
Death ruled as king.
Can you believe it?
Will you receive him?
Jesus our Lord
Now fills everything.

Jesus is risen!
We will rise with him
To live the story
Death tried to close.
Praise with your laughter
Praise with your whole life
Praise like the first light
When he arose!