Prayer: Lord, we come before you today, ready to listen, to be fed by your word. Teach us through your Holy Spirit and may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O God, our rock and redeemer. Amen.
“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down!”
Do you ever cry those words out to God, beseeching for his intervention here on earth? Wanting him to come and save us from the effects of sin in this broken world? Wars, pandemics, illness and disease, pain, fear and anxiety.
The situation for Israel was pretty dire when the prophet Isaiah wrote these words. If we read on in verse 10 of chapter 64, Isaiah says…Your sacred cities have become a wasteland; even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation.
We look out here in Taroona and that description may seem alien to us, living in a beautiful part of the world where we live in comparative peace and freedom.
But as we see on the TV news every night, there are other parts of the world devastated and desolated by war and conflict, hatred and power struggles, disease and death. And Israel itself is caught up in these conflicts again…sin abounds as countries pursue land and ownership at all costs. We see the destruction of cities in Gaza and Ukraine, we see the starving children in Africa and Asia on the Safe the Children fund ad’s, we see the devastating effects of fires and floods in our own country and around the world.
Here in Tasmania, we can certainly relate to verse 7 where Isaiah says that no one calls on your name or strives to hang on to you. In the comfortable Western world, many do not even acknowledge their Creator God. That is what sin is, the sin Isaiah refers to, turning away from God. Living lives for ourselves.
As Isaiah says; How then can we be saved?
For those of us who believe and trust in God we know that we are saved. Romans 10, verses 9-13 declare this…If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
We are saved because God did rend the heavens and come down. That is what we are coming to remember at Christmas time. We celebrate and give thanks that God sent his son Jesus to live among us, to die so that our sins may be forgiven and to rise again that we might live for ever with him.
Isaiah himself prophesied the coming of a saviour. He spoke the promises of God as God anointed him.
In chapter 9 of Isaiah we read these well-known words that have been captured into beautiful music and song…The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned…you have enlarged the nation and increased their joy…For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
What a wonderful promise revealed to Isaiah who had been chosen by God to speak his words. But there were many more words to come. It must have been exhausting to be a prophet, and such a burden to speak God’s truth.
After the promise of this child, much is then spoken about the judgement that will come on many countries, lots of ‘woes’ are told, but these are interspersed with moments of hope for God’s people…there’s a Chapter entitled The joy of the redeemed, next week we will read from Chapter 40 and the comfort for God’s people and then more words on the promised one God has chosen to bring justice to the nations.
This is the one who was announced as the child, the Mighty God and Prince of Peace…but in chapter 53 we hear that this Prince will be a suffering servant who will take up our pain, who will be crushed for our iniquities…who will heal us by his wounds, who will bear the sins for many and make intercession for the transgressors.
This is Jesus, the innocent righteous one, who will be crucified on a cross for us.
When we come to chapter 64, our reading today, Isaiah is lamenting for Israel’s sins and resulting desolation. He is crying out to God for mercy. Has he remembered the words of promise he has already spoken? In the midst of despair, it can be hard to hold onto hope…and yet he does this even now.
He remembers that God has come down in the past and made the mountains tremble, that God has done awesome things they did not expect. In the previous chapter 63 he remembers the miracles God performed in the past to rescue his people from slavery…his glorious arm of power that split the red sea for Moses and the Israelites to cross.
He knows that God will have mercy on his people again, despite their sin. They have turned away, but God will remember them. Why? Because he is their Father, he is the potter, they are the clay, the work of his hand. The potter will not disown the pot, his very own creation.
Isaiah lamented, he prayed, he cried out for mercy, he prophesied, and God did fulfil the promises in those prophetic words.
He did answer the cry for help, he rent the heavens open and sent Jesus – a child born, a son given for us from a Father who loves us so that we might be saved and have everlasting life. This birth was a most unexpected, awesome miracle.
We can turn to God and know that because of what Jesus has done for us we are forgiven, and we live with the joy of the redeemed. We are assured of our salvation.
So, what are we to do as we live in this state of grace and in this peaceful, beautiful corner of the world?
Do you think that maybe like Isaiah we too are called, maybe not to be a prophet, but to pray and call out to God for mercy on the world that he created? To pray for people to turn to him. Pray for leaders to repent and work for peace instead of war. I wonder what would happen if everyone on earth recognized God as their Father and creator and began calling on his name.
Perhaps that would be the time when the heavens would be rent open again and Jesus will return. For it is God’s desire that all would turn to him to be saved. As I’ve reminded you lately as we’ve looked at the second coming in Matthew’s parables, we read in 2 Peter that; the Lord is not slow in keeping his promises, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
In Advent we not only remember the time when God opened the heavens and sent Jesus down as a baby, but it is also a time when we remember that he has said that he will return and that we are to be ready for when he does. Hence the reading from Mark 13 today that tells us to be watchful and alert.
It was roughly 700 years after Isaiah prophesied of the coming Saviour, that Jesus came to earth as God’s son given for us. It has already been over 2000 years since Jesus ascended to heaven and we continue to await his second coming when all will be put right. When there will be judgement, but those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. There will be a new heaven and earth, no more pain, or illness, no more wars, political power struggles, disasters, pandemics and tears will be wiped away. Instead, there will be total peace and joy, laughter and love as we live in the presence of our loving Father.
I long for that – I think there will be much singing as we join the angels in worship. We might think things are pretty good for us here, right now in Tasmania- but we are promised a life even more glorious, we can’t imagine. A life where we won’t suffer with aging bodies that fail us, be anxious for the well-being of our loved ones, worry about the state of the economy, we won’t have to watch the TV news and hear of the pain and suffering in the world.
We don’t know when Jesus will return, for Peter also tells us that for the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day.
In the meantime, we live as God’s chosen people, and we wait on him. Listen to verse 4-5 from our Isaiah 64 reading…
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.
To wait is to exercise a patient, confident and expectant faith. Advent is a time of hopeful expectation. We read in psalm 130:5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word, I put my hope. Remembering God’s goodness, we seek to follow his ways, doing ‘right’ – living holy lives, caring for the ‘least of these’ as we heard last week. Praying for the world and shining the light of Christ, sharing his message of salvation so that many will come to know Christ before he returns when we least expect it.
Advent is also a time of repentance when we confess our own failings to walk closely with Jesus, when we turn to him and call out for mercy. When we ask him to mould us and transform our clay bodies into his likeness, that we will reflect the potter- our Father God.
Let us pray.
Father God, we thank you that you did rend the heavens open and sent Jesus to save us from sin and death. To give us life and hope and joy. May we, like Isaiah, pray for the world that has turned away from you. May we live the life you have created us for, to be your children, shining your light for the world to see. Thank you for the hope we have in you and in your promise that one day the heavens will open again, and Jesus will return. May we be ever watchful and ready for this day. Come Lord Jesus come. Amen.