Isaiah 64:1-9
Listen here: https://www.lcepc.org/blogger
Waiting in line at the store is my most fun thing to do! The shopping is done, and now I can relax while the people in front of me take their time getting checked out. I get to look around and see how many other people are happily waiting in their lines. Well, maybe I’m really looking to see if there’s a line open. But it’s fun!
Then there’s the waiting room. Think of all the people who could be waiting in the doctor’s office for their name to be called for their next appointment. There could be all kinds of reasons why they are there and what they are waiting for. Maybe a diagnosis, maybe a treatment plan, maybe a pronouncement of healing. It might be for a minor injury, or it might be to find out whether the dreaded cancer has struck, or struck again. It can be a fearsome, formidable thing, this waiting at the Dr.’s office. And even if we know there is nothing seriously wrong, still we just don’t like the waiting! Wait, have I changed my tune?
Today is the first Sunday of The Advent season. That is all about waiting, waiting for God to come. What will it be like when he comes? What will he say to us? When will he come? In our text today, Israel is waiting, back in the days when her prophets were announcing her guilt and judgment. More fearsome than the doctor is the wrath of God. The message of this Old Testament text is, as the Chosen People, you may think you’re okay with God. But when he comes in his mighty power, who can stand? There is an answer to that, but it is good to ponder the question.
The text starts with the impassioned plea, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!” Come on God, what are you waiting for? We need to see your awesome power at work in the world, like when you set a bush on fire to get Moses’ attention, sent the plagues in Egypt to get Pharaoh’s attention and parted the Red Sea to set your people free. Then all the nations could look and see that there is no God like you! There is no other god who has ever done the kinds of things you have done for your people! You are our Father. We are your chosen people. We are safe from your wrath, but we want to see you teach everyone else a lesson!
Ahh, but then, in the next breath, the prophet challenges those who assume they are safe from God’s wrath because they belong to the right group, God’s Chosen, rather than the wrong group, God’s enemies. Yes, God acts on behalf of those who wait for him. Yes, God helps those who gladly do right, who remember His ways. But, says the prophet, we haven’t done right! We haven’t remembered his ways. We continued to sin. And so he says to God, “You are angry with us too! Who can be saved?”
It turns out that no one is safe from God’s wrath just because of who they are or what they say they believe, because everyone is a sinner. The prophet accuses, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is as 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 on you for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.”
Note that the prophet, Isaiah, includes himself among the guilty. God has been speaking to this prophet, so he is listening to God. But, Isaiah does not stand aloof and point a finger of judgment at everybody else. There is no log in his eye that he is ignoring while he nit-picks at specks in other people’s eyes. He admits he is just as guilty as everyone else. And then he almost blames God for the problem. He says, “You have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Their only possible excuse for sin is that God is so long in coming it is hard to remember what he is like. He has hidden his face and left them without guidance. And people are the way they are because God made them that way.
Without God’s guidance and magnificent holiness to strike obedient fear into our hearts, all the people easily go astray. Look how quickly it happened after Moses went up the mountain. Within forty days there was a golden calf at the foot of the mountain! No wonder we sin. It’s our nature! God made us that way. But, there’s just one problem. Adam already tried that excuse, way back in the garden when he was answering to God for his sin, and said to God, “It was the woman that you gave me!” And the woman said, “It was the snake!” That’s the usual cop out.
No wonder we get smug as we sit in our own sins and look down on everyone we can see is worse than us and hope God comes to rid the world of them! That’s what the Jews wanted God to do to everyone that stood against them. God took care of the Egyptian threat so magnificently in the Red Sea. Couldn’t he just do that again with the Syrians, The Babylonians, the Medes and the Persians and just anyone else who made life hard for the Jews? That kind of praying makes it hard to love your enemy. But in a way, that is how it still is in church today whenever anyone hears a sermon and applies its message, not to their own hearts, but to others, saying to himself or herself, “I hope so-and-so is listening!”
If we really applied God’s standard of righteousness to our own hearts, we would be fearful of his coming! What are we waiting for? God’s wrath to come on everybody else? Be wary of such self-righteousness! But if we can’t succeed at being good enough in his eyes so that God will come to us with blessing, what hope do we have that when he comes we will not suffer his wrath? In Jeremiah’s prayer he seems to have this conundrum. Our sin keeps us from seeking him and if we tried to seek him God would not come because we sin. Only God can break through this barrier and stop the cycle we are in. If he comes in his wrath we are doomed. He must come with mercy!
So hear his prayer again. “Oh 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.” Yes, Lord, look upon us, not because we are worthy, but because you are loving. Come to us and save us, not because we are truly righteous, but because you are most righteous and merciful too! We have no hope apart from our hope in God’s mercy.
But we must be careful here. It is too easy for the modern Christian to fall into a pattern of thinking that goes like this: I don’t like my sinful condition and I admit that it is far from what God wants me to be, and even what I would like to be. But I can’t help it. I feel helpless to change. It is just the way I am and no one can do anything about it. Perhaps if God would break in and make me a different kind of person, things might be different. And God knows I have asked him to do that often enough, but he just doesn’t seem to do it. Thank God for the grace of Jesus that tells me I am accepted anyway. I’ll just wait for him to come.
That all sounds so true and good. But maybe it is another cop-out! God is not going to make us into different persons than we are. He will not change our personalities or make us into robots who cannot possibly do wrong. It is true that we must be cleansed and purified from sin that corrupts like a blight or a cancer. But what God does is make it possible for us to choose to be set free by the Truth of faith in Jesus Christ. He has broken the grip of sin. Now there is power through the Holy Spirit in us available to us to help us overcome our sins if we cooperate.
But it doesn’t just zap us. We have to plug into it. As believers we don’t have to get the Holy Spirit. We just have to set him free to show us what needs to change. We need to listen to him in his word and accept his correction and choose to do his will rather than the things we are in the habit of doing. If we can see progress in our moral character growing into a more Christ-like appearance over time, then by faith we know that now we are seeking God’s face and he has already come in the person of Christ to dwell with us, so that when Christ comes in his glory, we will be ready, he will have already been standing with us.
The first candle of Advent stands for hope. Hope is something that waiting people have. In the Dr.’s waiting room hope may be unsure. We hope for good news. But in God’s waiting room, our hope is sure. We know it’s good news! God’s goodness is revealed in Christ on the cross. Faith in Jesus saves us when we cannot save ourselves. This is what gives us hope to believe that when he comes we will not be swept away, only our sins will, especially if we are in the process of sweeping them out of our own lives now with His help.
We can let the Holy Spirit identify those sins now so that we can detach from them. Then when the sins get swept away, we ourselves will remain. God can act on behalf of those who put their hope in him rather than in themselves. He will come with peace to those who seek his face and do not try to prove their goodness and worth by outward behavior. Rather, those who humbly acknowledge their sin and thus their need of his mercy, shall be forgiven.
To these he comes now, even now, right now, by his Spirit, to make us aware of his offer of peace through the work of Jesus Christ. He gives us his righteousness so that we may draw near to God and live in a right relationship with Him. Then godly behavior flows from our grateful hearts and we will never again be filled with the pride of self-righteousness, because we will always remember our need of his mercy. Then we will be safe and blessed when he comes in his glory.
This text in Isaiah is a prayer after all. It is a great intercession on behalf of his people. There was much to discourage Isaiah in the history of his people. They have always been marked by rebellion, hardness of heart, wandering and spiritual apathy. As a result they have suffered much as they tried to hold onto the land of promise by politics and war instead of turning back to God. It seems there is no hope for God’s people unless God himself comes, hence the cry, Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down. Today we are still waiting for the fullest possible answer to that prayer.
We thank God for the knowledge that he did come once as a babe, to grow into a man who would show us the full extent of God’s love for us by dying on a cross for our sins. But the waiting isn’t over yet. We celebrate Advent to remember that. It helps us keep watch.
The whole earth is like a waiting room. But in this waiting there is a lot more to do than just sit and read a magazine or watch TV. We are to watch our lives. Look for God. Look after our lives. Let’s be active in fulfilling the great commission until he comes again. It’s like talking to the other people in the waiting room at the Dr.’s office, helping them understand why they are really there and how to make use of the available remedy before the Dr. has to come and give a bad diagnosis to those who did not take the medicine he already prescribed. Prepare for his coming. No need to look for signs and wonders in the heavens. Look into God’s Word and keep your eyes on Jesus. Follow him as a disciple who is learning to live like him. What are we waiting for? Amen.
Listen here: https://www.lcepc.org/blogger
Waiting in line at the store is my most fun thing to do! The shopping is done, and now I can relax while the people in front of me take their time getting checked out. I get to look around and see how many other people are happily waiting in their lines. Well, maybe I’m really looking to see if there’s a line open. But it’s fun!
Then there’s the waiting room. Think of all the people who could be waiting in the doctor’s office for their name to be called for their next appointment. There could be all kinds of reasons why they are there and what they are waiting for. Maybe a diagnosis, maybe a treatment plan, maybe a pronouncement of healing. It might be for a minor injury, or it might be to find out whether the dreaded cancer has struck, or struck again. It can be a fearsome, formidable thing, this waiting at the Dr.’s office. And even if we know there is nothing seriously wrong, still we just don’t like the waiting! Wait, have I changed my tune?
Today is the first Sunday of The Advent season. That is all about waiting, waiting for God to come. What will it be like when he comes? What will he say to us? When will he come? In our text today, Israel is waiting, back in the days when her prophets were announcing her guilt and judgment. More fearsome than the doctor is the wrath of God. The message of this Old Testament text is, as the Chosen People, you may think you’re okay with God. But when he comes in his mighty power, who can stand? There is an answer to that, but it is good to ponder the question.
The text starts with the impassioned plea, “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!” Come on God, what are you waiting for? We need to see your awesome power at work in the world, like when you set a bush on fire to get Moses’ attention, sent the plagues in Egypt to get Pharaoh’s attention and parted the Red Sea to set your people free. Then all the nations could look and see that there is no God like you! There is no other god who has ever done the kinds of things you have done for your people! You are our Father. We are your chosen people. We are safe from your wrath, but we want to see you teach everyone else a lesson!
Ahh, but then, in the next breath, the prophet challenges those who assume they are safe from God’s wrath because they belong to the right group, God’s Chosen, rather than the wrong group, God’s enemies. Yes, God acts on behalf of those who wait for him. Yes, God helps those who gladly do right, who remember His ways. But, says the prophet, we haven’t done right! We haven’t remembered his ways. We continued to sin. And so he says to God, “You are angry with us too! Who can be saved?”
It turns out that no one is safe from God’s wrath just because of who they are or what they say they believe, because everyone is a sinner. The prophet accuses, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is as 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 on you for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.”
Note that the prophet, Isaiah, includes himself among the guilty. God has been speaking to this prophet, so he is listening to God. But, Isaiah does not stand aloof and point a finger of judgment at everybody else. There is no log in his eye that he is ignoring while he nit-picks at specks in other people’s eyes. He admits he is just as guilty as everyone else. And then he almost blames God for the problem. He says, “You have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Their only possible excuse for sin is that God is so long in coming it is hard to remember what he is like. He has hidden his face and left them without guidance. And people are the way they are because God made them that way.
Without God’s guidance and magnificent holiness to strike obedient fear into our hearts, all the people easily go astray. Look how quickly it happened after Moses went up the mountain. Within forty days there was a golden calf at the foot of the mountain! No wonder we sin. It’s our nature! God made us that way. But, there’s just one problem. Adam already tried that excuse, way back in the garden when he was answering to God for his sin, and said to God, “It was the woman that you gave me!” And the woman said, “It was the snake!” That’s the usual cop out.
No wonder we get smug as we sit in our own sins and look down on everyone we can see is worse than us and hope God comes to rid the world of them! That’s what the Jews wanted God to do to everyone that stood against them. God took care of the Egyptian threat so magnificently in the Red Sea. Couldn’t he just do that again with the Syrians, The Babylonians, the Medes and the Persians and just anyone else who made life hard for the Jews? That kind of praying makes it hard to love your enemy. But in a way, that is how it still is in church today whenever anyone hears a sermon and applies its message, not to their own hearts, but to others, saying to himself or herself, “I hope so-and-so is listening!”
If we really applied God’s standard of righteousness to our own hearts, we would be fearful of his coming! What are we waiting for? God’s wrath to come on everybody else? Be wary of such self-righteousness! But if we can’t succeed at being good enough in his eyes so that God will come to us with blessing, what hope do we have that when he comes we will not suffer his wrath? In Jeremiah’s prayer he seems to have this conundrum. Our sin keeps us from seeking him and if we tried to seek him God would not come because we sin. Only God can break through this barrier and stop the cycle we are in. If he comes in his wrath we are doomed. He must come with mercy!
So hear his prayer again. “Oh 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.” Yes, Lord, look upon us, not because we are worthy, but because you are loving. Come to us and save us, not because we are truly righteous, but because you are most righteous and merciful too! We have no hope apart from our hope in God’s mercy.
But we must be careful here. It is too easy for the modern Christian to fall into a pattern of thinking that goes like this: I don’t like my sinful condition and I admit that it is far from what God wants me to be, and even what I would like to be. But I can’t help it. I feel helpless to change. It is just the way I am and no one can do anything about it. Perhaps if God would break in and make me a different kind of person, things might be different. And God knows I have asked him to do that often enough, but he just doesn’t seem to do it. Thank God for the grace of Jesus that tells me I am accepted anyway. I’ll just wait for him to come.
That all sounds so true and good. But maybe it is another cop-out! God is not going to make us into different persons than we are. He will not change our personalities or make us into robots who cannot possibly do wrong. It is true that we must be cleansed and purified from sin that corrupts like a blight or a cancer. But what God does is make it possible for us to choose to be set free by the Truth of faith in Jesus Christ. He has broken the grip of sin. Now there is power through the Holy Spirit in us available to us to help us overcome our sins if we cooperate.
But it doesn’t just zap us. We have to plug into it. As believers we don’t have to get the Holy Spirit. We just have to set him free to show us what needs to change. We need to listen to him in his word and accept his correction and choose to do his will rather than the things we are in the habit of doing. If we can see progress in our moral character growing into a more Christ-like appearance over time, then by faith we know that now we are seeking God’s face and he has already come in the person of Christ to dwell with us, so that when Christ comes in his glory, we will be ready, he will have already been standing with us.
The first candle of Advent stands for hope. Hope is something that waiting people have. In the Dr.’s waiting room hope may be unsure. We hope for good news. But in God’s waiting room, our hope is sure. We know it’s good news! God’s goodness is revealed in Christ on the cross. Faith in Jesus saves us when we cannot save ourselves. This is what gives us hope to believe that when he comes we will not be swept away, only our sins will, especially if we are in the process of sweeping them out of our own lives now with His help.
We can let the Holy Spirit identify those sins now so that we can detach from them. Then when the sins get swept away, we ourselves will remain. God can act on behalf of those who put their hope in him rather than in themselves. He will come with peace to those who seek his face and do not try to prove their goodness and worth by outward behavior. Rather, those who humbly acknowledge their sin and thus their need of his mercy, shall be forgiven.
To these he comes now, even now, right now, by his Spirit, to make us aware of his offer of peace through the work of Jesus Christ. He gives us his righteousness so that we may draw near to God and live in a right relationship with Him. Then godly behavior flows from our grateful hearts and we will never again be filled with the pride of self-righteousness, because we will always remember our need of his mercy. Then we will be safe and blessed when he comes in his glory.
This text in Isaiah is a prayer after all. It is a great intercession on behalf of his people. There was much to discourage Isaiah in the history of his people. They have always been marked by rebellion, hardness of heart, wandering and spiritual apathy. As a result they have suffered much as they tried to hold onto the land of promise by politics and war instead of turning back to God. It seems there is no hope for God’s people unless God himself comes, hence the cry, Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down. Today we are still waiting for the fullest possible answer to that prayer.
We thank God for the knowledge that he did come once as a babe, to grow into a man who would show us the full extent of God’s love for us by dying on a cross for our sins. But the waiting isn’t over yet. We celebrate Advent to remember that. It helps us keep watch.
The whole earth is like a waiting room. But in this waiting there is a lot more to do than just sit and read a magazine or watch TV. We are to watch our lives. Look for God. Look after our lives. Let’s be active in fulfilling the great commission until he comes again. It’s like talking to the other people in the waiting room at the Dr.’s office, helping them understand why they are really there and how to make use of the available remedy before the Dr. has to come and give a bad diagnosis to those who did not take the medicine he already prescribed. Prepare for his coming. No need to look for signs and wonders in the heavens. Look into God’s Word and keep your eyes on Jesus. Follow him as a disciple who is learning to live like him. What are we waiting for? Amen.
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