Welcome to Advent
—a time to wait for Christ’s arrival:
-his birth,
-his presence among us,
-and his future return for us…
making all things right
All which has already happened in God’s time…
Advent messes with time,
it disorders time…
and in so doing,
disorders our reading of Scripture,
so that we begin at the end…
This way of reading scripture as a community makes a good theological point,
but it means we don’t hear the argument Isaiah is making in the right chronological order,
and in so doing,
we miss the absolute genius of Isaiah’s Holy Imagination.
So today, we’ll be imagining with Isaiah
—I’ll be taking you through the three readings from Isaiah in this Advent season
in a way that you can hear and see Isaiah’s thought process
—the picture he paints of God’s relationship with God’s people.
First the Threefold Commissioning of Return,
then the Returners’ Utopia, and
finally today’s reading
—a Lament that Invites God’s invasion.
Imagining Commissioning, Utopia, and Lament with Isaiah.
Prayer
Chapter 40 of Isaiah,
which we will read next week,
is the start of a new section of Isaiah
—it is a new author
—a new prophet who takes up the mantle of Isaiah of Jerusalem
who wrote the first 39 chapters some 150 years earlier
—39 heavy chapters,
overflowing with warnings,
and accusations of betrayal,
of the community rebelling against God
—warnings that there will be consequences…
This new prophet for a new generation
—a generation on the cusp of returning to Jerusalem
A generation who were held for their whole lives in Babylon
—bearing the brunt of their parent’s sins.
Through this new prophet, God commissions Isaiah’s generation.
It is a three-fold charge,
-to the people who will return to Jerusalem,
-to the Prophet Isaiah himself,
-and to the City of Jerusalem.
O Returners
—yours is a lifetime of longing,
a generation spilled and wasted in Babylon
—it was awful beyond expectation,
the experience was a double indignity…
but now God is making a highway through the desert,
a waterway, so that we can all flow back home.
God
—the King/Shepherd—
carries you tenderly along the way!
Your anguish shall now be comfort,
your terror transformed into hope,
your sorrow to joy,
your shame to dignity,
your insecurity to assurance.
“Comfort o’ Comfort my people!”
Comfort too is your calling,
the sound of your feet marching home,
the slap of your sandals, echoing,
the crescendo of your restoration.
It is not for you alone
—you are to be a people of comfort!
Your restoration is to be the restoration of your neighbors as well.
O Returners
—you have found comfort,
become now heralds of the good news,
Tell everyone that God is doing a new thing!
O Prophet
—these humans may not be able to stand it…
humanity is weak and flighty.
My Spirit and my Glory
—can be terrible to behold.
This Holy Journey Home
may turn the people into dried leaves,
blowing in the wind.
So do not hold onto them,
but onto the promise of God
—the Word is weighty,
it will not blow away,
it will not leave you.
O Prophet
—hold tightly to my promises.
O Jerusalem
—prepare to be repopulated,
To function as a city should,
all the happy sounds of life;
a capital giggling with joy!
Your joy, Jerusalem,
it will be a witness to the whole world
—the surrounding cities,
the people who have longed for this day,
shall rejoice!
O Jerusalem
—Becoming again a great and good city,
is a blessed act of God!
--
From there, we fast forward to the return,
they’re back home…
now what?
What is God up to among the people living in that city
—Jerusalem?
In Chapter 61 (which we will read on the 3rd Sunday of Advent)
Isaiah answers, with a sort of Utopia.
An perfect place!
You see
—the term Utopia was coined to have two meanings:
—Not a Place,
and The Good Place
—and Isaiah is calling on the people to move from one to another
—something that was no place
to become a good place.
Way back in the book of Leviticus
there were rules written about how society was to be governed
—most people thing they were ideals that were never put into practice…
One of them the Year of the Lord
—the Jubilee Year
—a year where all debts are forgiven,
slaves are freed,
and property is all returned
to its ancestral owners… is central to Isaiah’s vision of the new city.
Well, Isaiah takes these rules
and ideals
that were at the base of Ancient Israelite society,
and renews them for his generation who had returned.
A new covenant,
a new constitution,
a new pact
for this new generation!
This return a Jubilee of:
-Liberty and release
for those imprisoned in Babylon
-Joyous tidings
for those who had remained in the land,
oppressed and heartbroken
-A new day of comfort and gladness,
powerful praise and rebuilding,
repair of not only the City,
but the trauma of a generation.
A society where the goodness of leaving Babylon is weaved into its very fabric,
it becomes a rolling return,
echoes of rejoicing throughout the ages.
A society that lives out these ideals so well that
even outsiders, even enemies,
join in and say,
“Wow, joy like a wedding,
fecundity like a freshly planted field,
competency like sky scraper built on time and under budget.”
A society that has went
from not a place,
to a good place.
The Returners are called by God to build a Utopia.
--
Then finally, we get to today’s reading
—Isaiah faced with unrealized dreams.
Isaiah, on behalf of God’s people, lamenting to God,
calling God onto the carpet, to account.
It is a lament that insists on invasion:
Get down here God!
Invade our waiting world…
We’ve been waiting…
faithfully…
and sometimes not so faithfully…
It feels like you’re hiding from us!
This absence, O God,
waiting and absence…
it is too much!
The darkness of this time of waiting,
is too much!
The blank skeletal whiteness of waiting
—is too much!
I cry against the silence! Wail that we will wait no longer!
This relationship is broken!
It feels like we’ve become a used menstrual rag,
dried leaves bagged and abandoned,
nothing but mud in your boots
—we’re dead!
Yet, are we not the Artist’s painting?
The Potter’s work?
The Father’s Child!
If we are those things,
please invade this world!
If you are clothed with the heavens, O God
—tear it apart!
Rend your garment in mourning,
Join us in our sorrows!
Repent, O God, of the rotten way things have gone between us
—division, insecurity, guilt, blame, distance…
Please, O LORD, consider this simple proposition
—we are all your people.
--
In this season of Advent,
let us hear with greater care
the words of Isaiah’s longing for God.
Let us see with greater clarity
the threads that Isaiah uses
to stitch together calamity and hope,
covering his cold and uncertain generation
with the garment of God’s ongoing care.
Commissioning,
Utopia,
Lament & Invasion…
Isaiah’s vision for all God’s people.
A prophetic voice for
times of waiting,
preparing,
journeying,
yearning—for God’s arrival among us.
The Advent of God.
Amen.
