Will the Real God Please Come Down?
November 30, 2008
Isaiah 64:1-9
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence- 2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! 3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. 4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. 5 You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.
6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. 8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people. (Isaiah 64:1-9 NRSV)
We usually think of the weeks leading up to Christmas as a joyous time. A time for singing, shopping, decorating, and lots and lots of eating. This is the time of the year when we speak of goodwill to all and even the least generous person puts some change in the Salvation Army bucket. So in a way, it seems somewhat strange to hear our scripture today: The voice of the prophet Isaiah crying in the wilderness, begging God to come down and do something about the mess that the world is in.
Not peace on earth but just the opposite. In fact Isaiah sounds eerily like the contemporary prophets, U2, who begin one of their songs with these words: "Heaven on earth we need it now. I'm sick of all this hanging round. Sick of sorrow. I'm sick of pain. I'm sick of hearing again and again that there's going to be peace on earth." Then they end the song by lamenting: "Jesus can you take the time to throw a drowning man a line."
And surely they are right, this is a strange time to sing about peace on earth. Why just since Thursday, hundreds were killed in India, protestors have taken over both airports in Thailand, a Wal-Mart employee was trampled by frantic Black Friday shoppers and someone was shot in a Toys R Us. What does it mean to speak of peace on earth when peace appears to be in short supply?!
Yet that is the very reason I believe we must begin Advent with an honest look at the world. An honest look at the world reveals that things are nothing like the Kingdom of God. We are so far from the image of the lion lying down with the lamb. And that knowledge should make us want to join our voices with the rock star Bono, the prophet Isaiah, and the Apostle John and shout "Will the Real God Please Come Down? Come Lord Jesus Come!"
And like Isaiah, what we would really like is for God to come down and do something grand and flashy-something that will get everyone's attention! An earthquake. A storm. Spontaneous fires.
No wonder some churches put signs in front saying "Don't make me come down there! --God" We want God to do something great, something decisive, something supernatural, something so great that everyone will have to acknowledge God's power and get their act straight. And yet, all too often, what we get is simply silence.
But the Christmas story reminds us that God did in fact come down-that God did something great, something supernatural something decisive. God sent Jesus.
No thunder, no storm, no earthquake-just a baby. A baby born into a very real, very broken world.
It is so easy to get caught up in the Hallmark imagery of the season: fuzzy sheep, clean mangers, and cute shepherds and angels. Pictures so sweet that they are almost otherworldly. Yet the story of Christmas is anything but otherworldly. In the Christmas story, you get glimpses of an oppressive government, a jealous and violent king, and a young couple and a baby forced to become refugees.
So today we remember that God did hear and acted on the cries of the prophet Isaiah. God did come down-but not in the way Isaiah demanded. Rather than coming in a show of great power, God came in the form of a baby. Rather than storming the forces of evil in a mighty show of power, he stopped them in their tracks by allowing Jesus to die.
The real God did come down into the world as we know it. But God didn't come snatch us up into heaven so that we were removed from this worldly mess, instead he sent a bit of heaven to live in our midst and to teach us how to be a bit of heaven in it too.
Today we begin our observation of Advent-which as we mentioned earlier means-coming. Advent has been celebrated by Christians since at least the second century. Advent was originally a time for Christians to prepare their hearts and their lives as well as their homes to celebrate the coming of Jesus on that first Christmas and also to prepare themselves for the return of Christ. Therefore, Advent is a time in which we celebrate what God has done for us in the past and anticipate what God will do for us again in the future.
So within this celebration there is, and should be, tension-tension between the world as it is and the world as it should be. Tension that comes from being a people who believe that in Jesus Christ God did come down, but God's plan is not finished yet. Advent reminds us that God does come to us in the midst of pain, struggle, war, and oppression. And Advent reminds us that there will come a day when God will return and there truly will be peace on earth.
In the meantime, we wait. Not a passive sitting on our hands waiting, but a praying, working, loving, striving wait-what someone called a passionate patience-waiting for God to come and finish his work and in the meantime working with God to bring it to pass. We can't make the Kingdom of God on earth ourselves-only God can, but God apparently has no intention to bring it to pass without us. A strange way to save the world? Sure-but then so was a baby in a manger and a man on a cross!
So Advent is a time to beg God for peace on earth but it is also a time to realize that if there is to be peace on earth it must begin with us. Advent is a time to recognize what God has already done for us in Jesus and to pray that God will come down once again in our midst to bring God's will on earth as it is in heaven. Advent truly is the time to cry with Isaiah, "Come Lord Jesus, Come on down. Come into our hearts, our congregation, our community and our world! Come Lord Jesus Come!"
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