Here Is Your God - First Midweek Advent Service
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
December 04, 2024
There was a
time when people knew God’s promise kept. They reached a land and possessed it.
A good and generous land with resources beyond imagining. But the land
“decisively transformed them. It seduced them until they wanted more and more
land, more and more security, and more and more goods…in the end they forgot
that this good life and land were the outcome of God’s promise. Greed overcame
gratitude; selfishness replaced compassion and God’s vision was reduced to
control and exploitation. They imagined that their might and the power of their
hand had gotten them this wealth. Mismanaged power would hurt and destroy.
Mismanaged land would be lost. Mismanaged security would evaporate, and
mismanaged promises would fail.[1]
And so, they
entered a land with buoyancy, but now they were sunk. They thought exile could
not happen to them. Because they wanted to journey on their own terms, they
were haunted by political and economic realities that were hard to bear. Now
they feel hopeless and helpless and ready to abandon their identity as God’s
people because they are in exile. Exile is not just about where you are on a
map. They’re aware that they find themselves in a strange and even hostile
environment and there are two temptations- give up or give in. Can you imagine
it?
So it was for
the people of Israel according to Isaiah. And so it can seem perhaps in some
ways today where many claim the demands of faith too demanding, so they just
join the dominant culture. Others look around and seeing fewer people, just
resign themselves or wonder who failed. If this all sounds shrill it is because
the world can be so.
It is into
THIS moment Isaiah speaks God’s word of strength. Strength where you feel weak.
Strength where you fight fear. Here is your God, coming with vengeance. Because
it’s not nearly as compelling if everything is just fine. And because we like
“fine,” I know we want to just leap over to the part about singing and sight
and unstopped ears and unstoppable waters. But this moment in Isaiah comes
after lots of woe and more on the way. This moment says “Then” but not “Now.”
The most
important thing to notice here is “Here is your God.” Isaiah will say, “God
coming with vengeance.” What does this really mean? Despite the fact people of
Israel and many nations since tell their story through might and conquest, this
is not the God Isaiah reveals. This seems especially important in our time
where movies and media suggest that guns and Bibles and force are what God, and
we should unleash. Friends, God is not some wildly irrational abusive God
before whom we ourselves should be in fear.[2] “Vengeance” is not annihilation. To use an overused word, let’s not “weaponize”
God. Many Christians today equate vengeance with a moral right to dominate.
This is a distortion that is grounded in threats and blame and guilt.
For biblical
vengeance, think instead, Mama Bear. God offended and intervening to save their
own. A God of justice who considers, decides, and then provides consequences,
not because God takes pleasure in punishment, but to restore and defend the
damaged order God lovingly created. Why on earth would creator God prefer destruction?
What would be left of the people if this was God’s chosen path then or now?
This vision of God robs the breath of hope and joy that is the truest
expression of the life embodied in the Messiah whose birth we celebrate and
whose return we await.
Make no
mistake, the Israel of Isaiah got to the destination of exile by breaking
promises, falling away to other influences, oppressing others and turning from
the law that made them free. And if the arrival of God will be with terrible
recompense it is because things are so off track. That’s basically what Jesus
would say.
Isaiah is
speaking of a promised time of healing and restoration not yet fully seen.
People waited centuries for the birth of Christ. We are waiting even longer for
the return of Christ to bring heaven to earth. We too live in a “Then not Now”
world.
Advent
reminds us that Christ comes into the world to bring healing for our broken
world, strength for the weary and for the fearful. And we are here to be
reminded to “hold up before this world filled with destructiveness the vision
of a better future as we too hope that we will be able to keep alive in
ourselves a spark of hope instead of fanning the flames of violence.” [3]
We are not
completely without opportunities as we prepare for Christ’s coming, to be
agents of strength and healing and vessels of God’s grace. We can be witnesses
as Isaiah was, to a faith that will not settle for keeping the troubling
questions of justice for the innocent and healing for the suffering at bay. Our
God gives us strength. We do not have to settle for enthusiastically
proclaiming happiness and prosperity where others fear attack. Our God can make
us firm to stand with others. We can choose to be watchful rather than
hypervigilant with the eyes God opens to new life.
Walter
Brueggemann in his book, Cadences of Home encourages that times of exile
call us to disciplines of readiness. Here’s three:
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Remember our history rightly both the good and the “in need of restoration.” There is no reason to domesticate history in Isaiah’s day or in our own. When we remember our past fully it helps us to live by faith in this “then but not now” season. In Scripture and in our own lives, God has always used the very places that seem weary and even barren to bring newness.
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Another is to keep closer to the hope of God’s word than the world’s noise. That noise was what got the people of Isaiah and every generation off track. Its why God says, “Be still and know that I am God.” And why telling the stories of scripture as the fullness of God’s love is vital.
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Finally, we can pray. For God to strengthen our hearts, and weak knees. To calm our hearts so we can say to each other, “Be strong. Our God is here!” Wherever two or more of you are gathered this is the promised presence. Whenever we call upon the name of the Lord, he is present. Christ’s coming was the fulfillment of God bringing healing and strength. Christ’s presence breaking in now is just as real. When we practice the disciplines of readiness, we become increasingly ready to see what God is up to. We don’t know what will be revealed, but we stand in readiness for God to shift the forces in this world, to sing newness of life, opening, unstopping until leaping abounds. Today we may be weary, but the good news in our exhaustion is a caring promise and a wonderful assertion that we belong to and are cared for because “Here is our God.”
And if all
you can pray is one word in this season, may it be “Maranatha!” Our Lord, come!
[1] Brueggemann, Walter, Cadences of Home, Preaching Among Exiles, Westminter John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 1997, p. 111.
[2] Zenger, Erich, God of Vengeance, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 1994, p. 71.
[3] Udo Rauchfleisch, quoted in Zenger, p. 88.
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
Sermon
Text: Isaiah 35:3-7
3 Strengthen the weak hands
and make firm the feeble knees.
4 Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
He will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be
opened,
and the ears of the deaf shall be opened;
6 then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert;
7 the burning sand shall become a pool
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp;
the grass shall become reeds and rushes
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