December 3, 2023

Isaiah 64:1-9

“Hope Waits for Us”

Broadway Christian Church

David A. Shirey

It’s the first Sunday of Advent. What places in the Bible do you associate with Advent and Christmas? Nazareth of Galilee. Jerusalem. O little town of Bethlehem. All those are Christmas places, to be sure.  But what about Babylon?  Does anybody associate Babylon (present-day Iraq) with Advent and Christmas? I think we should and I’ll tell you why.

Some Bible history is in order.  In the year 587 B.C., the Babylonians captured Jerusalem, ransacked the Temple that had been built by David's son Solomon, destroyed it, brought Jerusalem's walls tumbling down, and then took the cream of Israel's population captive– hauled them off to Babylon 500 miles from home in exile for 50 years. 

In this morning’s Scripture, Isaiah addresses those captives.  With all due respect to Bing Crosby, they won’t be home for Christmas. They’ll be spending Advent in exile, which is not a happy thought. It doesn’t conjure up any Christmas carols, but it does conjure up the Advent carol we’ll soon sing:

O Come, O come, Emmanuel/ and ransom captive Israel,

that mourns in lonely exile here/ until the Son of God appear.

Imagine with me spending Advent “mourning in lonely exile.” Not having been in Babylon in exile, I was about to go digging into reference books to get a feel for what it would be like to spend the weeks leading up to Christmas 500 miles from home, held against my will by people who had destroyed my city, my place of worship, and my culture, but Isaiah spared me that work by the words he uses in the chapters leading up to this morning’s Scripture. Here are some of them: Afflicted.  Brokenhearted. Captive. Bound. Ashes. Mourning. Faint spirit. Ruined. According to Isaiah, those are Advent-in-exile words. 

Which means Isaiah is talking about something you and I can’t identify with.  I say that because whereas all is not well in Isaiah's life, everything is fine with us. That's the way it sounds to me, anyway. Every Sunday as we gather for worship I hear the same exchange:

            "How are you?" 

            "Fine, and you?" 

            "Fine."

             How's the family? "

            "Fine.  Yours?"

            "Fine."

            "And things at work?" 

            "Fine.  How about with you?" 

            "Fine."

It's an extraordinary thing, I tell you, how fine things are among Christian people when we gather together in the Lord’s House on the Lord's Day!  I do believe that on any given Sunday the highest density of fineness in all the world is to be found in churches.

Am the only one who wonders if everything really is fine among us? Back in 2005, the band Casting Crowns released a song titled “Stained Glass Masquerade" in which the lead singer asks:

…when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they'll soon discover
That I don't belong

So I tuck it all away like everything's okay …

Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain?[1]

Isaiah doesn’t try to hide his pain. Things are not fine with him.  He's spending Advent in exile.            

Maybe you know somebody who’s able to identify with Isaiah.  Do you know someone who is spending these weeks leading up to Christmas in exile? Meaning life for them is 500 miles from where it used to be or where they wished it would be. In spite of what we say in polite company, everything’s not fine with us and some people dear to us. And that’s just us personally. Things in our nation and our world are not fine. Hey, things are not “just fine” here at Broadway, either. The truth is that our church, our nation, our world, our lives and the lives of people we love are 500 miles from home. Which is to say Isaiah’s not alone in exile this Advent. He's got plenty of company. 

But having said that, consider this. Advent is supposed to begin in Exile. Advent doesn’t begin shopping for doorbuster specials on Black Friday or surfing the web for bargains on Cyber Monday or in the garage or attic rummaging for those boxes marked "Christmas." No, Advent rightly begins in Exile because by definition the word Advent means coming.  Coming as in the coming of a Savior to people who are in exile. Coming as in Coming for to carry me home! Coming as in “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”[2] But since that glorious morn is not here yet, coming means waiting. And if what you’re waiting for is nothing less than your deliverance from circumstances beyond your control, then waiting means hoping for outside assistance… waiting for a Savior. Hear me when I say that when we find ourselves in Advent in exile, we’re experiencing Advent in its natural habitat. And we’re looking forward to Christmas—hoping for the coming of a Savior-- in a whole new way!

I tell you, people who are in exile in Advent have Christmas lists you wouldn’t believe!  Have you made your Christmas list?  My grandfather used to tell us, “Poppy don’t want anything for Christmas.” So, every year he ended up with a box of cashews, two pairs of black socks, and a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Booooring! By contrast, what did Isaiah want for Christmas? Isaiah says,

I want God to tear open the heavens and come down.

I want to hear some good news for the poor

I want the brokenhearted to be comforted.

I want those in bondage to be set free.

I want people who are tasting ashes to be anointed with the oil of gladness. 

 I want God's spirit to kindle a fire in the hearts of every man, woman, and child

Try finding those things at Wal-Mart for 30% off!  What does Isaiah want for Christmas? Isaiah wants God to rip open the heavens and come down in a blaze of saving grace!       

And I do, too!  How ‘bout you?  I want God to come down and stir things up!  Beginning with me.  Wherever complacency or apathy or indifference or settling for less than God’s best have taken up residence in me, I want God to come and light a fire under my tail. Wherever I am stalled, stuck, stymied or stale in my life of following Jesus, I want God to come and kindle a flame. I can’t help but to note that Isaiah uses an exclamation mark at the end of verse two of his Christmas list: “O that you would come down!” (Exclamation mark!)  “O that you would kindle a fire!” (Exclamation mark!) Which made me ask myself: Is there anything about my relationship to the Lord these days that has an exclamation mark after it?  In the spiritual continuum that runs from a yawn to an exclamation mark, from “asleep at the wheel” to “stirred up, fired up, and rarin’ to go”— where is David Shirey? Where are you at the outset of this season of Advent?  I asked a friend who in his ministry travels the country visiting different congregations his impression of the vitality of congregational life as he has observed it.  He shook his head, and said, “David, I’ve been in too many churches that need the spiritual equivalent of CPR!”  Isaiah wants God to come down and punctuate people’s souls with exclamation marks of fervent, fiery hope! 

Here’s the good news: God will come!  If Isaiah’s words are to be believed (and they are!), then whoever begins this Advent season hoping for the Lord to come and do a new thing in their world, their nation, their church, their life, won’t be disappointed. Because Isaiah says,  

“Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.”  (Isaiah 64:4)

There’s a Bible promise to wrap your heart around: God will act on behalf of those who wait for Him!  The good news according to Isaiah to people in exile waiting for a Savior is that Hope comes to those who wait. The bad news is we don’t like to wait. We want it delivered tomorrow. We want to be able to order it and pick it up at the drive through window.  We’ll pay extra to be able to jump to the front of the line at Disney World. We don’t like waiting.  Which is why Teilhard de Chardin the brilliant mystic whose soul perceived a God as vast as the vast universe wrote, “Above all, trust in the slow work of God.”[3] Echoes of Isaiah: “God will act on behalf of those who wait!”  The slow work of God over time crafts geologic formations like the Grand Canyon and purple mountains majesty; compresses minerals into gemstones – diamonds and rubies and sapphires. The slow work of God in human beings, like running water over time can smooth a rock’s surface, can soften human hearts, open closed minds, tame sharp tongues, harness testy tempers.  The slow work of God over time in societies and nations can and does work for good, for reconciliation, for shalom – the well-being of all creation.  As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." The enemies of Advent waiting are despair (Nothing’s gonna change) and impatience (Nothing’s changing fast enough).  Allies of Advent trust in the slow work of God, believe deep down our God “acts on behalf of those who wait for him.”    

So, what do you want for Christmas this year? For heaven’s sake, for God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, don’t make your Christmas list too small!  Isaiah says to all whose lives or nation or world or church is a long way from where they want to it to be: Hope comes to us! So, borrow from Isaiah’s Christmas list and write on yours: 

“O, that you would rend the heavens and come down!”

“O, that you would kindle a fire”

            O come, o come, Emmanuel.

            Let all who are waiting in Exile, hoping for a Savior to come, say AMEN.

[1] Songwriters: John Mark Hall / Nichole Nordeman

Stained Glass Masquerade lyrics © Birdwing Music, My Refuge Music, Birdboy Songs, Be Essential Songs

[2] O Holy Night, Public Domain, lyrics by Placide Cappeau, trans. Adolphe Adam, John Sullivan Dwight

[3] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ excerpted from Hearts on Fire