Longing
Rev. Lee Ann Bryce
Community Christian Church
November 27, 2011
The First Sunday of Advent
Text: Isaiah 54:1-9
A few weeks ago I dropped our dog, Denver, off at the groomer. As I prepared to leave, she led him into the back with some difficulty since he kept turning his head to look back at me and planting his feet so as to resist. A few hours later I went to pick him up and the groomer met me at the counter and we stood chatting. I assumed that Denver was in the back, but after several minutes, I heard this soft whine of longing coming from under the counter and I realized that Denver was in a crate, waiting for me, just within arm’s distance of where I stood. He had done his best to wait patiently, but after I didn’t acknowledge him for several minutes, he just couldn’t take it anymore.
Today is the first Sunday of Advent and our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures invites us to remember the times of longing in our lives; times when we have believed deeply and have felt the assurance of God in our lives, as well as times of doubt when we have felt, perhaps acutely, the apparent absence of God. When have you experienced God’s presence most clearly? And when have you longed for God to appear?
Our ancestors in the faith, the ancient Hebrew people had first-hand experience both with feeling God’s presence and with feeling God’s absence. Around 587 BCE, the devastation of the Babylonian exile took place. The brightest and best of Jewish leadership was removed from their homeland of Judah and taken into Babylon where they served the courts and the needs of the Babylonians for centuries. This was not only a political defeat for the Jews, but also a crisis of faith. Babylon’s victory was perceived as a defeat of Yahweh, the God of the Israelites by the Babylonian God, Marduk.
Life went on for the exiles in Babylon, generation after generation. They longed for the places they loved, the trappings of Temple and Promised Land. Today if we’re not able to go to our own church, we might just find another one. It was completely different for ancient Jews. They had one temple, in Jerusalem, far away. So they began to write down their stories of faith in order to prevent assimilation into the Babylonian culture. Think of it as a resistance movement and the literature that came from this time voiced the Jews’ hope that Marduk’s apparent victory was not the last word and that their captivity would come to an end.
It’s important to address the historical context of ancient Israel before we read today’s passage from Isaiah because to our ears, the language sounds strange and difficult to relate to. People today are sometimes put off by the images and language used in some biblical passages. I’ve heard people comment, I don’t have any use for the Bible because God just sounds so punitive or the God described is like some kind of primitive caricature. Who can take the Bible seriously? When you read this passage, indeed the entire Bible, and first take into account the circumstances that the writers were experiencing when they wrote it then it usually makes sense. We, in our modern mindset, can translate the pre-scientific understandings of an ancient people and often find commonality with what they felt or experienced. First, as I read this passage, listen for how it relates to ancient Israel. Then we’ll consider what wisdom it has for us.
This passage from Isaiah speaks to an exiled people who were disheartened and disillusioned. They thought their god, Yahweh, was the most powerful god of all. Though they can’t understand why Yahweh had chosen to disappear, they were confident that Yahweh was still mighty and was fully capable of showing up and saving them. And so, in this passage, they reference times in the past that they had known Yahweh’s strength, in order to remind themselves that Yahweh really is powerful. Also, listen for them speculating about a reason why Yahweh had gone away. They think that God had been mad at them because they had sinned. And so they acknowledge their wrongdoing and state their dependence on Yahweh who has shaped and formed them as a potter makes a vessel.
Isaiah 64:1-9:
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—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! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. 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 you. 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.
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. 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. Yet, O Lord, you are our Creator and our Provider; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.
Perhaps this passage could be summed up like this: God, you are the strongest greatest god of all. What is happening? You’re nowhere to be found and it must be because of the things we’ve done wrong. We’re really sorry now. Please come back to us. We are the people you created and formed.
There might be some barriers to us finding meaning in this passage. We don’t really think of the battle between good and evil like the ancient Israelites did, as some sort of like a high-stakes boxing match in which Yahweh had been outmatched by Marduk. And the concrete language that’s used in this passage evokes a sense of God up in the sky, tearing open the heavens and coming down to earth to rescue them.
This expression is foreign to us, but perhaps we can find similarity in the experience of longing. And when I say longing, I mean something different than wishing. A very trivial example of longing - think of my dog Denver’s soft whine. In his little doggie brain… I’m locked in this crate. She’s been gone a long time. Now she’s back, she’s right here but she’s just talking away. Doesn’t she notice me? Doesn’t she care?
Denver’s whine is a trivial parallel to the heartbreaking oppression of the ancient Jews. In their laments they voice question that remain in our hearts today: where is God? And why have things turned out so differently than we expected. Isaiah prays, "O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence!" If only the heavens would open wide and we would see God’s overriding majesty, God’s justice and grace revealed to us and to all in this pain-filled world. If only the firmament were rent and goodness poured down into the midst of our lives. If only all that is wrong in our lives could be righted and restored.
But the heavens do not open. Not that way. Beneath the firmament, history continues to play out its recurrent ancient tragedies. Poverty, violence, injustice abound. Maybe we aren’t so very different from Isaiah, the prophet of old. There are times that we, too, address the silent heavens and call on the distant Lord whom we cannot see. We urge on the God who seems so slow to act.
And now it is Advent. Faithfully, like those before us, we enter once again into the drama of longing and waiting. In Advent we take care to note the shape of the darkness in which our candles burn. What is your longing? What is the need for which you need God to come? What hurt do you need God to heal? Where is the light most needed? If the heavens do open at Christmas, where and with whom will you hear the angels sing?
How will you respond this Advent? Will you find yourself joining Isaiah in longing for the heavens to open, for justice to come for the living?
I hope so. I hope you stand with Isaiah in expectant longing. I hope so because the alternative is to choose indifference or resignation. I want to be among those who watch and hope, even when our hopes seem far from realized.
We wait because Christ always comes. “The arc of the universe is long and it bends toward justice.” (King) Love is stronger than hate. The light comes to the darkness and the darkness does not overwhelm it. This Advent, may our waiting be active, not passive; alert and looking for the light, not resigned to the darkness. May we feel the stirring of God in our own hearts, just as the child stirs in the womb. Amen.
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