1st Sunday of Advent
Dec. 3, 2017
Is 63: 16-17, 19b; 64: 2-7
Visitation Convent, Georgetown, D.C.
I once heard a preacher
proclaim on this Sunday, “Welcome to the year of Mark!” Most of our Sunday gospels for this new
ecclesiastical year will come from the 1st of the 4 evangelists,
chronologically speaking, and after the Holy Spirit the major inspiration for
Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels.
But
I’m going to preach this morning on our 1st reading, from the prophet
Isaiah: “You, Lord, are our father; our
redeemer you are named forever” (63:16).
You’ve
probably heard more than once that 3 figures stand out in this season: the prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist, and the
Virgin Mary. So it’s fitting to attend
to the prophet.
You
know, as well, that Advent is a season of preparation, of waiting, of joyful
anticipation—not for Santa and presents, or for jingling cash registers (well,
that’s a quaint image, isn’t it?); but for the coming of the Lord.
The
Lord is coming in his humanity, i.e., we recall, relive, and participate in his
conception in the Virgin’s womb and his birth in Bethlehem. The Lord is coming to us personally in his
grace as we participate in his sacred mysteries if and when we, like the gatekeeper
in Jesus’ parable today (Mark 13:33-37) are vigilant and ready for his
coming. And the Lord will come again in
power on the Last Day: “He will come
again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no
end” (Nicene Creed).
The
passage that we heard from Isaiah speaks to all 3 of these comings of the Lord: in history, in grace, and in glory.
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Portrait of Isaiah
St. Mary's Church, Fredericksburg, Va.
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According
to the general opinion of Old Testament scholars, this section of the Book of
Isaiah, ch. 56-66, comes from the period in Israel’s history after they’ve
returned from exile in Babylon and are living precariously in Jerusalem,
scarcely rebuilt from its ruins, and in the little territory of Judea around
the city. The prophecy reminds the Lord
God of his special relationship with his chosen people, and of his marvelous
interventions in the past. The prophecy
calls upon him to redeem them again, as he did at the exodus. One commentary describes the role of redeemer as
one
who defends the interests of a person or group, especially the poorest members
of a family. This person provides
posterity for one who has died without having children, by marrying the widow
and fathering a child (Ruth 3:12—4:14), pays the debts of a relative fallen
into poverty, redeems one who has been sold as a slave (Lev 25:23-28,47-49),
and avenges blood unjustly spilled (Num 35:19-27). Applied to God, this title suggests that he
is our kinsman, that he has taken upon himself, so to speak, the fulfillment of
responsibilities to his people.[1]
Now it’s interesting that
Isaiah doesn’t beseech the redeemer to deliver the Judeans from the Persians or
the Egyptians or the Samaritans, or from drought, famine, or plague. At most, he moans in vv. 18-19a, omitted in
our reading, “Why have the wicked invaded your holy place, why have our enemies
trampled your sanctuary? Too long have
we been like those you do not rule, who do not bear your name.”
But he doesn’t blame God for
that. Rather, he pleads with the Lord to
redeem the people from themselves: “Why
do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we
fear you not? Would that you might meet
us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways!” (63:17; 64:4). Isaiah prays that there might be a junction
of the ways, the Lord’s ways and Israel’s.
It’s an echo of another Isaian passage, where the Lord laments that his
ways appear so alien to human beings:
“Let the scoundrel forsake his way, and the wicked man his thoughts; let
him turn to the Lord for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor
are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As
high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts” (55:7-9).
And here, in our passage, he prays for the Judeans’ conversion: “Would that you might meet us doing right,
that we were mindful of you in our ways!
Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful…; we have all withered like
leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind” (64:4-5).
And that’s the subject of our prayer this morning, voiced in the
Collect: “Grant your faithful, almighty
God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his
coming.” We’re not praying to be gatekeepers
simply waiting for his arrival, but to look eagerly for his coming and to run
out to meet him and show him how faithful to his ways we’ve been. With reference to the parables we heard the
last 2 Sundays, we want to show how well we’ve invested his funds, how well
we’ve treated his people—the hungry, naked, sick, alien, prisoner.
Looking toward the Incarnation,
we often cite Isaiah: “Oh, that you
would rend the heavens and come down” (63:19b).
Isaiah, of course, didn’t have the extraordinary coming of the 2d Person
of the Trinity in mind, but some more mundane divine intervention to cure
Israel’s self-inflicted hurts. How much
more wonderful, more marvelous, that the Son of God did tear open human history
and come to us as a human being to be our ultimate redeemer, to be our kinsman,
or to make all of us kin of the Divine Family; to erase our guilt, to make us
into a clean people (cf. 64:5), to lift us up to the heavens—so much more than
the prophet could have anticipated, beyond any human imagining: “No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any
God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him” (64:3).
Nor could the prophet have
seen what we see in that verse: our Lord
Jesus Christ will come again. Whatever
the manner of that coming may be, we continue to use the ancient biblical
imagery of the heavens being opened up and Christ returning on the clouds,
perhaps in enuf royal regalia to make Prince Charles jealous, or even the
Donald. We pray that when he does come
again, he will work “awesome deeds we could not hope for” (64:2), such as
pardoning our sins, purifying our unclean hearts (64:5), rousing us to cling to
him (64:6), shaping all our fragile clay (64:7) into beautiful vessels of his
love, and gathering us among the sheep at his right hand (Collect) for
eternity.
“O shepherd of Israel,
rouse your power and come to save us! If
your face shine upon us, then we shall be safe” (Ps 80:2-4).
Great homily! We meditated as a family.
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