Oh That You Would Come Down

Nov 30, 2014

Isaiah 64: 1-9

Mark 13: 24-37

 

Oh That You Would Come Down

In her book, "Bright Valley of Love," Edna Hong tells the story of a handicapped boy named Gunther who, after WW I, ended up in an institution in Germany for physically and mentally challenged children.

At the home, he finally found a loving, Christian atmosphere after having suffered several years of severe rejection and abuse.

His best friend at the home was Kurt, and they did a lot in helping each other get over some of the painful memories of their earlier childhood.

One year during Advent, Kurt was asked to light the Advent Wreath during the chapel service.  As he was doing so, he collapsed and was gripped by a severe seizure.  He was obviously very ill.

After he was taken to the clinic, the pastor made an effort to continue with the worship service until finally Gunther cried out in anger and frustration, "Everything is broken!"

All the other children turned and looked at Gunther.

"Everything is broken," he said again.  "What's so great about Christmas?"

"Everything is broken."

 

That's pretty much the way the prophet and the people felt in today's reading from Isaiah. The people had been in Babylonian exile for a long time. Everything they had cherished had been taken from them. They cry out, "God, everything's broken. Don't you care? Why don't you split open the heavens, get down here, and straighten everything out, for everything's broken?"[1]

 

Perhaps you can also understand this sentiment.  The prophet captures our lament so well.  Our world is broken, why won’t you make yourself known to us God, clear as day so that we can know and understand your will for us and why all of the horrors of the world are happening. 

There are so many atrocities in our world and we feel helpless to stop them.  Individuals are being tortured and beheaded in the Middle East, political and religious violence is King.  There are villages in Africa where boys and girls go missing every day, ripped from their families to fight someone else’s war, or be innocent victims of it.  In some Asian countries people are actually dying from fatigue, from working too much.  The world is choking with pollution, slowly decaying at the hands of its stewards, actions that cannot be reversed.  In our own nation, that which we call “the greatest country in the world” thousands of people line up in the wee hours of the morning to feed their consumerist hunger, but pay little attention to midterm elections or PTA meetings that guide their children’s education.  Innocent children are fearful to go to school because someone might break through the door with a gun and end their lives.  There is prejudice and intolerance of all shapes and sizes and it is known at every age, every gender, and every color.  We are kidding ourselves if we think not, for if it is still being aired on the nightly news like so much dirty laundry, it exists, no matter how deeply we try to bury it. 

So yes, Lord, Please come down! In these days, in these hours where all we see and hear are acts of senseless violence near and far… Lord won’t you break forth through the clouds, come down and end all of the hatred, all of the bloodshed.  Won’t you come down and tell us all that is meant by your Holy Word.  Won’t you come down, let your face shine upon us and remind us of how to love?

“Advent finds us still longing, as we are in every year, for peace in the world.”[2] What is so great about Christmas? Everything is broken.

Advent is a reminder for us that God’s voice is still there, still crying out from the wilderness is the promise of God’s love for his creation.  Because he did, in fact, come down once, for the salvation of all and left us with the promise that he would return again.  Oh yes, we confess that it would be wonderful if he would make his grand entrance right about now.  Right in the middle of a violent school yard, a drug trafficking thoroughfare.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he would open the heavens and stand between innocent people and the sword that threatens to cut them?  Yes, Lord, come back to us and stand in the midst of the shattered glass, the burned out buildings, the broken homes and hearts of so many Americans who have forgotten the moment when you told Peter that the violence has to end, “put down your sword.”   Advent is the reminder.  God’s time is not our own. There is still time.  He will return. 

Rev. Katheryn Huey writes, “No matter how bad things are, we are reminded that we belong to God, and that all the earth belongs to God, and we believe that God breaks into this reality regularly. Sometimes, this inbreaking is dramatic and publicly celebrated: one thinks of the fall of apartheid in South Africa, for example, or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Sometimes it's felt in private consolations and reconciliations, a relationship restored by forgiveness or a return to health. "The coming of Advent," Patricia E. De Jong writes, "jolts the church out of Ordinary Time with the invasive news that it's time to think about fresh possibilities for deliverance and human wholeness."”[3]

The reading from Isaiah today claims that God has hidden his face from his people.  Is it that God has hidden God-self or that the people have become too blinded by their own vanities, prejudices, and sins, to see that God is still very much present and active. 

Rev. Beth Scribienski wonders, “So, has God hidden then or is it that they're lives no longer cultivate life. What does it mean when it feels as though our lives are no longer a proper environment for life to grow? What happens to our relationship with God when our lives become infertile? At what point does it feel God has hidden as opposed to we have ceased to support life? 

“We begin our journey of Advent pointing the finger at ourselves not at God. And yet so often when we believe God is hidden we fault God. We focus on the hidden part of the equation and not our part. I wonder if we are not a little bit like a child with her eyes closed,” Scribienski wonders, “Not willing to look at what's going on, perhaps frightened by loud sounds. If I can't see God, then God can't see me either. The writer, the prophet is asking us to open our eyes and look around. I can't help but wonder if when we open our eyes, we will find that God is not hidden at all. In fact, God is beside us saying, "I can see you." And perhaps that is why we keep our eyes closed.”[4] Because when we stop to think about it, we are ashamed of what God sees.

 

As we beg that the Lord would come and make known to us the answers for all of the questions we ask, let us do so with our eyes open.  With full awareness of the role that we are called to play in this world as followers of Christ. Jesus broke down political, social, and religious barriers everywhere he went.  He walked through hated Samaria and sat with a sinful woman while she drew water from a well.  He had dinner with tax collectors and other reputable sinners.  He touched those who were deemed unclean.  He turned over the tables in the Temple and called out the hypocrisy of Jewish and Roman leadership.  And he spoke of dying so that we might live. And in living into that grace I believe he expected that those who followed him would do the same.  That those who follow him would lose their lives to gain it: to let go of the comfort, the complacency, the status quo and open our eyes to the promise of his return, a return we are called upon to help him usher in, even now.  Amen.    

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[1] Bass Mitchell, www.homiliesbyemail.com  internet accessed 11/25/14

[2] Kathryn Huey, www.ucc.org 11/29/30

[3] Ibid

[4] Beth Scribienski  www.bethscrib.com 11/25/14