Still Waiting

Isaiah 64:1-9 is one of the biblical texts often seen during Advent in the lectionary. It is a great reminder to any who read its words of the sense of longing that should accompany the faith of those who entrust their lives to Christ.

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
²as 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!
³When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
⁴From 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 him.
⁵You 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.
⁶We 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.
⁷There 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.
⁸Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
⁹Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,
and do not remember iniquity forever.
Now consider, we are all your people. (NRSV)

The first stanza is a petition of sorts that God would reveal His awesome might. Verse 3 ends with the phrase “you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.” For those who keep up with the daily news from around the world, it isn’t hard to understand how these ancient Israelites might have felt. From the continued global economic news to the war in Ukraine to our own political turmoil – the world seems ripe for God’s intervention.

The middle section of the paragraph eventually gets to the heart of the struggle: “we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” (vs. 6a) When waiting for God’s coming into our lives, few things could be better responses than to do a little house cleaning – and Isaiah’s words seem to reflect an awareness of that need.

This past week, I was in a long line of early voters in Georgia for a U.S. Senate runoff. Behind me were people quick to identify themselves as Christians – they even identified the church they attend. The tone and content of their comments were less than what one might expect from a believer in Jesus. That’s the age in which we are living, unfortunately. 

The last portion of the paragraph is both recognition of God’s sovereignty and a plea. The Lord God is our Father – and we are as clay in the hands of a potter. Perhaps there is some sense of wanting God to help them be formed into the people He desires? And the paragraph then ends with “do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.”

When we are expecting visitors to our home, it is always a part of the “waiting plan” to make sure the house is clean and ready for our guests. This time of year, that means the Christmas tree(s) is decorated, and the spirit of the season is obvious. We would hardly sit around and fail to dust the furniture while waiting. Waiting is opportunity – and in the case of the waiting of Advent, it is an opportunity to get ready for the most important guest of all to arrive and call us His own.

We do live in a troubled world, and it isn’t very difficult to reach the point of thinking that only God’s divine intervention will ever fix it. Nor is it difficult to think that our world is so broken, it can’t continue to go on much longer. 

But no one knows when the season of Advent – waiting – will no longer be needed, for the King of Glory will have come in all His glorious might. Thus, we wait. But we wait in preparation that in these days of God’s patience and grace (2 Peter 3), we have opportunity to do some housecleaning. We have opportunity to allow the potter to form us as He wishes – and we wait, never forgetting that, indeed, we are all His people.

Let us wait in hope!