THE FELLOWSHIP OF REPENTANCE

First week of Advent (Sunday)

Isaiah 64:1-6

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,

that the mountains would tremble before you!

As when fire sets twigs ablaze

and causes water to boil,

come down to make your name known to your enemies

and cause the nations to quake before you!

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,

you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

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.

You come to the help of those who gladly do right,

who remember your ways.

We learn from the past; we live from the future. And Advent is all about learning and living, all about life.

Isaiah longs to see God in the fullness of his majesty, as he was known in days of old. He has heard the stories of deliverance: the burning bush, the plagues of Egypt, the trembling of mount Sinai, the covenant and commandments. Isaiah believes what he has heard, but this is not enough. He longs for God’s “enemies” to see God’s majesty, for the people to see it, to see it for himself.

This is Advent: looking back to the ancient past, the recent past, our personal past; embracing what we see in faith, and trusting what we learn from these experiences. But also looking forward in the hope that what has been will be again, that what was true will still be true. And, of course, it is about life right now, in the turning point between past and future. If God is the God who was, and the God who will be, then God is the God who is.

But if, as Isaiah says, “God acts on behalf of those who wait for him, and comes to the help of those who gladly do right, then who are we to long for his appearing? We tremble at the thought of his coming, realizing that we cannot casually assume that we are numbered among “the righteous”, or that his enemies are “those poor people over there”.

But when we continued to sin against [your ways],

you were angry.

How then can we be saved?

All of us have become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;

we all shrivel up like a leaf,

and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

Humbled by the realization of our own sin, we call upon God to come, not with power and justice to terrify his enemies, but with mercy and grace to encompass us all. Our longing for God awakens us to our true selves: our waywardness, sin, poverty and need. One with all flesh in the mystery of iniquity, we cry out, in repentance, that all might be saved.

Rend the Heavens by Robin Mark