The Prophet Isaiah's words were written by one
who, while standing in a time of hopelessness and despair, encountered
eternity--encountered the power, sovereignty and love of the Almighty God who saves us and
for whom we wait. He writes poetry of hope; I write prose. But I, too, have stood in the
presence of eternity this Advent. I pray my prose and Isaiah's poetry may weave a garland
of hope for you.
This time of year, when the sun sets early, our son, Ken, and I are often headed west
just as the horizon changes from blue to ablaze. Ken is a good enough driver now that I
can leave most of the driving to him and watch the sunset, instead. One day, as I drew
Ken's attention to the stunning sky silhouetting the trees, he responded, "Yeah, Mom.
Those particulates in the air are good for something." Even as we laughed together, I
knew an eternal truth had just been spoken and would nudge me until it broke through.
So ever since Ken's comment, I have paid particular prayerful attention to those
particulate-enhanced sunsets each evening. I've decided they tell the hope of Advent and
the promise of Christmas. Those sunsets remind us each evening that even in the midst of
human sin and suffering, God is present, shining through the sinful and painful
particulates of our life, bringing beauty even to them. Thanking God for the coral sunset
has become a moment of grace and hope each day as I remember God's presence in the
particulates of human life, and pray God will make of my day, and my life, something
beautiful as well.
But there was yet more Advent hope to be revealed in the December sunset if my heart
were open to receiving it. And it happened. The wind blew. The rain fell. The mountains
were hidden by low-lying clouds. A blanket of damp, grey drizzle covered the valley. The
air was washed clean and all the particulates - some of them natural and some a
consequence of human action - were gone. As I drove home that afternoon, the clean sky
began to dance: grey clouds here, brilliant white there, bright blue sky somewhere else,
with tendrils pirouetting through the canyons . When I reached home, I went straight to
the back door to watch the sunset play out across the valley.
That's when time stopped. I stood in Advent eternity. "God is here," I said
to Mark. "Come and see." He came and stood beside me for awhile. All the
particulates were gone and the sky was beautiful beyond words or imagination. Above me was
a brilliant blue background for a multi-layered extravaganza. At the very top were wide
ribbons of white. In front of me were massive, billowing clouds rushing across the valley,
with sparkling white caps where the sun shone upon them and deep grey bellies of shadow.
Below them, as far as the eye could see, the sky was a color between bright rose and deep
coral. Then above the hills to my right, a hole opened and its edges were suddenly rimmed
in bright red, as if on fire. The sun appeared, its red light dancing behind the hills and
setting them ablaze. And directly above my head, a thin grey, wispy cloud, almost close
enough to touch, and behind it again, blue sky. My heart grew quiet and my mind grasped
for meaning in the presence of such majesty and beauty and witness to the timeless power
of God.
Time stopped. I stood in Advent eternity. I heard CNN in the background telling the
latest on the wars in Afganistan and Israel/Palestine. I remembered people whose struggles
I know--struggles of unemployment, grief, illness, and loneliness; people who struggle to
get out of bed, to find hope, to put one foot in front of the other. I reflected on my own
deep anguish in a difficult week.
I watched the clouds dance and change hue as they streamed across the sky. The
interplay between sun and shadow, light and darkness, raging power and wispy thread - it
all spoke to me of life and death, of good and evil, of struggle and of hope that day, the
hope that comes from knowing our existence rests not in our hands, but God's and that God
will come to save us.
I stood in Advent eternity. God's hand was moving the clouds, not mine. As the clouds
tumbled and reformed in the changing light, I felt the timeless majesty of God that gave
hope to the Prophet Isaiah in a time of hopelessness:
"The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and
blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.
Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a
fearful heart, 'Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.'"
"The world is not in your hands, Barbara," the sky seemed to say. "You
are held in the hands of God, who washes you clean and makes the wind to blow, the rain to
fall, and the clouds to dance. Fear not, for God will save you."
Isaiah 35 is the prophet's poetic description of hope in a vision of a desert burst
into bloom at the advent, the coming, of God. Everything hinges upon the proclamation that
God is with us. Does it surprise you to know that these beautiful words of hope and
salvation were written during one of Israel's periods of deepest despair?
Walter Brueggeman has noted that some of Israel's most pushy, assertive, hopeful, and
imaginative poetry was uttered during Israel's exile. One might think that in such a time,
the word would be defeated resignation. No. Israel's faith was in a God who is an active
participant in creation and deliverance. And here, at the darkest hour, God's prophet
Isaiah proclaims extravagant hope. God hears. God comes. God delivers.
Wherein is our hope this Advent 2001?
Is it in warplanes and daisy cutter bombs?
Is it in the courage of soldiers trying to capture a man whose evil intentions boggle
our mind?
Is it in peace envoys sent to the Middle East?
If it is only in our own strength and wisdom, then we ultimately have no hope.
Or does our hope lie in denying the reality of suffering, the tenacity of sin, the
existence of evil, our own culpability?
Can living in a white bread, Disneyland world where the sky is always blue, and we
refuse to let ourselves see the suffering of the world or feel our own heartache, can such
an existence ever let us know the deep and true joy Christ's birth brings into the world?
Can such denial give us the strength to fight for good? Can it give us the commitment to
work for peace?
No, it never can. If our salvation lies in our illusions of happiness and omnipotence,
and our denial of reality, then there is no hope. An advertising poster reads,
"You've Got the Whole World in Your Hands Mastercard." If that's true, then sad
to say, we are without hope, if it's all in our hands all left up to us.
Or think of it this way, as we are bombarded with advertisements to buy this, buy that:
isn't it tragic to think that someone's life would really be made worth living by getting
a Salad Shooter or even a new Lexus for Christmas? This Advent, this Advent in particular,
we know that our gods of illusion and denial, of isolation and demonization, of wealth and
power, have failed us.
In such a world as we create, God becomes the empathetic, but mostly absent and
inactive deity who cares but doesn't really do anything about it, the deistic unmoved
mover who set it all in motion and then left.
William Willamon writes, "Someone said recently, 'I'll tell you why I go to
church. I go to church to be reminded of what I need to do to live a better life, to find
out where I've gone wrong and what I need to do to get right. Then I hope to get motivated
to lead a better life.'" It sounds alright until you probe more deeply.
"Because, if that's all church is, a pep rally to get us fired up to do what needs
to be done, then church gets to be oppressive. Church becomes a shopping list of what we
ought to do rather than a proclamation of what God in Jesus Christ has done and will do.
"You come to church. You get your assignment for the week. 'This week I want you
to work on your materialism, your racism, your rudeness to sales clerks in department
stores. Come back next week and we'll work on the rest of your sins.'
"No wonder people leave church more fatigued than when they arrived! No wonder
there isn't much hope. If it's mostly left up to us, to save the world or to make our life
right, then what real hope have we when the chips are down?
"Isaiah's words speak to one of the most hopeless times in Israel exiled,
powerless, far from home, no end is sight, seemingly deserted by God. And for Israel in
exile, the prophet piles up image upon image to show a creation restored, healed, redeemed
because God is with us. The dry desert shall break forth into green; animals that have
lived tooth, claw, and nail in conflict with one another shall live together in peace.
Injustice shall be put down and righteousness shall blossom forth. God reigns!"
Twenty-five hundred years later, Isaiah's words come to us again in a time of
uncertainty and war, of anxiety and sorrow, a time when many feel powerless and hopeless.
We long to be saved, not merely in some other-worldly sense, but in this world, right now,
because there is much from which we need to be saved.
So this Advent, we sing Isaiah's words.
We sing of freedom because we know ourselves captive.
We sing of comfort because we have allowed ourselves to see our brokenness.
We sing of joy because we have dared to love and hence have known sorrow.
We sing of peace because we know the horror of war.
We sing of hope because at times we ourselves feel hopeless.
We sing Isaiah's words because we have known enough of freedom and comfort, of joy and
peace, known enough of hope to know that we hunger for more.
It takes a great deal of faith, as we confront evil in others and see our own clay
feet, as our illusions are stripped away and we wrestle with difficult decisions, as the
clouds of changing times swirl around us, it takes a great deal of faith to proclaim the
presence and reign of God. That's why we need each other in the church to sustain us.
It also takes a great deal of hope to be able to honest about our situation in exile.
The church calls this faith, hope, and honesty, Advent.
We gather in Advent and sing hymns of honest yearning and unfulfillment. We sing,
"Oh, come, Oh, come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel." We are honest about
the darkness, about the defeat, because we have an honest hope. We admit that we need some
future not solely of our own devising. We are honest and tell the truth about our
condition because we believe that God has made our situation God's. In Advent, we give
thanks that God's love shines through even the particulates of human sin and suffering and
will come to us in a babe born into a sinful and aching world. We have hope.
When John the Baptist was in prison, an easy place to feel hopeless, he sent his
disciples to Jesus and asked, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for
another?" Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the
blind receive sight, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the
dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who
takes no offense at me." We have hope, not in a hocus pocus God, but in a God whose
salvation we have already seen and heard.
The desert shall rejoice. Israel was brought home from exile. The cause of our hope has
already been born, and will be born again. We believe in a God who yearns to be near us,
to come to us, to save us.
So this Advent, I proclaim to you, "Fear not!" We wait for the God whose love
makes humanity beautiful even now, whose grace washes us clean, whose power makes the
clouds to dance and changes the colors of their clothing.
God reigns and will come to save us. Emmanuel, God with us.
Therefore we do have hope. Amen.
