Sermons and Reflections:

Wednesday after 1 Advent
December 4, 2002
Lutheran Theological Seminary Chapel
Dr. Elizabeth Huwiler

Isaiah 64:1-9

If it does happen. If we do go to a full, hot war against Iraq. If air strikes over Baghdad force families to flee their homes, to live as refugees somewhere safer. If after the bombing stops, and the puppet regime is installed, they go back to the place that used to be home and find a bombed-out shell, sift through the ashes that used to be their memories—

Then maybe they’ll know some of the grief of the speakers in our first lesson, people of Judah who had been in exile in Babylon but now had returned to what used to be home. They had heard the prophecies of Isaiah of the exile. You know, a new creation in which all the cosmos would cooperate, hills bowing down and valleys rising up. As if everything would be perfect—just because they had suffered long enough, twice as much as enough; just because they were the people of God and the Holy One, their Shepherd, their Redeemer, their Friend, had repented about the bad stuff. They could back home, back to a Jerusalem that was better than ever, back to a perfected temple.

They knew, no doubt, that Cyrus had given them some funds for rebuilding. They must have known that there would be work to do. What do you suppose they imagined? Re-hanging a few doors that had come off their hinges? Replacing some broken pottery? Sweeping dust from the corners, as if they’d been gone one or two weeks instead of generations? Whatever they imagined, seeing the devastated ruins of what had been their holy city broke their hearts.

If only—you had torn the heavens and come down!

You see, I read it first in translation and thought it started out hopeful. "If only you would …!" But no: the verbs are perfect, most naturally translated in the past tense. Not "if only you would" but "if only you had." Holy Eternal One could have done this by now, and chose not to.

But then I also expected "firmament" instead of "sky," a dividing line in that three-story universe. And that wasn’t the word. No, it’s the word that means "sky," not as dividing line but as surrounding stuff. And the verb is not "tear open" but simply "tear" or "rend": it’s the verb you’d use when you tear your garments in grief. If only the Holy One, the one who wears the clouds and sky as robe, had torn the celestial garment and come down!

Look: if you had torn the heavens in divine grief, if you had come down, the mountains would have trembled before you. It would have been like fire kindling brushwood, and fire causing water to boil, to make your name known to your adversaries. From before you the nations would have trembled.

But you see: all of this is not "if only you would" but "if only you had." It is not hope but grief. You used to be reliable. What has happened now? Remember how it was, way back, when you did awesome things—when we hadn’t hoped—you came down. The mountains trembled before you—back then. From ancient times, no one has ever heard, no ear noted, no eye has seen a God except you, working for those who wait for you. We had the promises and we heard them and we believed them. Remember us?!—your people, all of us (kullanu, a word that runs throughout this text)! Just look, see us, see our grief!

It could be that the evangelists knew this text when they wrote of Jesus’ baptism. Matthew, writing of the heavens opening, sounds a lot like the Septuagint version of this passage. Mark, who speaks of the heavens being torn, sounds more like the Hebrew. Maybe they want to claim that the grief of our text was undone. But during an Advent two millennia later, that baptism too can be part of what did happen back in the old days when Holy Eternal did awesome things, part of the memory of what it was like back then, of why we expected God to come through now, of why the prospect of war with Iraq and such realities as cancer and homelessness and abusive clergy are incongruous. The returning exiles had reason to remember God’s goodness—how much more do we, heirs of not only the Exodus but also both the Incarnation and the Resurrection. As they could grieve when God’s past goodness was not apparent in the present, how much more can we!

And our Gospel lesson warns: it will continue to be that way. Even as the final fulfillment is approaching, all creation, sun and moon and stars will swoon with longing and grief and terrible uncertainty.

See, this is Advent. We are waiting. We have the promises, and maybe we have even set foot in the land that is our heritage and our hope. Oh, don’t let them tell you that Advent is just waiting for Christmas. Advent is our annual permission to admit that we are still waiting for the fallenness of our world to be healed. And it has not happened yet. The world we live in, the world God has redeemed in Jesus Christ, is still terribly broken. There is more to fulfillment, there is more to salvation, there is more to life abundant than this desolate city.

Like the speakers in our text, we know we’ve sinned, but of course we sinned, God hid from us. We are so unclean: all of us (kullanu). "Our best righteous deeds are like menstrual rags." See, that’s what the Hebrew says, not just "filthy cloths" but "menstrual"; and it stops me short. I recognize: all those years, every month ancient Hebrews would have found me a contaminant. Not just that I was unclean for a week out of every month, but that I was dangerous for that week. Anyone who touched me, who touched my clothes, was rendered unfit for contact with holiness. In our culture, what would be the equivalent? What if I said: "Our best righteous deeds are like an HIV-infected needle"? The best that we can do is not only not good enough, but dangerous.

But look Holy Eternal, you are our father. We are the clay, you are the potter: the work of your hand, all of us (kullanu). Don’t be angry so very long, don’t remember our iniquity forever. Look, please see: we are your people, all of us (kullanu).

Oh, the start of it has happened. Holy Eternal saw our grief, tore the heavens, God’s garment, in divine solidarity with our sorrow. Do you know shiva, the Jewish practice of coming to the home of the bereaved and sitting with them, just being there as they grieve. The One we call Holy! Blessed! Baruch! Qadosh! Yeshua! Iesous! Jesus! That One, the touch of whose garment healed the woman who had been bleeding, who had been a contaminant for twelve years, has torn that garment, is sitting with us in our grief, embracing us when the world finds us untouchable. But even that is not the end of our hope.

See, this is what we can admit during Advent. All year long we do praises and sometimes it’s as though everything is grand. But in Advent we face up to how much we are still waiting for, how needy we still are, how we are longing for the presence of the Holy One in our midst. This morning we will install colleagues and bless the ministries of sisters and brothers among us, knowing how needy our world still is, how needy we still are, for loving service in Jesus’ name.

You see: after this sermon ends, we will look to the table, where there will be bread and wine that tell us: Holy Eternal has torn the divine clothing and come down to sit with us. And we will eat the bread and sip the wine that tell us: there is a fulfillment to come.

We will know: this is a foretaste of the feast. But we still live in a world in which homes in Baghdad are likely to be turned to ruins. We still fear contaminated needles. Clergy still abuse innocents. This winter homeless people will die sleeping under bridges.

We are still longing for a future that is better than today, and so with the Spirit and the Church we still cry out come, Lord Jesus; as we await his coming we still pray come, Lord Jesus; with all creation we still plead come, Lord Jesus.

Even so: come, Lord Jesus. AMEN.