First Sunday of Advent
Reading 1 IS 63:16B-17, 19B; 64:2-7
You, LORD, are our father,
our redeemer you are named forever.
Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways,
and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?
Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your heritage.
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
with the mountains quaking before you,
while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for,
such as they had not heard of from of old.
No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you
doing such deeds for those who wait for him.
Would that you might meet us doing right,
that we were mindful of you in our ways!
Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful;
all of us have become like unclean people,
all our good deeds are like polluted rags;
we have all withered like leaves,
and our guilt carries us away like the wind.
There is none who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to cling to you;
for you have hidden your face from us
and have delivered us up to our guilt.
Yet, O LORD, you are our father;
we are the clay and you the potter:
we are all the work of your hands.
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Who has not wished at one time or another that God would make an appearance? This would solve definitively so many problems: whether God exists; what God is like; why there is injustice and suffering in the world; and who is “right.” God could also remake the world and put everything the way it should be.
This feeling is especially poignant when the world seems to fall apart or spin out of control. Isaiah expressed the fervent wish that God would tear open the heavens and come down. It would be awesome; the mountains would quake at God’s presence.
Isaiah recalled all the mighty and marvellous deeds of God in the past and wondered where they had all gone. This was written after the return from exile in Babylon. Hopes for a rebirth of the nation and a return to former glory had not been realized. He recognized that this perceived absence of God was because of the sins of the nation and the people’s failure to walk in God’s path.
But there was a bit of self-justification and dodging of responsibility: Isaiah insinuated that God had caused Israel to stray, hardening its collective heart. He accused God of hiding the divine face from the people, causing them to forget and wander off. But God does not play games of hide and seek.
When we fail to sense the presence of God, it is because our minds and hearts have become clouded with negative human attitudes, emotions and actions. Isaiah affirmed that God is not only our Father, but the master potter carefully and lovingly forming us into the desired image.
He called out to God plaintively, begging God to rekindle the relationship that existed with the nation in the past. Isaiah had the answer to his problem: He recognized that God always meets those who not only do right but do it gladly, and those who always keep God in their minds and hearts. Individually and collectively, we are responsible for our relationship with God and the world in which we dwell.
That's so good I don't think I'm going to comment on it further, Scott Lewis's commentary on the other readings for today are found at the link. I'm very impressed with his commentary. I will be posting more on today's readings during the week.
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