Sermon Title: What Are You Waiting For?

Sermon Text: Isaiah 64:1-9

Sermon Date: December 2, 2007, First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 64

1 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
       that the mountains would tremble before you!

2 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!

3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
       you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

4 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.

5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right,
       who remember your ways.
       But when we continued to sin against them,
       you were angry.
       How then can we be saved?

6 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.

7 No one calls on your name
       or strives to lay hold of you;
       for you have hidden your face from us
       and made us waste away because of our sins.

8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father.
       We are the clay, you are the potter;
       we are all the work of your hand.

9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD;
       do not remember our sins forever.
       Oh, look upon us, we pray,
       for we are all your people.

Message

Waiting rooms bring all kinds of emotions in our lives, don’t they? If you are waiting for your plane to Amsterdam to take off for a long awaited trip, it is pretty exciting. But if you are waiting for the doctor to tell you news about yourself or a loved one, it is a miserable place to be. You’ve been there, haven’t you? You have sat in a doctor’s waiting room, perched on the edge of your seat, waiting to hear the news. Did the surgery go well? Did they get all of the cancer? Are the biopsy results in? Has the fever broken? How bad is the damage from the heart attack? How much time do I have?

You know what I mean. You have been there. Waiting for such answers is a miserable place to be.

Israel knew about waiting. The people lived in desperate times. The prophets had warned them and their words came true. Be unfaithfulness and you won’t like the results. Their beloved Jerusalem had been captured, the temple destroyed, and key leaders were deported in Babylonian exile had taken the wind out of Israel’s sails. The unthinkable had actually happened – Israel had been overrun by the Babylonians. Talk about broken hearts.

This passage is actually begins with Isaiah 63:7 – it is a part of a longer lament – or “intense cry for help” This cry of despair is so intense because Israel knows her history – God has always dealt graciously, showing mercy and steadfast love to “His” people as God has always called Israel. It is God’s presence that saved them, in love and pity God had redeemed them, God always lifted them and carried them.”

That is why the people ask God to deliver them again – their experience says that God has always been ready, willing and able to deliver them. They remember the past: “You, O Lord are our father; our Redeemer from of old is your name…You came down before – and mountains quaked, and nations trembled – there is no God like you!”

Israel did what you and I do when our hearts are broken. We fall down on our knees and implore God to remember us, to give us the desires of our hearts. I did that when my grandson was in intensive care years ago. You have been there or something like it. You have been there when your heart feels like it is lying on the ground and someone is stomping on it. Israel felt the same way. They never expected that they wouldn’t be living as God’s chosen people. They never dreamed that their land would be taken over by foreigners. Talk about pain and agony. Talk about broken hearts.

But Israel wasn’t honest with herself. She had not always been faithful to God. Isaiah’s task was to speak the truth to them about that. He seems to have known about the work of his contemporaries – Amos, Hosea, and Micah – and followed in their traditions. He attacked the social injustices which indicated Israel’s tenuous relationship with God. He told them over and over to place their confidence in God and to do it publicly and privately. What you realize from Isaiah is that the recurrent theme is justice and righteousness, teaching and word, and the assurance of divine blessing upon the faithful. But there is another part of the theme. Punishment is upon the faithless. Since Israel doesn’t get this, their wait continues.

(I got help from “Preacher’s Magazine,” December 1, 2002 at http://www.nph.com/nphweb/html/pmol/pastissues/2002%20Advent/sermon_long/sermon01long.html)

You too are waiting for something to happen in your life, aren’t you? Your wait may have nothing to do with being faithless. But then again maybe it does. Only you and God know the answer to that. But still you are waiting.

My friend Dorothy is waiting for her health to return.

Someone you know is trying to conceive a child but is facing infertility problems instead.

Someone is looking for a better job to find more fulfillment.

Someone is waiting for a child to come home. For reconciliation.

Someone is waiting to learn about a diagnosis.

Someone is waiting to hear a spouse say “I love you.”

Someone is waiting for a spouse to say “I’m sorry.”

We are all waiting for something to happen. To change our lives. To bring peace and harmony to our families. And we wonder if God is with us.

The word is there in verse 8 – “Yet.” Other versions say “Nevertheless.” It means that regardless of what we have done, God is with us. When we have watched injustices without lifting a hand, God is still with us. When we take the credit for the good things God has done, God is with us. Nevertheless, God, you are the potter and we are the clay. We literally are putty in your hands. Ready to be molded and made to do the things God wants us to do.

You see, you aren’t the only one waiting for a change this Advent season. Did you know that God is waiting too? Yes, it is true. We want immediate answers from God, but God doesn’t always get things from us immediately either.

• If you are holding onto a grudge, God is waiting for you to get rid of it.
• If you are waiting for someone else to do the apologizing, God is waiting for you to take the first step.
• If your life needs some radical changes, God is waiting for you to reach out for help.
• If you need a relationship with Jesus, God is waiting to bring joy into your life.
• If your relationship with Jesus is stale, God is waiting to spice it up.
• If you are dealing with addictions, God wants to be part of the support to help you put them aside.
• If you need to find out about your health, God will walk to the doctor’s office with you.
• If you need to make decisions about your finances, God is waiting to help.

Friends, never ever forget that God waits for us as more than we wait for God. You know the scripture from Romans 3:23 – all sin and fall short of the glory of God.” Yes, it is true. We ask – no, demand, God to do things for us and even as God waits for us to live up to His expectations of us as Christians, God is there for us. Even in the waiting, God is there, ready and willing to help us deal with the waiting rooms in which we find ourselves.

Advent is about waiting for the Christ child, to be sure. But it is also about expecting to find God…in a baby in a manger, in a woman who allowed God to use her, in a man who risked humiliation, in you and me.

Let me leave you with some words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes . and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.”

God is our God and we are his people. Thanks be to God.