Sermon Isaiah 64:1-9 We are your People

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Eagle Rock Presbyterian Church
Sermon Isaiah 64:1-9 We are your People
November 30, 2008

This morning I am beginning a series of sermons from Isaiah. During Advent we will be looking at this important Old Testament book. Isaiah was in the Bible that Jesus read and taught from. A Greek translation of Isaiah had been distributed all over the known world by the first century. And Isaiah had enormous influence on New Testament authors who quoted from it frequently. For all of these reasons it is important for Christians to understand what Isaiah says about God.

Isaiah speaks to us in four voices. The first was the voice of a prophet. His name was Isaiah, the son of Amoz. He lived in Jerusalem in the first half of the eighth century before Christ. The prophet spoke at of time of great international conflict. The Assyrian Empire was growing stronger and was becoming a threat to its neighbors. The military alliance between Judah, Israel and Aram was dissolving. During the prophet’s lifetime the kingdoms of Israel and Aram were destroyed by the Assyrians. Judah and its magnificent capitol of Jerusalem were threatened. The prophet called on the people of God to turn away from their worship of foreign gods and return to worship of the Holy One of Israel.

The second voice in Isaiah is that of a poet. We don’t know his or her name. But we do know of the great love and respect that this poet had for the prophet called Isaiah. The poet lived in Babylon with other Jews who had been exiled after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The poet spoke at a time of relative peace, but the people longed for a return to their city and farms. The poet called the people of God to return to the faith of their ancestors in the Holy One of Israel. The poet told them to put away their idols of wood and clay and worship the LORD.

The third voice in Isaiah is that of a preacher. The preacher had great love and respect for both the prophet and poet. The preacher spoke during the time of the return from exile. Babylon had been defeated by the Persian Empire and King Cyrus had permitted the Jews to return to their land and to rebuild their city. The preacher called the people of God to faith in the Holy One of Israel. Even though the magnificent Temple of Solomon had been burned to the ground, the preacher told the people that the LORD was still their God.

The fourth and final voice in Isaiah was that of the editor who in the fifth century before Christ took the writings of the prophet, the poet and the preacher and put them into a scroll which we know as Isaiah. This scroll has been faithfully preserved from then until now, twenty five centuries, by the faithful people of God.

Today we read from the preacher in Isaiah 64:1-9.
NRS Isaiah 64:1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence-- 2 as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil-- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! 3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. 4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. 5 You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.

6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.

8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

As the Jews made their way back to Jerusalem the sight they saw was devastating. Their beloved city was in ruins and their Temple was burned to the ground, no more Holy of Holies, no more Arc of the Covenant, no more God. It must have felt like God had abandoned them.

We have all experienced these times when God is not to be found. After a night of prayers you go to the hospital and doctor says that your mother did not make it through the night. Where is God when it hurts so much? After dinner with the woman you love and want to marry she says “I don’t love you. The relationship is over.” Where is God when it hurts so much? You lose your job and can’t pay this months rent; you may have to live in your car. Where, oh where, is God? Even Jesus experienced the absence of God when he cried out from the cross, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me? The absence of God is not something we ever want to experience but from time to time we do.

When the Jews experienced the absence of God they remembered what God had done for them in the past. God had protected the nation time and again. It was God that had freed the people from slavery in Egypt and gave them the Promised Land. It was God who had protected them from the Philistines and the Assyrians. God could always be counted on, until now. And that made the feeling of abandonment even worse. Why had God blessed their ancestors so much but turned his back on them when the Babylonians came? They knew deep down that it was their own fault; they had turned their backs to God by worshiping idols. But in their anger they blamed God for all that had happened to them.

The Jews finally realized that God was not something that they could control. God was not a good luck charm. Not all prayers are answered. They also realized that the protection from the consequence of sin, that they had always enjoyed, had been removed. Now they had to experience the consequences of what they had done themselves. But they still had one perplexing question: Why had God acted in history to save his people but failed to do the same for them?

We face this same question today. Why did God deliver Israel from Egypt but did nothing to prevent the slaughter of six million Jews in the holocaust? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian writing from a concentration camp in 1944 said, “God would have us know that we are men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who will forsake us.” Bonhoeffer was reminding us of the Christ who came not as a super hero to solve all the world problems, but as a vulnerable suffering servant.

The Jews returning to Jerusalem experienced the absence of God but were not
driven to despair. Rather they were filled with hope. This hope rested on their belief that God had formed them from the dust of the earth and had breathed life into their lungs. God was their creator, and they were all God’s people. So filled with hope they cried out for God to break open the heavens and return to Jerusalem. And confident that God would return one day, they began the hard work of rebuilding their city and their temple.

God did come back to Jerusalem in a spectacular way. The heavens were literally ripped open and God descended back to earth. Listen to what happened from the Gospel of Mark:

Mark 1:9-11 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

This is what Advent is all about. Even though we may experience the absence of God in our lives and all the suffering that entails, Jesus Christ is coming at Christmas. In Jesus Christ, God loves us as much as a potter loves the clay pot he has created. In Jesus Christ, God loves us as much as parent loves a child. In Jesus Christ, God will never leave or abandon us. God is always with us. We read in Isaiah. “You shall call him Immanuel”, God is with us.

Father in Heaven as we await the coming of your son at Christmas we ask that you forgive our sins and pardon us for turning our backs on you. We ask that you never abandon us nor forsake us. We ask that you care for us as your creatures, your children and your people. Send your Holy Spirit to be with us always. And we pray this in the name of our coming Lord, Jesus Christ. Come Lord Jesus. Amen.