The Longing of Advent

November 27, 2011        Isaiah 64:1-9
The Longing of Advent by Pastor Myron Heckman

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Our deep longings are meant to lead us to Christ and to be fulfilled in Him.

We humans can have deep desires in our hearts that go unfulfilled.
They are longings.
Our Christmas songs express it:
“I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas – just like the ones I used to know.” It’s a yearning to have things as they used to be.
“I’ll be Home for Christmas…if only in my dreams.”
“I’ll Have a Blue, Blue Christmas Without You”
And one of our hymns we usually sing near the beginning of Advent, where we join our desires with that of ancient Israel: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

Theses longings are a prolonged unfulfilled desire or need. Not just a passing thought or quick wish – but they carry some pain with them, a kind of ache in the heart..
They are usually for rather simple things – to be loved, for example. .
To have some joy, some relief from painful emotions.
To have peace in our hearts, or in our homes, or in our extended family.
We might wish for a better character, or personality.
To to be significant in some way.

And these desires can extend beyond us for other people.
It can be for a loved one to have or to choose a better life.
Or it can be for a larger community a town, a church, or a nation.
We can yearn for justice, for peace and reconciliation.

What is your longing or longings this morning? They can make you sad, possibly have made you angry, though you are likely to settle into a prolonged ache that recedes into the background and then comes forward again. What does God have to say to us about these things?

Isaiah 64:1-9

I) Today’s text is about a cry in the heart of Judah. The people of Israel lived in dark and desperate times, known as the Babylonian captivity. Their prized city, Jerusalem had been captured. The crown jewel, the temple had been destroyed. Almost all the educated and the experienced in leadership had been deported into exile in Babylon. The people were demoralized.

We might imagine it like this: suppose that 9/11 had been the start of a takeover by al Qaida, who attacked our government computer systems, and by disabling our capacities took us over. They brought in the Taliban to administrate civil matters, and the al Haqqani network to oversee law enforcement. Russian trawlers were the only boats allowed to fish off our waters. Out taxes showed nothing for us – as they went to our enemies. And we see no end in sight. That is what Israel was experiencing under the Babylonians.

A) So they expressed their heart cry –
vs 1 “Oh, that God would rend the heavens and come down.”
Tear open that ceiling above us and make things right!
Lord, act decisively on our behalf!
Take care of these Babylonians and all the other nations. We know you are powerful, so please, please show it!
V 2

B) Lord, you’ve done it in the past – we didn’t even have to ask for it.
V 3
That is referring to Mt. Sinai, when the Ten Commandments were given – the mountains had shaken. (Exodus 19:18)

C) And Lord, You are unique –
V 4
Yahweh, you are infinitely greater than the Babylonian gods. Bel and Nebo are gods of Babylon, and they have to be carried (Isaiah 46:1–4). Their subjects have to provide for them. But the Lord of Israel is the creator, and He does the carrying. No other god is like You.

D) God’s uniqueness is culminated at the end of v 4
”Who acts for the one who waits for Him.”

Now there is the Advent dynamic of waiting on God because we believe He will act for us. In Advent we live between the two comings of Christ. We identify with Israel’s waiting for the Messiah to appear, and we wait ourselves for the 2nd Advent of the Messiah. Advent is a time of waiting, but waiting with anticipation.
That is what this verse says: God acts for the one who waits for Him.

Waiting isn’t too hard when we know when the answer is going to arrive.
The furniture delivery will be made between 10 am and noon. OK, I can deal with that.
The furniture will be delivered sometime tomorrow. That’s harder.
The furniture will be delivered sometime. That’s hardest of all.
We don’t have any control. If we will have any peace we have to surrender our need for control.

So it is with this: God acts for the one who waits on Him. Yes, but when? I can’t say.
I’m not in control, you’re not in control.

E) And what does waiting on God involve?
Look at v 5
1) You meet Him who rejoices and does righteousness
He meets the one who gladly does good.
The one who serves the Lord with gladness and does things uprightly and justly,–
And in so doing upholds God’s glory.
Waiting on God is not a waste of time. It is a time to serve God gladly.

2) “Who remembers You in Your ways.
Who does things in a godly way.
When you wait on God you do God’s work in God’s ways. You are willing to wait in order to do the right thing.
For example, in Isaiah 30:15 the Lord says,
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” And you would not, but you said, “No! We will speed upon horses,” therefore you shall speed away, and, “We will ride upon swift steeds,” therefore your pursuers shall be swift.
Waiting on God means we remember Him in His ways.

II) The problem is diagnosed in vv 6-7
But we are all like an unclean thing,
      And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;
      We all fade as a leaf,
      And our iniquities, like the wind,
      Have taken us away.
      And there is no one who calls on Your name,
      Who stirs himself up to take hold of You;
      For You have hidden Your face from us,
      And have consumed us because of our iniquities.

Most of us have had the experience of wearing clothes that had spots and stains on them from recent dining, and we didn’t know it. Oh, boy, we weren’t too impressive.
The righteousness we try to manufacture is far more unimpressive.
That’s a beginning hint of how we look to God. Rags are unimpressive, and filthy rags are repulsive.

Ultimately true righteousness is upholding God’s glory.
It is uprightness and justice, but motivated and understood as upholding God’s glory.
Our righteousness is about upholding our glory. It’s like filthy rags. Not just rags, but filthy rags.
Filthy rags are one analogy to represent our righteousness – and the other analogy in this text is apropos to this fall season: we are like a faded leaf, weak and vulnerable to the wind, destined for oblivion.

It’s not a pretty picture. Why is this verse so hard on our righteosuness?
Because our righteousness is not about upholding God’s glory. It’s about upholding our glory.
Could you be the exception?
Not according to vs 7.
“And there is no one who calls on Your name,
      Who stirs himself up to take hold of You;
      For You have hidden Your face from us,
      And have consumed us because of our iniquities”
That is a portrait of us apart from God’s grace.

III) We need an answer
The entire passage turns on a single word, the first word of verse 8
That word is so important whenever we see bad news – the word “But…”
A) Vv 8 a But now, O Lord, You are our Father.
He cares for you. He guides you. He seeks the best for you.
B) Vv 8b This is a statement of surrender to God based on a recognition of reality.
Don’t fight God. To do so is to be as foolish as a pot fighting the potter.
But isn’t this dangerous to us? Unfair.
He’s in charge. And He is your Father.

C) 9 Isaiah makes his case for God to act.
We are Your people.
Look at the condition of your people’s land and buildings:
Vv 10-11
“Your holy cities are a wilderness
      Zion is a wilderness,
      Jerusalem a desolation.
      Our holy and beautiful temple,
      Where our fathers praised You,
      Is burned up with fire;
      And all our pleasant things are laid waste.”
This parallels our heart cry for the church today. Lord, we see the weaknesses of the church. We ache over the departure from the faith of those who grew up among us. We ache over the discouragement of God’s people. We hurt over the tempting away of God’s people.
It is part of the longing of the Glory of God on Cape Cod – we pray that God would manifest his power, His work, his changing lives, His deliverance, on Cape Cod.
And then vs 12
So Lord, how long can this go on? How long can things be left this way?

The passage ends on an unresolved note – with two questions that are not answered here. This reflects the pain of our longing? How long?
How long for Israel?
They are answered in history.
One is that the Babylonian captivity ended after 70 years. God spoke to the heart of the emperor Cyrus and he decreed that Israel would be rebuilt.

But there is a larger answer in history – it is in the coming of Christ.
All of Israel’s yearnings, and ours are met in Jesus Christ.
The coming of the Messiah to Israel was a long wait. Israel yearned for the deliverer.
How many hears from the end of the last book in the Old Testament – Malachi – until the break of day in Matthew’s Gospel?
400 years. It is called “the 400 years of silence.” There was no new revelation for 400 years.

And then, rather suddenly, with little fanfare except for John the Baptist preparing the way, the Messiah came.

IV) What do you do with your longings?
This is where temptation comes in.
Whatever we seek to satisfy our longings will be our Lord and Master. If we find our satisfaction in something other than God and His ways, we are worshiping an idol – a god of our making. Even casual observation tells us people drift unsatisfied and frustrated from one counterfeit to another … finding satisfaction is none, and they inevitably move toward deepening anguish and a death of hope.

Pascal famously said: inside every man is a God-shaped vacuum. With what do we fill that vacuum?
“If you do not know what you long for, you will not be driven to its source of satisfaction” wrote C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity.
It is in knowing God, in resting in Him, in cherishing the cross, and rejoicing in the resurrection.

The longings we have our meant to turn us to God and to find our satisfaction in Jesus Christ.
In 7:37-38 Jesus calls those who are thirsting and promises overflowing, abundant water
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

How are you seeking to fulfill your desires?
It is crucial that we seek for satisfaction in the right place.