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. Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people. [Isaiah 64:7-9].
The OT lesson appointed for the First Sunday of Advent, Isaiah 64:1-9 [Revised Common Lectionary, Year B] is located within what many OT scholars call “Third Isaiah” (Chapters 56-66). Many textual experts note a discernible difference in language and tone between “Second Isaiah” (Chapters 40-55), likely written during the final years of the Babylonian captivity, and Third Isaiah, written in the years following the Edict of Cyrus, the Persian king (538 B.C.), which formally ended the exile.
Scholars note irony within the differences in tone and emphasis, that Second Isaiah is generally upbeat and optimistic—despite the exiles’ captivity—while Third Isaiah is somber—even though the exile period is over and some of the exiles have been allowed to return to Judah and Jerusalem. Third Isaiah offers hope, to be sure, yet it is hope tempered with deep lament and doubt.
What’s the worry? They’d made it back to the homeland! Why the writer’s long face? Well, for one thing, the returnees clash with some of “the locals,” those whose parents and grandparents had not been carried off into captivity. The competing groups argue over social standing and, ultimately, political and religious authority. They have a Temple to rebuild. Which families will serve as priests? What role will those returning play in civil life? At a theological level, had Yahweh, in allowing the original deportation of so many Jewish leaders, signaled a divine rejection of the Davidic dynasty? Was Yahweh’s Covenant flowing from Father Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob, still alive? Had it somehow been abrogated or modified?
And so, the writer invokes an ancient image of Yahweh as the cosmic, divine warrior who periodically would “come down” to aid Israel [Isaiah 64:1, 3]. The writer reminds Yahweh that there was a time when Yahweh was ever-present. We know that Yahweh freed the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, provided them with manna during their 40-year period of wandering, gave them flowing water when they were thirsty and, in Yahweh’s own good time, gave them not only fine land, but king David, a man after Yahweh’s own heart [1 Samuel 13:14].
The writer laments, however, that for some time now, Yahweh has been both silent and absent. To that lament, the writer adds a strange and disturbing claim. He blames Yahweh for Israel’s current situation. He says that in former days, Yahweh became angry with the Israelites. Then the people turned to sin [64:5].
Wow! Most of us are sure that it was the other way around. Given, however, the people’s circumstances in Jerusalem, the writer is understandably discouraged, afraid and bewildered. In such bewilderment, he lashes out, trying to make some sense out of the people’s precarious situation. It’s a good thing that when we are tired, scared, or lonely, we never blame God for our predicament.
Given the writer’s words, one might assume that the writer thinks the chasm between Yahweh and Israel is too deep—that the distance between Creator and creature is too wide to be maneuvered. It is at this point, however, that the writer changes the tone of the passage altogether. Having initially called upon the image of Yahweh as a divine cosmic warrior who bursts open heavens, boils water with His own brushfires, makes mountains to quake, and who lays waste to all who oppose Him, the writer now identifies Yahweh as a patient, careful artisan —a potter —who uses His holy hands to fashion and work with His people—His clay. The writer ends this portion of his text with the thought that If the people are to become anything other than a defeated, splintered group of former exiles, they must depend upon their LORD to accomplish that desired result. They cannot do it on their own. They must wait for the Potter to mold the clay as He sees fit.
By now you may be thinking, “Great story! Marvelous scripture! Powerful metaphors! But what has any of this got to do with Advent?”
Well, take a look around us. Like the world in Isaiah’s time, our own world is a mess. The people of Israel are again being attacked by those who seek not just Israel’s defeat, but its annihilation. Its enemies want praise for releasing a 10-month-old hostage. Forget, of course, the fact that taking civilian hostages of any age isn’t permissible. Nor is killing the 10-month old’s parents.
A Queens, NY teacher posts a message in support of Israel and students in her school riot. Jewish students at our most progressive universities are not safe to study or remain on campus. The war in Ukraine is now, by my count, into its twentieth month.
At a more local level, loved ones are sick. Far too many marriages are in danger. Children are neglected. Many families live precariously. Supply your own heartache or fearful thought. For many, God appears to be AWOL. Using the Isaiah writer’s language, need God to “come down” to us. We need intervention. We desperately need God to make His name known, so that the nations (and peoples) might tremble at His presence [64:2]. Alas, like the Isaiah writer, we must wait.
That is the difficult side of Advent. It’s a time of waiting when the world around us rushes forward to Santa Claus. We must patiently wait while, for the past two weeks, the world around us has been singing “Jingle Bells.” We must wait while those held captive in Gaza are being mistreated. We wait for justice while injustice seems to abound. Some of us must wait for difficult diagnoses. Others must patiently wait for the next paycheck while the bills stack up on the corner of the desk.
To echo the writer of Isaiah, “if only there was hope.” We long for God to make Godself known to us. We wish He would reveal Himself deep within our hearts. If only God would—once and for all time—intervene for us.
Well, He did! And at least in that sense, we need wait no longer. Here is the real mystery of Advent. Almost 2,000 years ago, in a little town called Bethlehem, God intervened in a most spectacular, though unexpected manner. In the form of a helpless child named Jesus, the Potter became clay.
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