In Isaiah 63:16-19, the prophet extols God's mercy: "Surely You are our Father...You Lord are our Father; from of old your name is Our Redeemer". Yet, he then seems to say God shares in the blame for Israel's sin and the destruction of the temple.* The juxtaposition of trust and the need for deliverance introduce what we read today: if only You would tear open the heavens and come down...if only You would make Your Name known...if only You would save us with the signs and wonders our ancestors experienced. IF ONLY....
Isaiah 64 is both a declaration of God's amazing acts of salvation in the past--"no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has ever seen" and a complaint about Israel's current misery. God is angry and the people sin. He has hidden His face and they have turned away. They feel unclean, unacceptable, dead and taken away by sin.
What was true of Israel then, is true for Judah in Jesus' day. Mark 13, written in apocalyptic images, is Jesus' prophetic word to Jerusalem. 'Not one stone will be left on another', Jesus warns that the amazing Temple is soon to be leveled. Jesus, however, indicates that He will be vindicated, He is "the Son of Man coming with the clouds," a reference to His resurrection and Ascension. His word will prevail while that generation will witness God's judgement as the Roman army destroys all they hold dear. What is true in Isaiah's day, what is true in Jesus' day, is true in our own day.
Our nation, our church, and each of us lives in the twin realities of God's saving Fatherhood and the awful results of our sin and infidelity. The passions, those sinful desires which ruin men and ruin communities, are always at odds with God's instruction (torah) and opposed to His saving love. We follow these passions at our own peril. Obedience to God conforms us to His will, it makes the Image of God within us shine more brightly and we take on, more and more, His likeness. To be the image and likeness of God is to be one with Jesus, it is to have His Holy Spirit at work within us. It is theosis. But God grants freedom to His people, and we make our choices based on the darkened nous/mind/soul with which we operate. We too often choose sin, individually and corporately so God "delivers us into the hand of our iniquity."
Yet even in the pain of our lives, we hear the message of hope uttered by Isaiah (and Jesus). "Lord, You are our (abba) Father." He reminds us we are creatures--the image of the potter and clay (see also Isaiah 29:6 and 45:9) are an image of creation.** It is the Creator-Father, the Redeemer-Savior Who feels so absent and far away from us.
Isaiah prays for mercy. He asks God to forget our sin and look down on Your people. The city is laid waste, the Temple burned to the ground, their lives in ruin. "Will you stand by and do nothing while we suffer?" he asks. The Temple is also an image of our human hearts. Will YHWH rule there? Or do we hand the key to our heart to false gods and the demonic?
Isaiah 65 is God's answer. He has reached out to His people even as they rejected Him. It is Judgment Day. Those who turn away will perish, those who turn back will be saved. Repentance from sin is conversion; theosis union with God comes from watching our mind, heart and soul and rooting out all that takes us from God. It is the life of prayer and Scripture, and loving service to our brothers and sisters. It is to choose life and reject death. Perhaps, like Isaiah, we blame God for failing to keep us from sin. Yet, how can we look into the eyes of Jesus and demand Abba Father do more to save us?
Advent is a time of active waiting, and it entails our commitment to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. It is the holy waiting of repentance and spiritual transformation. It is the time to rebuild the ruins within our hearts and souls. Just as the ancient Jews, led by the Spirit, returned from Exile to rebuild the Temple--they were the hands on construction crew, even as God worked in and through them--so must we also do the hard work of heart and soul repair. It is a time of grace and beauty. As we wait for the incarnation, the bond of human and divine--the source of hope in theosis--we wait by praying, studying and serving the Lord. God became one of us so we could become one with Him. This is purpose of life.
*Isaiah 63:17-19 "Why, Lord, do you make us stray from your ways, and turn our hearts away from revering You? Relent for the sake of Your servants, the tribes that are Your very own! Our foes have trampled Your sanctuary, which Your holy people possessed but a little while. We have become as a people You never ruled, to which Your name was never attached" The Jewish Study Bible, p 910
**see Job 10:9 (also 33:6) "Remember you made me of clay (chomer), will you turn me to dust (aphar) again?" Then, Genesis 2:7 "God formed the man (adam) from the dust (aphar) of the ground (adamah)" ties it together..
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