SERMON FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT, NOVEMBER 29, 2020     TEXT: ISAIAH 64:1-9
     In the 6th century  B.C. the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonian Empire. Many Israelites were deported and lived in captivity for 70 years. Then the Babylonians fell to the Persians, and the Persians released the captives to return to the land of their ancestors.   But the long awaited return was for many a grievous disappointment. Resettlement was not easy, not after that much time away. They weren’t really coming home after all. Babylon was the only land they knew, its customs and culture defined their way of life. Judah was in pitiful condition, and the people who had been left behind resented the ones who were returning. It was not an experience of reunion; they occupied a social space full of alienation and bitterness. Moreover, they were still under foreign, this time Persian, domination. 
     Those are the circumstances reflected in the passage we just read from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Yet this text shows that a common identity was taking shape, rooted in the suffering they endured together and the crisis of faith they shared. For this lament is spoken in the first person plural. The people are desperate for some kind of contact with a god who has fallen ominously silent and has apparently withdrawn, abandoning them to their misery. “Your holy cities have become a wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation,” they cry. “Our holy and beautiful house, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins” (vv. 10-11). , After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord? Will you keep silent, and punish us so severely?”
     The lament begins with an expression of longing — if God would only make another appearance as dramatic as the one on Mt. Sinai, when Moses received the law. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence . . . to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!” So, who are God’s adversaries? Well, the focus of the lament moves quickly to the lamenting community itself. They, by their own admission, have all become like one who is unclean. “We all fade like a leaf,” they confess, “and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” They acknowledge their wrongdoing but at the same time do not let God off the hook. God’s hiddenness is not the result of their disobedience; they insist it is the cause. “But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.” God may well have a different take on the situation, but they are right about this — apart from God, we are lost. When we can no longer find Him, we can no longer find our way. 
     The community then appeals to the longstanding, intimate relationship between themselves and God. They need each other. In this state of chilly silence, no one is calling on the name of the Lord, no one is letting God be their God. Surely you miss us, the people suggest, and in the end you cannot be free of us; we are part of you. For “you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” The outcry of the people has already broken the silence. It does not fall on deaf ears. God will surely respond.
     One of the loveliest cantatas composed by Johann Sebastian Bach for worship in the Lutheran churches of Leipzig is no. 140, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme or Sleepers Awake. Because of its theme, it is often performed in the Advent season. The chorale at the end is based on the familiar hymn by the late 16th-century Lutheran pastor Philipp Nikolai. When the plague swept through the community he served, he contracted the disease and fully expected to die. Then, to his great surprise he did not. Nikolai responded by writing two hymns, How Brightly Shines the Morning Star and Wake, Awake for Night Is Flying. The first is for the season of Epiphany. The second sings of the return of Christ, coming not in terrifying judgment but in celebration. The final chorale at the end of Bach’s beautifully orchestrated cantata is radiant with joyful expectation: Kein aug’ hat je gespurt; kein Ohr hat je gehort solche Freude — No eye has yet to see; no ear has ever heard such bliss. There is an echo here of our Isaiah text, when the people confess: “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.” One sings in the major key of exultation, the other in a minor key of desperation.
    During the Reformation Luther warned his German compatriots that if they continued to reject the Gospel outright or make a mockery through their unrepentant sinning of the grace it offered, God might fall silent. And should God cease speaking to His people, there would no further connection. All hope would be lost. For whether God’s word comes as judgment or blessing, it testifies to a living relationship. 
     Contrary to Luther’s worst fears, God once again stayed in the game. God always does. Once a parent, always a parent — you can’t get a divorce from your children or resign from the position and transfer your parental obligations elsewhere.  Throughout Israel’s history, even in seasons of alienation, God kept close and came closer, until the potter shaped his own life in the clay of his creation and lived among us, full of grace and truth.  
     You may feel like one of the people dwelling in great darkness, like Isaiah’s community. Or you may walk with Pastor Nikolai along a path radiant with blessing. Either way, take to heart the Advent call to careful watching and determined waiting. For wherever we are on the journey, our eyes have not yet seen nor our ears heard the fullness of joy that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.