You Word, O Lord, is a lamp to our feet.

A light to our path.

Isaiah 40:1-11

This is the Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

Reflection:

The God of imagination and possibility.  The God of power and compassion; God hears, God cares and God acts.  The question of course, is how and when will God act?  This is especially the case when we are in a situation that we can’t manage – we might be suffering physically or mentally or we might feel trapped, unable to be free from that which binds us or hurts us.  Sometimes we find ourselves in these situations or places because of our own doing – we have made a mistake, done the wrong thing, made a poor decision, been stubborn or maybe we chose to take a risk that didn’t work out well.  Such is the way with human beings – we are fallible and sometimes, we are foolish.

At other times and situations, things happen that may have been no fault of our own; there was nothing we could have done as an individual to prevent our experience.  Examples of this include physical and mental illness, ageing, death of a loved one, natural disasters, infectious diseases, poverty, trauma, abuse, neglect, war and I could go on and on.

For people in the days of the Old Testament, things happened to you because God made them happen, for a reason.  So if you were suffering or experiencing hardship, then you may be being punished by God for having done something wrong, for having turned your back on God.  We know that in Israel’s history, there were many occasions where the people turned away, abandoned God, YHWH, and worshipped false gods.  This usually happened because God wasn’t responding to them so they believed God wasn’t listening and they would worship a false god instead.  This made YHWH angry and he would punish the people and then they would cry out to him for mercy, God would take pity on them and save them from their suffering and so it went on.  This is where we find ourselves today in the reading from the prophet Isaiah.  The people of Israel are in Babylon, in exile and they are struggling.  They feel God has abandoned them.  God has finally given up on them and they are absolutely without hope – there is no light, there is nothing to look forward to.  They are alone.

Into the midst of their helplessness, suffering and despair the prophet Isaiah speaks of God’s power and compassion for his people.  Exiled in Babylon under a power that is oppressive and harsh, Isaiah affirms that the Hebrew people are being punished for turning their faces away from God, for abandoning YHWH for false gods, for being unfaithful and disobedient.

God has heard their cries of suffering and God cares.  Inescapable judgement will be followed by generous restoration.  The power of the Babylonians will be overthrown by Persia and the Persian leader, Cyrus will allow the Jewish people to return to their homeland.  These are the events of history told by Isaiah that are yet to come.

Isaiah tells the people to remember that God will not forsake them; God is capable of what seems impossible. For the Hebrew people, the wilderness evokes images of the Exodus, a reminder of God’s power as a warrior in the escape from Egypt, as well as his sustenance and care during a time of desolation and homelessness.  YHWH has not forgotten his Covenant with the Jewish people, he will not abandon them.  YHWH is a god of both power and tender compassion.

God is constant and present wherever we are and in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.  The same comfort and hope promised to the Hebrew people in Babylon, applies to us here today and throughout time because God’s word stands forever irrespective of how human interpretation might change.

This is reassuring because no matter how the world changes or how we are governed or how technology impacts on what we do, our health, communication and so on … God’s word stands.  No matter what mistakes we make, what experiences we have, how flawed and broken we might be … God doesn’t change.  We are told that all flesh (Hebrew text) is like grass and our trust (Hebrew text) is like flowers in the field – we are temporary, we are unpredictable, we are fragile – not just in our bodies, but in knowing who we are. Our true self is of God and belongs to God.

The good news in verse 9 refers to the newness we can look forward to by having faith and hope in a God that hears us, that cares and who acts.  In the midst of crisis and hopelessness, there is new possibility that can found only through the divine intervention of God.  For the Israelites in Babylon, this good news, this new thing that is coming, will be the dismantling of the Babylonian power and the rise of Cyrus of Persia who will free the Jewish people and allow them to return to their homeland.  Cyrus will be summoned by YHWH, a human agent to accomplish God’s divine purpose.  Nothing is by chance and all things are possible.  God does not abandon his people. Raise your voices and proclaim the glory of God.

The good news of Advent is the coming into human life of the God who makes all things new and all things possible.  God comes in Jesus, the Compassion, the Forgiveness and the present and living power of God.  We are asked to reflect on all that God has done, the things that have come to pass and to do what God asks of us – to open our hearts to one another, to tear down the walls of fear and force that separate us, and to work with God to make all things new and possible.  God is truly a god of both grace and power.  Glory be to God.  Amen.

You Word, O Lord, is a lamp to our feet. A light to our path.

Isaiah 64:1-9
Mark 13:24-37

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

REFLECTION:
The theme for this first week of Advent is hope, and our readings today are about just that – hope, in the midst of upheaval, uncertainty, struggle and whatever else life throws at us, God does not abandon us. Throughout history, people have experienced extraordinary pain and injustice and this continues in our world today, but God is with us. Our challenge is to look to God’s coming, to experience God’s promise and to sense God’s sacred presence within the context of our lives and the lives of others.
The reading from Isaiah is concerned with community life in Jerusalem during a time of disappointment, despair and tension. The people have returned from exile in Babylonia filled with hope and anticipation, only to find a land in rubble, and their temple in ruins. They remember a God of power and might – the mountains quaking, the nations trembling at God’s presence. An awesome God who they failed to listen to and to follow, time and time again. They lament their sinful behaviour, and for having pushed God away. They call out to God, their father and maker, reminding God that they are his, begging God to remember his love for his people. They look to God in the heavens, asking that they be ripped open so that God can come down; God’s dwelling place on earth, the temple, is no longer there. In the midst of destruction and despair, the people of Israel turn with hope to the one who can help them, the one they belong to, the one who is always there.
Hope in the Old Testament is a confidence that God can and will make newness because God has the power and will to overcome all that is failed, broken. The people remember God’s generosity toward those whom God loves.
In Mark, there is a similar theme of extreme suffering and an envisioning of divine intervention as the only way to find delivery from affliction. Mark’s hearers would have known all about oppression. A horrendous Jewish revolt in 66-70CE ended with the Romans starving out Jerusalem before breaking through, destroying the temple and crucifying many Jews. More Jews were killed by Jews than Romans during that period, with starvation causing some desperate behaviours. It is in this context that Mark views the times as ‘the last times’. We can only imagine what the people must have experienced; why they would have looked to the end of the world as their aspiration, as their basis for hope.

Mark provides an apocalyptic vision of the Son of Man receiving the authority to rule after centuries of oppression by foreign forces. All the faithful from across the world will be gathered by his angels. Finally freedom will reign and there will be peace. And we are told to stay alert, to keep awake because no one knows when these things will happen, when the end will come – but for Mark, it was imminent. Wait with hope. Keep awake.
Both in the Isaiah reading and in Mark, we are shown how people have hope and how they live with unpredictability in their lives. We are the same. We have hope in God because of our faith and because of our human nature. Human beings continue to wait for something new, despite sometimes horrific situations. The hope we have in God can seem a little opaque sometimes because we don’t always know what hope actually looks like. There is a unknown and unpredictable quality to what we are hoping for – sometimes we can’t imagine it ourselves. All we know is that we want the situation we are in to change or we want some response.
At times, God is very accessible and at other times, God can appear distant or closed to us. We respond to this unpredictability with prayer. God knows everything and we do not. The cry for God’s intervention in our lives and our world, is a cry throughout time as can be seen in our readings today
In our world today, the places and situations where despair and powerlessness exist continue. People still live in fear, hunger, pain and experience abhorrent and unjust situations. We can look closer to home and remember the bushfires that ravaged large parts of our country. We have just come out of 8 months of lockdown restrictions that have crippled our economy, our community and brought insecurity and struggle to many. Other countries are still being ravaged by the virus. Where is God in suffering? God is in the hope, in the knowing that all human experience contains meaning, even when that meaning is beyond our own understanding. Hope is in the possibility of something changing for the better or as in Mark today, the belief that when things are so bad, God will not abandon his people. God will return and his kingdom will overthrow the injustice of our human world.
We know that we are loved by a God who made us, like a potter molding clay and breathing life into our being. The intimacy and connection of God to each of us and our lives is inherent. We are called to live in the world with the authority that hope gives. To live in the light of a hope which is found beyond our human experiences, remembering that God is with us.
In this time of Advent, we are called to prepare, to wait and to be alert. Waiting with anticipation and with hope for the coming of the Christ. Amen.