Hope
Advent 2020 • Sermon • Submitted
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HOPE
Sunday Scripture Reading: Isaiah 64:1–9
Slide #14 INTRO
Let me begin with a question. What do you call it when everything is lost—when homes and lives are destroyed by war or natural disaster, when there is seemingly no way out—we call it a hopeless situation.
That is where our text lands us today—right in the middle of a hopeless situation. After decades (some say 70years) of exile in Babylon, the Judeans are free to return to their homeland, only to find it destroyed and barren. What they thought would be a joyous homecoming has ended in feelings of despair, hopelessness. They told the stories of this place to their children and their grandchildren, only to return to a place that was unrecognizable. And in their despair, hopelessness, they feel this incredible distance from God. They question whether God is working on their behalf— if God is listening at all. In the midst of this great sorrow, in the midst of this despair, hopelessness, they raise up a great crying to God: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!” The picture here gives a great sense of longing for God to be revealed, to intervene, to interject some light into the midst of
this darkness, to bring about some kind of hope into a seemingly hopeless situation.
Slide #15-23 READ: Isaiah 64:1-9
Slide #24 BODY
1. Because of their hopeless situation, the Judeans cry out in grief to God.
a. They wonder where God is.
i. They think they’ve been abandoned by God, and they want to know why God would leave them this way.
ii. They ask God to draw near.
1. The language “come down” and “make known” point to the reality that they long for a great and visible intercession from God.
iii. They recall the ways God has interceded in the past and wonder where God is this time.
1. These people have heard their entire lives the miraculous stories surrounding Abraham and Moses, how God established their nation, freed the people from slavery in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea.
2. The sorrow of the Judeans leads them to confession.
a. As they request God to draw close and reveal God’s power, the sorrow shifts to confession: they have continued to sin, and no one calls on the Lord’s name anymore.
b. There is some true honesty happening in this sorrow-turned-confession. They believe their sin has caused God to turn away from them. They view their righteous acts as “filthy rags” in light of their sin. They are dirty and have forsaken God.
c. This is a communal confession. It is not about individual sin. Many of these individuals weren’t even born yet when the nation of Israel entered exile—which means this confession is not about individual acts but about who they are and have historically been as a community of people.
i. This is about corporate sin—the ways that they as a society, as a people, have rejected God; the ways they have been disobedient to whom God has called them to be.
1. Whom has God called them to be? A hospitable people who love God and love their neighbors.
2. They have repeatedly lived in opposition to the people they were called to be. (This is a theme repeated throughout the Old Testament.)
3. We can see the idea of collective sin in the language of their confession: “we continued to sin” in verse 5; “all of us” in verse 6; “no one” in verse 7.
d. This act of confession shows a shift in their thinking. God is not to blame for their present circumstances.
They have a responsibility to own the choices and actions that have gotten them into their current situation.
e. Even in their desperation, they trust that God is listening to them.
i. Confession and sorrow often go hand in hand.
1. Sorrow is the act of crying out about circumstances.
2. Confession is both a plea for forgiveness and for relationship.
3. In both sorrow and confession, they long for something to be restored and renewed.
3. They reach a point where there’s nothing left to say.
a. There is a gap in the text between verses 7 and 8. It seems they have expressed so much despair, hopelessness that they have nothing left to say. All that’s left is complete and utter hopelessness.
4. Glimmers of hope eventually appear.
a. After the gap, however, the entire tone of the text changes. It’s like a switch is flipped between verse 7 and verse 8. God is now “Father” and “potter.” The people are now “the clay” and “the work of your hand.”
b. Their circumstances haven’t changed from verse 7 to verse 8. They are still looking at a desolate place to call home. They still face insurmountable odds.
i. What shifts is their view of their relationship with God in the midst of this hopeless situation.
ii. There is hope—not because of the good the people have done. Their confession shows they have lacked
good and right actions.
iii. There is hope—not because of their circumstances. Their homeland still lies in ruin. They have had no triumphal homecoming. They still have nowhere to live.
iv. Yet there is hope—because of who God is.
1. God is their Father. This is about relationship. They express their confidence in a God who loves them, in spite of their failings.
2. God is the Potter. God is at work molding them, actively moving in ways that make God’s people look more like God.
3. They are God’s people. After the sorrow and the confession, the people remember their identity. Regardless of whether they have a home, they remain the people of God.
5. There is hope for us too, even in the midst of our hopeless situations.
a. On this first Sunday of Advent, many of us are also walking through or toward seemingly hopeless situations.
i. Maybe we are looking ahead at spending time with family with a deep apprehension that our longing for a picture-perfect holiday could easily be tattered by addiction, unhealthy relationships, or unspoken pain.
ii. Some of us walk toward the holiday season knowing we won’t have a loved one with us. What is supposed to be a joyous occasion has become one of distress and heartache.
iii. Others of us were looking forward to a great year, only to be faced with financial hardship or illness, and we wonder how we will make it.
b. God feels distant, far away in the midst of hopeless situations.
i. Despair, hopelessness has a way of robbing us of joy. We wonder where God is in the midst of this pain. We look longingly at where God has worked in the past and ask whether God is still close to us now.
c. Confession is an important part of Advent. Not all of our hopeless situations are caused by our own choices, our own sins. Sometimes they are caused by the sins and choices of others. Yet we know there are places we need to confess.
i. Sometimes we have participated in collective action that has wronged others. Other times we might need to confess our attitudes or thoughts in response to others.
ii. We don’t always think of Advent as a time of confession, but confession often leads us to look at things with new eyes.
d. Through our sorrow and our confession, in the midst of our desperation, we are led to remember who God is and who we are. Our circumstances this Advent might not change. All of those hopeless situations we are facing might still be facing us, even as Christmas comes.
i. God is still our Father, and still the Potter. God desires relationship with us, in spite of what we’ve done and despite our circumstances. God also desires to make us holy, in spite of what we’ve done and despite our circumstances.
ii. We are still God’s people. We are not abandoned, disowned by God, and as God’s beloved people, we have hope that God is still doing a new thing in us.
CONCLUSION
The true hope for the world is still a long time coming from the perspective of our text this morning. We have the honor of seeing more deeply into the story. We know how it will turn out for the Israelites—but that doesn’t mean we don’t face our own hopeless situations today because we don’t know how our own stories are going to go. We may yet have years ahead of us of questioning the presence of God or of who we are in the world.
Slide #25 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a great Christmas poem, in which he said, “And in despair I bowed my head; there is no peace on earth, I said. For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men.”
Slide #26 We can feel that despair, hopelessness keenly in our text today, but we often feel it so keenly in our lives as well. And yet. There is hope. There is hope! Not because everything is going to work out the way we think it should. There is hope! Not because everything is going to be wrapped up with a neat bow by Christmas morning. There is hope because God still hears us cry out, just like God heard God’s children cry out hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago. There is hope because God is a good, good Father who loves us. There is hope because we are still God’s people.
So even today—weeks before Christmas, when we will celebrate the Light of the world coming, when the earth will rejoice over the birth of Christ—in the midst of our despair today, we still cling to hope because we are still the beloved children of God.
Slide #27 Join us next week as we continue to celebrate Advent, the coming of the Christ Child.
Slide#28 As we leave today, be reminded that we not only do what is done here, but what we do in our community also. Go, be the Church