"Come and Save Us" - Sermon for Advent 1, Dec 3rd 2017
Sermon
Text:
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ who will indeed come and save us.
Sarah
and I were looking through our schedule for the next month and discovered that
we have something every weekend from here to Christmas and even after, if not
things both Saturday and Sunday each weekend. Now it’s all fun stuff, Old
Fashioned Christmas, Blue Christmas service, the Christmas program, various
Christmas parties and get together, and then Christmas stuff itself, but on top
of still getting the house put together after the wedding, and all the other
normal stuff of life, it’s rather busy and tiring at times.
I
then think of all the things going on the world at the moment, concerns over
health care, arguments and fighting about politics, the seemingly never ending
list of men in positions of power who used that power to abuse and mistreat
women and the anger at those men because of that, the continued rhetoric of
racism from many in power in our country, and fear about war, disease, and
money. I see and hear people nearly everyday talking about how it feels like
everything is going crazy right now.
And
that’s just things in the wider world, at confirmation and youth group the kids
are more and more busy as the semester winds down and winter sports pick up at
the same time. For the rest of us this time of year means similar schedules to
what I described for Sarah and I, there are more and more things, if you have
kids, it’s even more things, and regular life and work don’t stop. Just because
you have things Saturday and Sunday doesn’t mean that laundry stops piling up,
doesn’t mean that other errands and work stop. Reports still have to be made,
hours logged at work, grades reported, work trips taken, every other thing
dealt with. There’s almost an end of the world type feel, or maybe a God the
end of the world might be a nice change of pace.
That
last bit is certainly what’s going on in our Isaiah lesson today. The
Israelites have returned home from Babylon after 50-60 years of exile, and
after that freedom they expect everything to just go smoothly, and it doesn’t.
There is infighting, the temple rebuilding isn’t going as planned, everything
is taking longer and not working how they want it to. They feel as if God is
not helping and is even hiding from them because of all of this. They feel as
if they are doing all the right things, but God is not responding and is not present.
“Because you hid yourself we transgressed,” they say. Because of that absence
they sin against God and against each other. This all gets to the point that we
have the verse that starts this passage, “O that you would tear open the
heavens and come down,” Rend the heavens God! Tear apart the sky! And come to
us. Come and Save us.
Our
Psalm today speaks of a similar concern. It’s unclear if this is a psalm of
David or a psalm written during the exile, the two most common origins of the
psalms, but either author points to a time where everything is chaos around
them, similar to Isaiah and our own situation, the people are in trouble, they
have sinned, and God is angry. O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry
with your people's prayers? 5 You have fed them with the bread of tears, and
given them tears to drink in full measure. 6 You make us the scorn of our
neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves. 7 Restore us, O God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.”
Open
the heavens and come down, restore us, O God of hosts, let your face shine that
we may be saved. Come and save us O God.
We
sing Joy to the World today, which even though is connected to Christmas is an
Advent hymn. Verse 3, No more let sin and sorrow grow nor thorns infest the
ground; he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. God
comes in Christ, Jesus is born because of the sin and sorrow, the thorns, the
curse. All those things going on for the people Isaiah and the psalm, a messiah
was promised to them and God’s power came to save them, to all the people of
Jesus’ time, Roman occupation and Herod’s brutal rule, Christ was born, and to
us, in the midst of all the busyness, all the fear and confusion of what’s
going on in our world, the concern over our future, the grief we may be going
through, to that Christ comes and is born, and his blessings flow as far the
curse is found. Nothing is beyond God’s reach. No fear is unseen by God, no
concern will go uncomforted, no grief unnoticed. When we cry out, whenever we
cry out, God will come and save us. That is our promise this first week of
Advent.
O God, we cry out with the people of Isaiah, O that you
would tear open the heavens and come down, we call out with the psalmist,
Restore us, O God, let your face shine upon us, and we will be saved, we shout
ourselves, Come and Save us, O God. And you hear us, you answer us, and you
have sent Jesus to be born among us, and send the Spirit to surround and
support us at all times. Be with us this Advent season Lord, prepare us for
your coming once again. Amen.
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