The future is now
Commentary
Isaiah has been called "the prophet of the holy." His personal encounter with God, described in vivid detail in chapter 6, was formative for his career as a prophet of God. Isaiah believed that not only he, but the entire nation, was called to holy living. As the prophecy unfolds, it is clear that this holiness is not "pie in the sky." To be holy is to be useful, to be just, to be fair, to be concerned for one's neighbor. It is a call to a life of worship that is rooted in integrity.
With that as background, the lesson for this day bears out the sharp contrast between hope and reality, between what God expected of them and what, in fact, they had become. They are desperate times that call for desperate words from a desperate prophet. Though some have returned from exile, most are still in bondage in Babylon. The land they dreamed of from afar has been pillaged and razed until there is nothing left on which to build for the future.
Isaiah remembers that in the past God had come to a forsaken and lost people and pleads that it might happen again. The deliverance from bondage in Egypt; the pillar of fire and the cloud, signs of God's presence in the wilderness; the glory days of David and Solomon -- these must be in his mind when he calls again for more of those "awesome deeds that we did not expect" (v. 3).
The problem, of course, is that they have abandoned God. Though the Babylonians have been their oppressors, they are their own worst enemy. It is their rejection of God that is at the root of all their problems. One of the most insightful descriptions of sin is found in verse 5: "You were angry, and we sinned." The phrase seems inverted. Should it not be, "We sinned, and you were angry"? No, Isaiah has it right. There are times when we react exactly in this way. Instead of repenting of our sin and turning from our way to sure destruction, fallen humans react instead by sinning even more intentionally. "If God is angry with me, why bother to do what is right? Why not 'eat, drink and be merry'?"
In spite of all this, Isaiah, true prophet of God, cannot give up. The phrase, "Yet, O Lord." (v. 8) is pure Gospel. The bold prophet calls God to accountability. Surely God cannot throw away the very pot that has been fashioned in such tender love! Surely there is still some way God can use these people. But because of their sin, it all depends on God. Only God can bring hope. This is our own cry on this First Sunday in Advent: "Stir up your power, O Lord, and come."
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Isaiah's longing for a theophany -- a revelation of God -- continues as a theme in Paul's epistle to the believers in Corinth. Given what follows -- severe criticism of the members of this community for a variety of faults -- one would hardly expect Paul to begin with such a positive word. Though he will have to deal sternly with their misuse of spiritual gifts later in his letter, he is able here in these opening lines to find some reasons for gratitude. There is something to be learned from Paul. In the most difficult and divided congregation among those first communities, Paul can find some reason to give thanks. Is it not wise and tactful to look for reasons to commend and praise before we speak the more difficult words of correction?
The reason we have this lesson for Advent 1 is primarily because of the phrase, "as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 7). We can assume a certain impatience among some of the believers at Corinth. Having been blessed with some unusual gifts of the Spirit, they may have seen these as signs of the imminent return of Christ. Though Paul may have been responsible for some of that speculation, it seems that his purpose here is to remind them that they need to be patient. "He will strengthen you to the end" is a word of reassurance, urging them to hold on to their hope in Christ even when their expectations are disappointed.
As also becomes apparent later in the letter, some of the Corinthians took undue pride in their spiritual gifts. Paul wants to make sure they know that he is grateful for these signs of the Spirit's work among them -- "you have been enriched in him" -- even as he prepares them for strong words of advice on how these gifts can used to build up the body of believers.
John Ruysbroeck (1293-1381), sometimes described as the most transcendental of all mystics, emphasized that the first duty of "those who follow the way of love" is to "be like all good people." For him, as with most mystics, life in Christ was not withdrawal while we wait for the coming of the Lord, but fulfillment of our duty in a life of active service. The true saints of God "must renounce self-will, learn to bear provocation with gentleness, show a friendly face, and be ready to serve, give and lend to everyone, while cleaving to God alone." (Evelyn Underhill, The Mystics of the Church, New York: Shocken Books, 1964, p. 149.) The believers in Corinth would soon learn from Paul that waiting for the coming of the Lord did not give them an excuse for separation from the world and its needs.
Mark 13:24-37
This lesson from Mark's "Little Apocalypse" is brimming over with dramatic imagery. Some of it comes out of Old Testament apocalyptic literature -- the failure of sun, moon, and stars -- and some is new with Jesus. This imagery and two parables are clustered around three "sayings" of Jesus, found in verses 30, 31, and 32. The first -- "this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place" -- is a self-vindication of the life and ministry of Jesus. Though the moment is one of darkness and uncertainty for his followers, Jesus wants to assure them that his word and work will find full justification. The same may be said of the second saying -- "my words will not pass away." The third is both interesting and problematic. It touches on the issue of the humanity of James. How limited was he in his human life and experience? If we take it as it stands, it surely points to some limitation on what he knew.
When coupled with the parables, the message of the text is that in the midst of much lack of specific knowledge about the future, the children of the Kingdom are not without confidence. If Jesus' understanding of the future, though limited, was sufficient for him to move forward with his calling, then his followers can have that same hope and certainty. We need not be paralyzed by the prospect of the judgment to come and all that will accompany it.
This is borne out in the parable of the fig tree. As in the prophecy of Joel (2:22), the sign of the fig tree, writes Jeremias, is an encouragement to the disciples not to focus only on the horrors to come, but to see these as signs of the time of salvation. And why a fig tree? According to Jeremias, "The fig tree is distinguished from the other tree of Palestine, such as the olive ... by the fact that it casts its leaves, so that the bare spiky twigs which give it an appearance of being utterly dead, make it possible to watch the return of the rising sap with special clearness. It is the day of salvation because the Saviour is already here. The light is kindled." (Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963, p. 120.)
The second parable calls attention to the important idea that our understanding of the future will shape the way we live in the present age. We sometimes say that "the present shapes the future." But is it not even more legitimate to say that "the future shapes the present"? What we hope for the future, we want for ourselves and for our world, will inevitably determine how we live from day to day. If we are certain God will speak the last word, we need not know the details about the future, any more than Jesus knew them. But that very certainty will lead us to heed the urgent message of the second parable: "Beware, keep alert" (v. 33), "Keep awake" (v. 35), "What I say to you I say to all: Keep awake" (v. 37).
Suggestions For Preaching
One must be careful this first Sunday in Advent not to disconnect the new year from the old. The lessons for this day interlock with those we have been reading on the last Sundays of the church year, and so should our preaching. In fact, the lessons for this day have more in common with those of the last several Sundays than they have with the remaining Sundays of Advent. On those Sundays we will be thinking about preparation for the birth of Christ -- his first coming. Today we are still looking at the final, future judgment and the call of God to be alert. All the more reason to resist the temptation to rush into the Christmas season.
How should one deal with these strange and wonderful apocalyptic texts? I like the suggestion of Claus Westermann: "(God's prophet) cannot recognize God's plans, he ... can never say more than he is newly commanded to say for each new moment; his knowledge is only a pointer to the majestic power of the Lord of history, whose horizons are far too powerful for human understanding. These (apocalyptic) words of God, these long periods in which none of the things foretold in God's word happened, have their counterpart on the human level in silent trustful waiting for God, come what may." (Claus Westermann, A Thousand Years and a Day, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982, p. 225.)
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Isaiah 64:1-9
An absence and a presence come together in Isaiah's words to define Advent's expectation. God is absent, our iniquities so present as to make us sick and tired of ourselves, leaving no alternative but the hope of return.
As commonly as the Psalmists and the reformers speak of God's absence, it is not a theme common in today's pulpit. Yet there are times and circumstances that elicit it: the gathering doom of December, as shortening days and the weather collaborate with the night; untimely death; malingering cancer. Such forces remind us that God is out of reach, beyond us, unbending even in the face of desperate prayer.
"You hid yourself," Isaiah says (v. 5). That God hides, that the Almighty won't commit to our schemes and systems, is hard for the Church to take. And yet the Scripture and experience come together here: there is a foreboding figure who lurks at the edge of the revelation, whose remoteness, whose absence becomes almost palpable.
Yet there is another force that can add its own weight to the sense of God's distance. Stuck in desperation, Isaiah remembers the "awesome deeds" of the Lord, God's continuing work for the faithful. Absence is only possible when there has been nearness, a closeness worth remembering. It is not now -- something is wrong now -- but once it was different and, even more importantly, in the future, it will be as it was: God will be near again.
Such memory and hope have another power: to deepen Isaiah's awareness of his own iniquity and that of his people, "... because you hid yourself, we transgressed." In fact, the sense of iniquity becomes all-pervasive: it feels like being ritually unclean, Isaiah says, and therefore excluded from everything holy; the greatest achievements of the self appear shot through with self-aggrandizement and therefore worthless; death seems the only certainty, faithlessness the one abiding reality.
And so, Isaiah says, in some of the coldest words of Scripture, God has delivered us to our iniquities. Fed up with our fears and longings for ourselves, our withdrawals and attempts to dominate, God has simply handed us over to our own desires. "Have it your way, go ahead, but don't expect anything from me ...."
The temptation nowadays would be to write Isaiah's reactions off to shame and despair. There is, however, a healthy self-indictment that is born of hope. God's absence wouldn't make sense without God's nearness. Just go, a confession of sin makes no sense without the graciousness of God's promise.
So Isaiah is driven back into expectation -- an urgent hopefulness aboil with God's future. It can't go on this way -- God won't allow it. "Oh, that you would kindle fire like brushwood and come ...."
With that as background, the lesson for this day bears out the sharp contrast between hope and reality, between what God expected of them and what, in fact, they had become. They are desperate times that call for desperate words from a desperate prophet. Though some have returned from exile, most are still in bondage in Babylon. The land they dreamed of from afar has been pillaged and razed until there is nothing left on which to build for the future.
Isaiah remembers that in the past God had come to a forsaken and lost people and pleads that it might happen again. The deliverance from bondage in Egypt; the pillar of fire and the cloud, signs of God's presence in the wilderness; the glory days of David and Solomon -- these must be in his mind when he calls again for more of those "awesome deeds that we did not expect" (v. 3).
The problem, of course, is that they have abandoned God. Though the Babylonians have been their oppressors, they are their own worst enemy. It is their rejection of God that is at the root of all their problems. One of the most insightful descriptions of sin is found in verse 5: "You were angry, and we sinned." The phrase seems inverted. Should it not be, "We sinned, and you were angry"? No, Isaiah has it right. There are times when we react exactly in this way. Instead of repenting of our sin and turning from our way to sure destruction, fallen humans react instead by sinning even more intentionally. "If God is angry with me, why bother to do what is right? Why not 'eat, drink and be merry'?"
In spite of all this, Isaiah, true prophet of God, cannot give up. The phrase, "Yet, O Lord." (v. 8) is pure Gospel. The bold prophet calls God to accountability. Surely God cannot throw away the very pot that has been fashioned in such tender love! Surely there is still some way God can use these people. But because of their sin, it all depends on God. Only God can bring hope. This is our own cry on this First Sunday in Advent: "Stir up your power, O Lord, and come."
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Isaiah's longing for a theophany -- a revelation of God -- continues as a theme in Paul's epistle to the believers in Corinth. Given what follows -- severe criticism of the members of this community for a variety of faults -- one would hardly expect Paul to begin with such a positive word. Though he will have to deal sternly with their misuse of spiritual gifts later in his letter, he is able here in these opening lines to find some reasons for gratitude. There is something to be learned from Paul. In the most difficult and divided congregation among those first communities, Paul can find some reason to give thanks. Is it not wise and tactful to look for reasons to commend and praise before we speak the more difficult words of correction?
The reason we have this lesson for Advent 1 is primarily because of the phrase, "as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 7). We can assume a certain impatience among some of the believers at Corinth. Having been blessed with some unusual gifts of the Spirit, they may have seen these as signs of the imminent return of Christ. Though Paul may have been responsible for some of that speculation, it seems that his purpose here is to remind them that they need to be patient. "He will strengthen you to the end" is a word of reassurance, urging them to hold on to their hope in Christ even when their expectations are disappointed.
As also becomes apparent later in the letter, some of the Corinthians took undue pride in their spiritual gifts. Paul wants to make sure they know that he is grateful for these signs of the Spirit's work among them -- "you have been enriched in him" -- even as he prepares them for strong words of advice on how these gifts can used to build up the body of believers.
John Ruysbroeck (1293-1381), sometimes described as the most transcendental of all mystics, emphasized that the first duty of "those who follow the way of love" is to "be like all good people." For him, as with most mystics, life in Christ was not withdrawal while we wait for the coming of the Lord, but fulfillment of our duty in a life of active service. The true saints of God "must renounce self-will, learn to bear provocation with gentleness, show a friendly face, and be ready to serve, give and lend to everyone, while cleaving to God alone." (Evelyn Underhill, The Mystics of the Church, New York: Shocken Books, 1964, p. 149.) The believers in Corinth would soon learn from Paul that waiting for the coming of the Lord did not give them an excuse for separation from the world and its needs.
Mark 13:24-37
This lesson from Mark's "Little Apocalypse" is brimming over with dramatic imagery. Some of it comes out of Old Testament apocalyptic literature -- the failure of sun, moon, and stars -- and some is new with Jesus. This imagery and two parables are clustered around three "sayings" of Jesus, found in verses 30, 31, and 32. The first -- "this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place" -- is a self-vindication of the life and ministry of Jesus. Though the moment is one of darkness and uncertainty for his followers, Jesus wants to assure them that his word and work will find full justification. The same may be said of the second saying -- "my words will not pass away." The third is both interesting and problematic. It touches on the issue of the humanity of James. How limited was he in his human life and experience? If we take it as it stands, it surely points to some limitation on what he knew.
When coupled with the parables, the message of the text is that in the midst of much lack of specific knowledge about the future, the children of the Kingdom are not without confidence. If Jesus' understanding of the future, though limited, was sufficient for him to move forward with his calling, then his followers can have that same hope and certainty. We need not be paralyzed by the prospect of the judgment to come and all that will accompany it.
This is borne out in the parable of the fig tree. As in the prophecy of Joel (2:22), the sign of the fig tree, writes Jeremias, is an encouragement to the disciples not to focus only on the horrors to come, but to see these as signs of the time of salvation. And why a fig tree? According to Jeremias, "The fig tree is distinguished from the other tree of Palestine, such as the olive ... by the fact that it casts its leaves, so that the bare spiky twigs which give it an appearance of being utterly dead, make it possible to watch the return of the rising sap with special clearness. It is the day of salvation because the Saviour is already here. The light is kindled." (Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963, p. 120.)
The second parable calls attention to the important idea that our understanding of the future will shape the way we live in the present age. We sometimes say that "the present shapes the future." But is it not even more legitimate to say that "the future shapes the present"? What we hope for the future, we want for ourselves and for our world, will inevitably determine how we live from day to day. If we are certain God will speak the last word, we need not know the details about the future, any more than Jesus knew them. But that very certainty will lead us to heed the urgent message of the second parable: "Beware, keep alert" (v. 33), "Keep awake" (v. 35), "What I say to you I say to all: Keep awake" (v. 37).
Suggestions For Preaching
One must be careful this first Sunday in Advent not to disconnect the new year from the old. The lessons for this day interlock with those we have been reading on the last Sundays of the church year, and so should our preaching. In fact, the lessons for this day have more in common with those of the last several Sundays than they have with the remaining Sundays of Advent. On those Sundays we will be thinking about preparation for the birth of Christ -- his first coming. Today we are still looking at the final, future judgment and the call of God to be alert. All the more reason to resist the temptation to rush into the Christmas season.
How should one deal with these strange and wonderful apocalyptic texts? I like the suggestion of Claus Westermann: "(God's prophet) cannot recognize God's plans, he ... can never say more than he is newly commanded to say for each new moment; his knowledge is only a pointer to the majestic power of the Lord of history, whose horizons are far too powerful for human understanding. These (apocalyptic) words of God, these long periods in which none of the things foretold in God's word happened, have their counterpart on the human level in silent trustful waiting for God, come what may." (Claus Westermann, A Thousand Years and a Day, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982, p. 225.)
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Isaiah 64:1-9
An absence and a presence come together in Isaiah's words to define Advent's expectation. God is absent, our iniquities so present as to make us sick and tired of ourselves, leaving no alternative but the hope of return.
As commonly as the Psalmists and the reformers speak of God's absence, it is not a theme common in today's pulpit. Yet there are times and circumstances that elicit it: the gathering doom of December, as shortening days and the weather collaborate with the night; untimely death; malingering cancer. Such forces remind us that God is out of reach, beyond us, unbending even in the face of desperate prayer.
"You hid yourself," Isaiah says (v. 5). That God hides, that the Almighty won't commit to our schemes and systems, is hard for the Church to take. And yet the Scripture and experience come together here: there is a foreboding figure who lurks at the edge of the revelation, whose remoteness, whose absence becomes almost palpable.
Yet there is another force that can add its own weight to the sense of God's distance. Stuck in desperation, Isaiah remembers the "awesome deeds" of the Lord, God's continuing work for the faithful. Absence is only possible when there has been nearness, a closeness worth remembering. It is not now -- something is wrong now -- but once it was different and, even more importantly, in the future, it will be as it was: God will be near again.
Such memory and hope have another power: to deepen Isaiah's awareness of his own iniquity and that of his people, "... because you hid yourself, we transgressed." In fact, the sense of iniquity becomes all-pervasive: it feels like being ritually unclean, Isaiah says, and therefore excluded from everything holy; the greatest achievements of the self appear shot through with self-aggrandizement and therefore worthless; death seems the only certainty, faithlessness the one abiding reality.
And so, Isaiah says, in some of the coldest words of Scripture, God has delivered us to our iniquities. Fed up with our fears and longings for ourselves, our withdrawals and attempts to dominate, God has simply handed us over to our own desires. "Have it your way, go ahead, but don't expect anything from me ...."
The temptation nowadays would be to write Isaiah's reactions off to shame and despair. There is, however, a healthy self-indictment that is born of hope. God's absence wouldn't make sense without God's nearness. Just go, a confession of sin makes no sense without the graciousness of God's promise.
So Isaiah is driven back into expectation -- an urgent hopefulness aboil with God's future. It can't go on this way -- God won't allow it. "Oh, that you would kindle fire like brushwood and come ...."
