Preaching on Advent 1
Here are some thoughts on making sense of the lectionary readings for Advent 1: Is 64.ane–ix; Mark 13.24–37
'Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come downward!' Isaiah's cry of desperation resonates with the cry of many today. If merely God would make everything clear! If only he would remove doubt, and bring clarity! If only he would stop hiding, and make himself known!
Isaiah is suspended between conviction in the past and promise for the future, and is left with dubiety in the nowadays. His confidence is rooted in what he has seen of God's by action in his mighty acts. He rescued his people from slavery; he sustained them miraculously in the desert; he gifted them a land of milk and dearest and drove out their enemies. And yet this excitement at the power and presence of God with his people seems long past—a jaded memory that mocks him now.
But at that place is promise for the future. Though God's people are still in exile, an anointed i will pb them back through the desert to the promised land of sometime. The oppressed will hear good news in one case more; the anxious will be bound up; the captives volition be set free; and the solar day of the Lord will come (Is 61). However, along with hope, in that location is danger. If God comes to judge all that is evil, what will become of the evil in me? Right from the beginning, Isaiah has recognised that the trouble is not so much with what is without—the enemies all around—merely with what is inside, the godlessness within God's ain people. As Paul echoes in Romans 3, no-one calls on God; all have sinned.
Jesus' followers are besides suspended betwixt judgement and hope. Astonished at Jesus' word of judgment on the Temple (Marking thirteen.2) they ask when this will come up—when this day of the Lord will be. In respond to a single question, Jesus gives a double reply, as we can run into fifty-fifty more clearly in Matthew'southward version (Matt 24). Though Jesus longed to gather his people to him 'every bit a hen gathers her chicks' (Matt 23.37), they would non—and and then destruction will come up upon them. The Temple would be destroyed, with great suffering, inside the lifetime of his disciples (Marker thirteen.thirty). Equally the fig-tree has withered through lack of fruit, and so the temple will perish because it did not recognise its Lord (Mark eleven.12–20). Only as Isaiah predicted (Is thirteen.x, 34.iv), the powers will be shaken, and for all who trusted in the Temple sacrifices, the world will come to an end.
Yet even this bulletin is shot through with promise. In fulfilment of Daniel 7, the Son of Homo who has been handed over and crucified will exist exalted—he will come on the clouds to the Ancient of Days on the throne, and be seated at his right hand. And his followers volition evidence to it, fifty-fifty as they face death themselves (Acts eight.55–56). Every bit a result, this message of hope volition spill out across Judea and Samaria, to every tribe, language, people and nation. Just equally Joel foresaw in his reworking of Isaiah (Joel 2.32), anybody calling on the name of the Lord Jesus, even from the ends of the world, will be saved and gathered to God.
And Jesus does not stop there. Though the kingdom of God, the age to come up, has broken decisively into this present age, nosotros long to meet its fullness revealed. In the 2nd part of his respond (Marking thirteen.32f, expanded in Matt 24.36–24.46) he speaks of some other Mean solar day. The work he has begun, and then entrusted to his servant-followers to go on, will one mean solar day be brought to completion. Just every bit the heavens were one time rent when God came down (Mark 1.10), and then they will be hire again, as Jesus comes not to the Ancient of Days, but from him, to brand real God'due south presence amid his people forever, across a shadow of a doubt (Rev 21.3).
So nosotros share with Isaiah both a retentiveness and a longing. And nonetheless, for us, the Spirit of God has been poured out on all (Joel 2.28, Acts 2.17), and the honey of God poured into our hearts by that same Spirit (Romans 5.5). Equally we wait for Jesus' render—making his loving invitation known, and continuing his work—that makes all the deviation.
This has likewise been posted on the Christian Today website. For more detail on this gospel passage and its parallels, see my posts on Marking 13, Matthew 24 and Matthew 25.
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