"Restore Us, O Lord"

 

"Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved." – Psalm 80

 

"Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand."– Isaiah 64

 

            We begin the season of Advent with two prayers of lament, from Psalm 80 and Isaiah 64. These are prayers that point the way to hope. In them we hear a deep desire for the presence of the Lord. These are not the type of prayers that are prayed when one first encounters a difficulty. The intensity and longing and impatience that we encounter in these prayers indicate they come after a long period of waiting, of wondering and of suffering. These are prayers voiced in the night of the soul. Yet in them we find an absolute confidence in the reality and the ability of God. He is the Shepherd of Israel, the potter forming the clay, and he is our Father.

            "No one has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him."

             Advent begins in the shadows with people who wait and wonder and lament, and then it moves us toward hope and finally to the birth of Christ.

            Those who wrote the lectionary, who chose the readings for each week in the church, decided to begin this new season with a prayer from the very end of Isaiah. This is an extremely difficult starting place. (Some people say that when they get to heaven, they have some questions to ask God. Others want St. Peter to explain some things. I would like an appointment with the ones who wrote the lectionary.)

            The last section of Isaiah deals with the experience of the Israelites in returning home from exile in Babylon. When Babylon defeated Judah and destroyed much of Jerusalem, including the temple, the order of the universe held by the people was shattered. They lost the center of their identity, along with their institutions of government, the priesthood and their livelihoods. Their homeland was overrun by looters, pagan gods and foreign armies, while they were forced to relocate in Babylon. They ended up in the confusion of a new land, and tried to put life together again in a strange place where Marduk and Nebo were worshiped. The Babylonians extended their empire by destroying the cultures of conquered peoples. So the exiles were told to forget about the Lord God. The message they received was "Your god was too weak to defend you. Our gods make us prosperous."

            Paul Hanson writes that in Babylon, Isaiah "held before the people a compelling vision of its identity, purpose and place in creation. This was held by a holy center, 'I am the LORD, and there is no other.' (Isaiah 45:5)" The message in chapters 40 – 55 is one of the entire creation restored and the renewal of the people of God.

             In 539 B.C., Cyrus consolidated the Medes and the Persians and then defeated Babylon. He then restored all the captive people to their homelands and gave them financial aid to rebuild. The last section of Isaiah is about the return of the people in exile to Jerusalem and what life was like for them there. Only part of the exiled community chose to return home. Those who went took with them plans to rebuild the temple, and were able to lay the foundation. But then things began to deteriorate. They experienced drought, crop failure, hunger and inflation. It was a time of severe hardship complicated by bitter rivalry among groups of those who had returned, corruption in the government and a growing vindictive spirit towards other nations. Hanson concludes "Those who returned to Zion did not find prosperity, peace and joy."

            Isaiah 59:9: "We wait for light, and lo! Darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom."

            In the midst of a very difficult time, they also discovered an underlying issue in the toleration of the Persians. Yes, they were allowed to return home and encouraged to reclaim their culture and religion. But the Persian philosophy was one of syncretism. They believed that there was no competition between gods, because "The Divine has many faces." John Oswalt describes it this way: "To you it looks like this; to me it looks like that; but we are both looking at the same divine reality." The Persians held their empire together by proclaiming that all gods are essentially one. They believed that in the end we all have the same god, and so the message became "building a temple to the Lord God and maintaining the idea of a separate God to be worshipped was unnecessary and a waste of time." This message eroded the morale of the people, and weakened their obedience to the Lord.

            This is the context out of which the lament arises. The book of Isaiah and indeed, the Old Testament, ends not with rejoicing, but with lament. A prayer of lament expresses grief, and names what has been lost. It calls on God to act, to make himself known to the people who are experiencing pain and suffering. It then remembers the acts of God in the past, includes a statement of repentance and ends in renewed faith and hope. It was through lament that a people in a very painful time were able to reconnect with God.

            We have a tendency to skip the Prayers of Lament, and move directly to rejoicing. But when we do that, the rejoicing can seem to be exclusive, it leaves out those who know grief and bear heavy loads. It can also feel hollow or empty, more of a performance than an expression of the heart. We can even try to use the externals of the Christmas season to fill an empty place in the heart.

            Advent gives us permission to lament. We begin with an honest assessment of our lives before God.

"This is how I feel. Here is what I have lost." I name the heaviness in my life.

            Then when we turn to God in prayer, the lament guides us to ask for God's presence, rather than asking God to solve our problems. Here is where asking others to pray for you can be such a help. I have found that when we are able to ask others to pray for the presence of God around an issue in our lives, and when people will actually do that, rather than giving advice, then in the weeks to come we experience a clarity, a deeper understanding, an insight, often into ourselves, that is clearly from God. I have found that in these prayers where we need the presence of God, rather than a solution from God, the answer comes with unmistakable affirmation, love and clear conviction. It lifts the fog and allows us to walk in the light.

            It is at this point of praying for God's presence that the image of the potter and the clay speaks most directly. Years ago the image of potter and clay was used often in youth gatherings. The message was, if you let God mold your life, then you will be successful and perhaps even a hero in God's service. It was very much a message addressed to you as an individual. Let God be the potter of the clay of your life.

            Today I see that young people hear this word in a different way, closer, I think, to what its intent was in Isaiah. The image speaks not just about individuals, but about community. "We are all the work of your hand." The potter is forming the community to be a vessel of service. Young people today are much more willing to work in community, to work as part of a team. The potter does not just form me into a separate little clay jar on the shelf, he forms us into vessels for his purpose. As Neil Taylor said when he was here, "When I discovered the Great Commission I knew I could not do that alone, so I found a group where we could do it together."

            There is in the image of the potter a sense of unity and being formed together as a body of Christ. Isaiah contrasts the vessel made useful by the potter, to the single dry leaf that blows in the wind. That raises the issue of repentance.

            "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away."

            For Israel after the Exile, life was hard and it was not working out as they had hoped or planned. They felt frustrated and discouraged. They started to believe the messages the culture was speaking to them. "God no longer loves you. God does not care. What good is it to obey the commands of the Lord God when he is just one face of a greater Divine Being?" They began to fight among themselves and live for their own glory, and they became like dry leaves swept away by the wind. It was in repentance and turning again to the true God that they rediscovered what it is to call God "Father" and what it means to be clay in God's hands.

            In their lament they were able to say "God, you made us, you shaped us, you called us, and you acted for us in the past. Now tell us the purpose you have in mind for us. Why have you shaped this vessel in this time?"

            That is the question of hope. That is the question that points to Messiah. That is the question that finds its answer in the birth of Jesus, the presence of God among us, Immanuel. That is the question that leads to rejoicing. So let us enter this Advent with honest lament, remembering God's presence with thanks, and with the hope that comes from Christ our Savior.

            Amen.