Advent 1: Old Testament, Isaiah 64:1-9                           

Isaiah 64:1-9

When Advent dawns near the end of our calendar year I am always encouraged. Yes I love the season itself, and that to which it draws our attention. But I also love it because for centuries the Christian Church has turned to the prophet Isaiah during this season as the primary herald and “gospeler,” if I can use such a term. Isaiah has been tagged as “the Fifth Gospel” because it brings the glad tidings wrapped in Old Testament imagery and New Covenant hope. There was yet no written New Testament, of course.

The promises having been made all through the chosen one’s history, Isaiah comes on the scene some eight centuries before the birth of the Messiah and he tells of both the first and second advents of the King. And we must be aware and ready to entertain both. Jesus as warm, bundled package and Jesus as anything but. “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence--” (Is. 64:1). Eyes up, please.

“Long-awaited” takes on two distinct categories in Isaiah as the people of God share and split their anticipation between two long-separated arrivals of the King. Verse 5 declares, “Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?” The first coming brought a solution to a dilemma only God Himself could solve. And although many of His own did not recognize Him at His first appearance, the work for their salvation was accomplished, nonetheless. 

But there is that waiting for full vindication for the name of the Savior’s Father and ours. Rend the heavens and come down, indeed. Pour out Your fury and consume all those who have mocked You and Your people. Hold them to account who have spurned Your amazing “loyal love” as the Hebrew for “faithfulness” could also be rendered.

The people of God have always one pertinent issue to contemplate at this season every year. The King has come and made us His own only by His great mercy. All that belongs to us because of that mercy is a pure and constant gift. This season we treasure the truth that we have been made to see Him once. And we should all long to see Him again. Oh raise the curtain! God be praised!