Sermon Notes Is. 64

Nov. 30-Is. 64

The leaves that are left on the ground are dry and shriveled   Are we not more than leaves blown into the street for weeping? Advent is a season on reflecting on time, as has the career of Stephen Hawking in the new movie A Theory of Everything.  It reflects the promise contained in a new beginning. Is.  64 has such shifts. It tries to understand divine motivation.

Thoughtful reader of Isaiah agree that this section was written in a time of disappointment.the return of the exiles did not make everything perfect again. Time drags when we are down.How time dragged waiting from 5:30 until 8:30 to hear the ferguson verdict. When we feel powerless, a religious impulse is to hope for dramatic divine intervention.

In our time, we resist the idea that God could be angry as too emotional, too much like us, to like the sweet God we have constructed. Could it be that God is angry? The word here is better to be furious, as in the splinters of a piece of wood flying about when split.Could it be that God is hiding? Could  be that God is not interested in the plight of the people? It looks at the quid pro quo we tend to have-God blesses us if we do good. Here it realizes that we do wrong. Even if we do good it seems stained, corrupt. Worse, are we calling upon God as we should? Is God holding back the divine power to help and save? It uses divine self-regard. after all,we are the work of your hands. If we are not at the level of artistic creation that you would wish,does some of the fault lie with the artisan? God, you have labored long and hard over us. Is it just to be angry for a long time? Is it just to be angry over the failures of your handiwork?

A recurring theme in the Old Testament is the Day of the Lord. The hope was that God would act as in the exodus and raise up Israel and destroy her enemies. Some prophets then turned the image and saw it as directed against the people themselves.These end time imaginings reflect some of the anti-creation images of other OT passages. Light turns to darkness. The very mountains tremble as in an earthquake, an ancient sign of the presence of God all the way back to Sinai. We, like them, have heard since Sunday School lessons the stories of God’s power. Where do we see it now?

People are not praying because God seems deaf.Their prayers go unanswered. Time waiting on a prayer seems to take an eternity.

OK, the new beginning has yet to wipe the slate clean.What do we do in the interim? Paul sees the day of the Lord as having started with Jesus christ in a decisively new way. I Cor. 1 sharing thanksgiving for the gifts we receive.  This is difficult for us, as we assume we earn what we get, and we resist the very idea of gift. Paul says that we do not lack any spiritual gifts. We are enriched in every way, including speaking and knowledge.  This letter starts with a view of God more congenial to contemporary Christians, He prays we keep strong and blameless until Is the day of Jesus Christ now the same as the Day of the Lord?.We are strong by being in community/fellowship with Christ and each other.We have the resources to start making the world a better place.we start from within.then it radiates outward.Instead of fires ablaze in cars in Ferguson, we imagine a world with the light of goodness.