THIS WEEK’S THEME: “Oh, That You Would Reveal Your Hope”
THIS WEEK’S SCRIPTURES: Isaiah 64: Can We Be Saved?
1-7 Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and descend,
make the mountains shudder at your presence—
As when a forest catches fire,
as when fire makes a pot to boil—
To shock your enemies into facing you,
make the nations shake in their boots!
You did terrible things we never expected,
descended and made the mountains shudder at your presence.
Since before time began
no one has ever imagined,
No ear heard, no eye seen, a God like you
who works for those who wait for him.
You meet those who happily do what is right,
who keep a good memory of the way you work.
But how angry you’ve been with us!
We’ve sinned and kept at it so long!
Is there any hope for us? Can we be saved?
We’re all sin-infected, sin-contaminated.
Our best efforts are grease-stained rags.
We dry up like autumn leaves—
sin-dried, we’re blown off by the wind.
No one prays to you
or makes the effort to reach out to you
Because you’ve turned away from us,
left us to stew in our sins.
8-12 Still, God, you are our Father.
We’re the clay and you’re our potter:
All of us are what you made us.
Don’t be too angry with us, O God.
Don’t keep a permanent account of wrongdoing.
Keep in mind, please, we are your people—all of us.
Your holy cities are all ghost towns:
Zion’s a ghost town,
Jerusalem’s a field of weeds.
Our holy and beautiful Temple,
which our ancestors filled with your praises,
Was burned down by fire,
all our lovely parks and gardens in ruins.
In the face of all this,
are you going to sit there unmoved, God?
Aren’t you going to say something?
Haven’t you made us miserable long enough?
Psalm 80: An Asaph Psalm
1-2 Listen, Shepherd, Israel’s Shepherd—
get all your Joseph sheep together.
Throw beams of light
from your dazzling throne
So Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh
can see where they’re going.
Get out of bed—you’ve slept long enough!
Come on the run before it’s too late.
3 God, come back!
Smile your blessing smile:
That will be our salvation.
4-6 God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
how long will you smolder like a sleeping volcano
while your people call for fire and brimstone?
You put us on a diet of tears,
bucket after bucket of salty tears to drink.
You make us look ridiculous to our friends;
our enemies poke fun day after day.
7 God-of-the-Angel-Armies, come back!
Smile your blessing smile:
That will be our salvation.
Psalm 80:8-18 Remember how you brought a young vine from Egypt,
cleared out the brambles and briers
and planted your very own vineyard?
You prepared the good earth,
you planted her roots deep;
the vineyard filled the land.
Your vine soared high and shaded the mountains,
even dwarfing the giant cedars.
Your vine ranged west to the Sea,
east to the River.
So why do you no longer protect your vine?
Trespassers pick its grapes at will;
Wild pigs crash through and crush it,
and the mice nibble away at what’s left.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies, turn our way!
Take a good look at what’s happened
and attend to this vine.
Care for what you once tenderly planted—
the vine you raised from a shoot.
And those who dared to set it on fire—
give them a look that will kill!
Then take the hand of your once-favorite child,
the child you raised to adulthood.
We will never turn our back on you;
breathe life into our lungs so we can shout your name!
19 God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, come back!
Smile your blessing smile:
That will be our salvation.
1 Corinthians 1:3 May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father, and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours.
4-6 Every time I think of you—and I think of you often!—I thank God for your lives of free and open access to God, given by Jesus. There’s no end to what has happened in you—it’s beyond speech, beyond knowledge. The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives.
7-9 Just think—you don’t need a thing, you’ve got it all! All God’s gifts are right in front of you as you wait expectantly for our Master Jesus to arrive on the scene for the Finale. And not only that, but God himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus. God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of his Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that.
Mark 13:24-25 “Following those hard times,
Sun will fade out,
moon cloud over,
Stars fall out of the sky,
cosmic powers tremble.
26-27 “And then they’ll see the Son of Man enter in grand style, his Arrival filling the sky—no one will miss it! He’ll dispatch the angels; they will pull in the chosen from the four winds, from pole to pole.
28-31 “Take a lesson from the fig tree. From the moment you notice its buds form, the merest hint of green, you know summer’s just around the corner. And so it is with you. When you see all these things, you know he is at the door. Don’t take this lightly. I’m not just saying this for some future generation, but for this one, too—these things will happen. Sky and earth will wear out; my words won’t wear out.
32-37 “But the exact day and hour? No one knows that, not even heaven’s angels, not even the Son. Only the Father. So keep a sharp lookout, for you don’t know the timetable. It’s like a man who takes a trip, leaving home and putting his servants in charge, each assigned a task, and commanding the gatekeeper to stand watch. So, stay at your post, watching. You have no idea when the homeowner is returning, whether evening, midnight, cockcrow, or morning. You don’t want him showing up unannounced, with you asleep on the job. I say it to you, and I’m saying it to all: Stay at your post. Keep watch.”
WELCOME:
Welcome to Goshen College’s online devotionals for the 2014 Advent season! Our theme this year, taken from the Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada worship resources found in Leader magazine, is “Oh, That You Would Reveal Your Mystery.” Every Monday an author will introduce the sub-theme, and on the following weekdays authors will reflect on a specific Scripture passage. The theme for this week, Advent 1, is “Oh, That You Would Reveal Your Hope.”
DEVOTIONAL:
“Impatience” – the opposite of “patience.” I excel in the former, struggle with the latter. As a youngster, “impatience” described my demeanor towards the Christmas presents my parents would eventually reveal to me. They didn’t wrap our presents, but placed them on the dining room table covered with blankets. On Christmas Eve, we kids would see the “mound of mystery,” wondering what secrets the blankets concealed. Now that I am all grown up, I am so glad that I have graduated from “impatience” to “patience”! (The last sentence is to be said with a sarcastic tone.)
In a world of anxiety and fear, I get quite impatient with God at times, yearning for the hope to shine its light into the darkness. As I ponder our various global realities, I wonder where is the God for whom Isaiah calls out to “tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at [God’s] presence” (Isaiah 64:1) and the God for whom the Psalmist who cries “stir up your might, and come save us!” (Psalm 80:2)? As I reflect on the current affairs of my denomination, I wonder how Apostle Paul could confidently write “God is faithful; by him you were called into fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (I Corinthians 1:9) to a community of believers riddled with divisions? But then I am challenged by the words of Mark: “But in those days, after that suffering…Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory” (Mark 13:24, 26).
Is God’s power and glory truly “hope?” I want to believe that, but what if it comes in a form that I don’t like? What if God’s revelation is not something that I can agree with? Can it still then be “hope?”
PRAYER:
O God, Revealer of Hope. Absolve my impatience and bolster my patience.
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