Isaiah 64:1-9 (NRSV)
Read Isaiah 64:1-9 on biblegateway.com
Chapter 64O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence- Verse 2as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil- to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! Verse 3When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. Verse 4From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. Verse 5You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.
Verse 6We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. Verse 7There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Verse 8Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Verse 9Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.
Devotion
I love the season of Advent! It’s the time of the church year when we get to hear that the good news is again here. How refreshing!
“Unexpected and mysterious.” I dare say we need no more adjectives to kick off this Advent season, to alert us to the kind of God now poised to re-enter the world. Expect the unexpected. Await the mysterious.
Jewish philosopher of religion Abraham Joshua Heschel counsels, “Part company with preconceived notions, suppress your leaning to reiterate and to know in advance of your seeing, try to see the world for the first time with eyes not dimmed by memory…” During Advent, we celebrate the wonder of the God who comes again wrapped in mysterious unexpectedness. When you’re struck by that wonder, neither try to understand, rationalize or categorize it. It is God, the one “who works for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4).
Prayer
Holy and ineffable One, may we be ever stimulated afresh by your
unexpected mysteries. Amen.