Jay Rowland
Advent and Hope
Isaiah 2:1-5
November 27, 2022 Advent 1A
It feels like only a week ago we had just enjoyed another “Trunk or Treat” Halloween event here in our church parking lot on a beautiful warm and sunny late autumn afternoon. But it’s like I looked down for a moment to check my phone or something and when I looked up again it was Thanksgiving and now here we are on the First Sunday of Advent.
Sometimes Advent begins in November which feels “early” and sometimes it begins in December which feels more on time. Either way, this year I find myself thinking about how the month of November provides a gateway or threshold into Advent. November has some unique happenings and dates which prepare us for the unusual ritual of time known as Advent.
November begins with All Saints Day (Sunday) when we remember and honor the people in this congregation who died in the past year. As part of this ritual and liturgy, we cherish each of them by name, lighting a candle to the sound of bells.
And as it happens by the time of All Saints a celestial rite of passage has been playing out above us for many weeks as the Earth in its orbit around the sun gradually & silently changes our perception of daylight which mysteriously recedes to the encroaching darkness of the winter months.
Something about these altered patterns of daylight and darkness coming in the wake of All Saints finds purchase deep in our spirit probably beneath our conscious awareness. Meanwhile, the ever-unfolding saga of the world around us combines with our own personal lives in orbit around it all; which can bring about a shift in consciousness as Advent returns.
This shift in consciousness shows up for me in the laying bare of our basic human vulnerability … the intricate, delicate, complex interplay of life in the midst of death, and light in the midst of encroaching darkness. All of this, it seems to me is the spiritual threshold and gateway known as Advent which comes to us in four movements: Hope, Love, Joy, Peace. And begins today with hope.
The brief poem before us today from the prophet Isaiah begins with an image of a high mountain, representing the house of the Lord, rising above all other landmarks. This image echoes later in the imagery of all Creation laying down--leveling off--in anticipation of the coming Savior. Vitally connected with this imagery is human movement toward that lofty place; our ascending, going up. Which is a poetic way of saying that much our life and our faith resemble a steady uphill climb.
Especially lately. Recent years have made it fairly clear that life in this complicated world isn’t getting any easier. Significant problems cast a pall over our days. Some days are better than others, of course, but sometimes it seems like we are engaged in a steady uphill climb that is becoming steeper and downright wearying.
And so it is good that Advent begins with the movement of hope. Because hope is as indispensable today as it’s ever been for God’s people.
With the dawn of Advent here in the fading light of 2022, the enveloping darkness of late autumn and winter signals to us that God is once again drawing near. A vision from God is shared with us through the poetry of the prophet Isaiah. Woven into the images of this poem is a promise emanating from the heart and the mind of God—rising before us like a mountain:
In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
… above the hills ...
All nations will river toward it,
people from all over set out for it.
They’ll say, “Come,
let’s climb God’s Mountain,
… to the House of God …
so we can live the way we’re made.” (The Message Bible)
This whispered promise God is shouting through the prophet Isaiah is given to break through the imposing darkness surrounding God’s people.
Isaiah’s poetic voice is declaring that a time is approaching when the nations shall stream together “to learn the ways of God” and when they do God shall bring about a settlement of all disputes, resolve even the most ancient of ethnic, creedal, tribal differences among nations and families; and this shall capture the attention of all people.
What’s truly engaging about this vision is who it is that takes the decisive action toward peace (turning war equipment into farming tools). This passage is just familiar enough to remind us that we’ve heard it before, and so perhaps we don’t notice some of the words or their significance, or we’ve always heard this passage in Isaiah according to a sort of default attention which presumes that God always performs the decisive action. But look again … listen again … from verse four:
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.
Notice the pronouns, “they” and “their”. That’s what makes this prophetic promise so intriguing: this bold, hope-filled transformation is not something God inflicts upon the nations independent of their/our actions or inclinations, but is rather a human response to the reality of God.[1] The people are not passive recipients but active participants, deciding and striving to work together to live God’s ways for the good of all--all nations, all people, all creatures all that lives and breathes and relies upon God’s Creation for sustenance--from human to mammal to animal to the most microscopic form of life.
Now this may or may not strike some of us as obvious good news. Because before this is to happen, there is much work to be done by God’s people. In other words, again, the mountain of God is an uphill climb. How could it not be?--given where we are as a people and a planet, where we all long to be and all that God longs to provide.
Herein lies a critical detail in all of this: We cannot do any of this without God, and God will not do any of this without us. But that is what makes this hope something more than a mere wish or a pithy sentiment. This vision of hope involves everyone; excludes no one. For God’s vision and peace to become reality depends upon humanity rising to the opportunity. Peace has always been much more complicated and harder work than conflict. Thus the uphill climb. But we do not embark upon the climb alone or isolated, left to our own wits or resources, but rather we do so with (and because) God who is faithful, has always been faithful, and has always shown us that God will see us to it and through it
I realize so many of us feel as if the world is in greater peril now than it’s ever been. The world certainly is in peril. But sometimes I wonder how prior generations dealt with their own perilous circumstances. Threats to human existence and to the earth itself have happened before. One example is the plague which must have appeared to everyone at the time to be the end of the world. More recently, the rise of fascism and Nazism and all the perils of WW2 clearly changed the scope of destruction to include, ultimately, total annihilation. My point is that prior generations have all faced what they thought was The End of the World. The only difference is that their experiences all reside in the past and were resolved. Whereas our experience of this threat is immediate and global but with no resolution. And so this fully captivates our attention and threatens to steal our hope.
The prophets and the Psalms wisely advise us to be leery of our human leaders no matter how dangerous or promising they may appear to be. History and the Bible show us that Israel and Judah had both disastrous and divine leader-kings, neither of which guaranteed that either good or evil would prevail. And even the destruction of Jerusalem, which was akin to the “end of the world” to the Jewish people didn’t bring about the end of God’s presence or God’s people.
And so this Advent, whether or not you’re convinced the world is spiraling toward annihilation, today’s vision from God in Isaiah reminds us of the hope that can and shall transform all of life: the hope God has in God’s people: The nations shall stream to the mountain of God.
The prophet Isaiah presents an alternative vision for the world, a vision boldly declaring God’s expectation that we learn to live in peace. A reminder that God has created this world—Creation itself for peace. And so peace shall come one day, but not without us, not without our participation, because that would be something other than a lasting peace. God’s promised peace depends upon us doing our part to keep that expectation and hope of God’s promise alive in our generation.
Eugene Peterson puts it this way:
“The impressive art of Isaiah involves taking the stuff of our ordinary and often disappointing human experience and showing us how it is the stuff that God uses to create and save and give hope. As this vast panorama opens up before us, it turns out that nothing is unusable by God. [God] uses everything and everybody as material for [God’s] work which is remaking the mess that we have made of our lives” and the world. (Eugene Peterson, “Introduction to Isaiah,” The Message Bible)
A contemporary poet/prophet, Danna Faulds[2] expresses this hope another way,
Take all the fear in the world and bring it here.
Throw it in a heap.
Now find Insecurity and Doubt
Locate Shame and Anger
Hatred and Depravity
Add them to the pile.
Find every obstacle to love.
If the whole world’s suffering can’t asphyxiate the love in you,
Then there’s hope for us.
Hold your love aloft in the gathering darkness
And watch peace spread wide it’s brightening wings
If you could keep your love alive
Then war and madness won’t have the last word.
Look
Even now the dove is flying.
Advent’s return turns us toward the hope that has always sustained God’s people in times of darkness. And so, dear friends,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord
Notes
[1] This idea has likely been published or expressed elsewhere. The work of Otto Kaiser in Isaiah 1-12, The Old Testament Library Series (Second Edition. pp.54-56, et al.), may even suggest as much but certainly influenced my interpretation as I express it in this sermon.
[2] read by Tara Brach during “Three Practices for Nurturing Wise Hope”, podcast 11/3/2022, https://www.tarabrach.com/three-practices-nurturing-wise-hope/
Isaiah 2:1-5
1 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2 In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
3 Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 [The Lord] shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
5 O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the LORD!
