‘Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down’ (Isaiah 64:1)
The First Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 64:1-9a; Psalm 80 or 80:1-7; 1 Cor. 1:1-9; Mark 13 (24-32) 33-37
The psalmist cries, "Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine." The prophet implores the Lord to rend the heavens and come down "that the mountains might quake at your presence … and that the nations might tremble at your presence." Paul speaks to the Corinthians as those who "wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ." Mark declares that the Son of Man "will come in clouds with great power and glory."
Each passage in different ways and with different applications points to the coming of the Lord. They do it in a way that makes it hard for us to differentiate between his first coming and his second coming. Perhaps that is because the comings of the Lord are inextricably linked. What is interesting is to see how each author applies this great news. The psalmist looks to the coming of the Lord as necessary to restore fallen Israel from its apparent doom. They look to the Lord to "shine his face, that we might be saved." However, in Isaiah, the coming of the Lord will mean judgment on earth. The "mountains will quake" and the "nations will tremble." That, of course, includes Israel, leading the psalmist to pray that the Lord "be not so terribly angry…" As we look into the New Testament, Paul simply describes Christians as people who wait for the revealing of the Lord. Christians are those who look optimistically into the future, not because of any virtue that can be claimed by humanity, but solely because of the faithfulness of the Lord.
Finally, Mark weaves signs of the Lord’s first and second comings together so finely that it is nearly impossible to disentangle them. However, his teaching on the Lord’s coming seems to combine elements of promise, of salvation, of hope, of mystery and of judgment. It is almost as if Mark has brought together the various elements seen in the other passages.
To say that the Christian Church believes and lives in light of the Lord’s coming is to say that there is a goal toward which the Lord is leading us. The end to which the sportsman or sportswoman strives is excellence and success; the end of the soldier at war is peace; the end of the Christian life is Jesus Christ, the one in whose image we are made, and through whom we come into personal fellowship with the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. Come, Lord Jesus.
Look It Up
With a concordance, look up the word "hope," and notice how often it is used in the New Testament.
Think About It
Paul says in Romans 8:24, "For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?" One of the great "discoveries" of the Reformation was the Doctrine of Assurance. Are we Christians looking forward to the coming of the Lord, and are we confident that when he does come, we will be with him in heaven?
Next Sunday
The Second Sunday of Advent, Dec. 8, 2002
Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85 or 85:7-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a, 18; Mark 1:1-8
