Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark
13:24-37
The Prayer of the Day begins ‘Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and
come.’ So often in our lives we cry out to God: Hear me! Come to me now! Why
are you not here with me?! Today’s scripture passages scream out with longing
for God to make God’s presence and power known and felt.
The situation in our passage from Isaiah the prophet speaks to God for
the people. The Judeans, the people of Judah, the Southern Kingdom, have
returned from exile in Babylon. They hoped to pick up life where they and their
parents and grandparents left off 50 years ago, but it was not to be. Their
land was filled with weeds, the vineyards and olive gardens were overgrown and
untended, their buildings were flattened, the protective walls around the city
were just piles of rubble, and the temple – which Solomon had built – was destroyed.
Things were so bad, the people as a whole grumbled to God. We have
here in Isaiah’s text a lament about how bad things were. This writing is 2500
years old, but it’s as fresh as if we were speaking it today. The people cry
out for God’s powerful presence as the Israelites had experienced it in the
past: manna, water from a rock, pillars of smoke and fire, a voice speaking
from the heavens. But God seems to be absent, so the people are looking for
reasons and answers.
They blame God – ‘You were absent, so we sinned.’ And they ask for
forgiveness. ‘We recognize our sin and we repent.’ ‘After all, you are our God;
you are our Father. We are your children and we need your help. So, now, act
like our parent and help us!’ In other words: Stir up your power, O God, and
come to us!
Working together, under the leadership of Nehemiah, the people were
able to rebuild their city, their walls, and their temple. They restored the
vineyards and olive gardens, and reshaped their religion with a focus on
obedience to God’s commandments so they would never again be conquered and
taken into exile. But the leaders’ focus became obedience to the rules, instead
of caring for the poor and needy among them.
Five hundred years later, two thousand years ago, the time was right
for God to act. The people needed a new direction for their faith practices,
the Romans were very oppressive, and the people were crying out for help. They
called out: Stir up your power, O God, and come to us! They were looking for
smoke and fire and earthquake, not a human infant. They were looking for a leader
like Moses to free them from Roman slavery. They were looking for a military
hero, like King David. They did not want to hear what the prophets like Amos,
Micah, and Ezekiel had to say about caring for the needy. They were not looking
for God to be born as an infant.
The Gospel of Mark was written in the middle 60s, probably during the
Jewish Revolt against Rome, but before the destruction of the city and the temple
in 70. Once again, conditions were terrible in Jerusalem. The city was under siege,
and Jews and Christians were joining the revolt, hoping that God would notice
their fight and come to help them. They, too, were hoping for God to show up
with smoke and fire and power to defeat the Romans. They were crying out, Stir
up your power, O God, and come to us!
However, Jesus’ message in this passage is that humans cannot make God
to do what humans want. God’s plans are God’s plans. God’s timing is God’s
timing. The little story of the fig tree tells us that: Jesus and the disciples
are in Jerusalem in the spring, and the fig trees do not yet have leaves and
fruit buds. When it is the right time, they will sprout and grow and produce
fruit, but only at the right time, God’s time. As people who love figs, we can
only watch and wait for the fruit.
And we can only watch and wait for God’s activity. In every era, in
every age, every century, people have cried out, Stir up your power, O God, and
come to us! Now, as we face serious illness in our individual lives, and as we
face economic meltdown, and as our elected – wealthy – politicians play games with
Social Security and Medicare, and as wars go on and terrorists continue to plot
against us, ... now, we think, would be a good time for Jesus to come. We cry
out with those of every time and every place, ‘Stir up your power, O God, and
come to us!’
Yet, I wonder. Would we notice Jesus if he did return? How would he
come to us today? As an illegal immigrant? As a demonstrator in the Occupy
Movement? As a starving infant in Africa? As a Palestinian living in Bethlehem?
As a neighbor in need? As a homeless person living in the woods in Citrus
County?
Would we notice Jesus as a neighbor with a casserole dish? As a fellow
parishioner offering a ride? As a cashier with a kind word? As a stranger
offering love when we thought life was hopeless? As a family member offering
forgiveness? Would we know Jesus even if we were actively watching and waiting
for him to return?
Let’s remember that God doesn’t do what we expect but what God know is
best. When we cry out, ‘Stir up your power, O God, and come to us!’ Jesus actually
does come to us. He comes through the Holy Spirit present in many of the people
we encounter every day. He is present in the people who need us and reach out
their hands to us, and in the people who reach out to us and help fulfill our
needs.
They may not be what we were looking for, but they are God’s response
to our cry for help. They are all instances of God responding and coming to us
with power. God comes to us in God’s time, in ways that surprise us. Our job as
believers is not to try to predict when he will come again, but to watch and
wait for all the ways he is already present among us now.
Please pray with me. Stir up your power, O God, and come to us! Amen
