1 Advent, Yr B (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
1 Advent, Yr B (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Isaiah 64:1-9 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Mark 13:24-37
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
who was, and is, and is to come. Amen.
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down….!”
With this passionate plea we begin our new year in this season of Advent.
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down….
William Brown speaks of this reading as “a cry of pain
seeking understanding.”
(Feasting on the Word, Yr B, Vol 1, p. 3)
A little history may be helpful:
this passage from Isaiah was written after the Babylonian conquest in 586 BCE
but prior to the rebuilding of the Temple in 515 BCE.
This lament, then, reflects Israel’s disorientation in the wake of devastation:
the devastation of land and a sanctuary that lay in ruin.
Their home…
their land
and their place of worship had been desecrated and decimated.
Just prior to today’s passage, the lament has addressed such questions of
where God is in the face of such a calamity
and why this has happened.
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”
We are beginning Advent with weeping and a lament.
We are being thrust into a stark reality which looks toward not only
God-become-human in the person of Jesus Christ
but also God-come-again as Judge at the end of time.
Advent is not a season of passive waiting and watching…
it is a season of wailing and weeping,
of opening up our lives and our souls with active anticipation and renewed hope –
even for judgment.
For with judgment, we are seen for who we are in all our frailty and weakness.
And in judgment, we are afforded the opportunity to renew our reliance upon God.
Have you ever heard a wailing with such power as is behind this lament in Isaiah:
“O that you would tear open the heavens… and come down!”
Perhaps you have heard it in the sound of a mother giving birth…
or the baby herself as she enters the world for the first time?
Perhaps you have heard it in the sound of a parent for a child who has just died,
or a family member who feels helpless as their loved one is ravaged by addiction,
or those haunted by the nightmares of war or abuse, resurfacing in their dreams?
A former chaplain at the men’s hospice prison unit in Butner tells this story:
There was a man who sat every day outside his room in a chair in the hallway.
He never really spoke to anyone.
He was silent.
But occasionally one of the men walking down the hallway would walk up to this man and whisper a number into his ear.
He would then recite from memory the Psalm that corresponded to the number.
One day the chaplain came onto the unit,
and everywhere she went,
the men kept asking her if she had seen Charlie yet that day.
“No. No, I haven’t,” she replied.
“Well, something’s wrong.
He’s not sitting in the hallway.
His cancer has spread.
He hasn’t much time left.”
As soon as she was able, she made her way to his room,
but as she came near,
she heard an earth-shattering,
hair-raising
cry:
“WHY?”
As she entered Charlie’s room,
he looked a bit embarrassed and busied himself with some task.
She sat down next to him,
looked him in the eye and said,
“Not until now have I ever really heard Jesus’ cry from the cross: WHY?”
And he grabbed hold of her
and wept.
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus speaks of end-times:
“The sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
“Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory….
“But about that day or hour no one knows…
Beware, keep alert;
for you do not know when the time will come…
in the evening,
or at midnight,
or at cockcrow,
or at dawn….
And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” (Mark 13:24-37)
The Son of Man will not arrive in the clarity of light…
the Son of Man will show up in the clouds during some shade of darkness:
perhaps in the evening as the sun is disappearing over the horizon,
or at midnight,
only illumined by the stars and moon (if it happens to be a clear night),
or at cockcrow as the rooster anticipates that first ray of sunlight,
or at dawn as the sun just begins to illuminate the sky.
As we have heard before…
and as we will hear again in a few short weeks…
Jesus’ birth took place in a cave.
Jesus’ birth took place in darkness.
And, as we know, Jesus was laid to rest in a tomb…
in utter darkness.
It was in that place of utter darkness that Jesus was raised from the dead!
New life so often
begins
in places of darkness.
The pain and disorientation that welled up into the cry:
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”
is a pain and disorientation that realizes the need and yearns for the in-breaking of God.
It is a longing that often is only recognized in the depths of darkness.
And, it is also in that darkness that we can fail to see the presence of God.
In the words of Isaiah:
“There 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.”
Sometimes in our darkness we feel abandoned by God,
but if we look anew at the stories in our Scriptures,
we will see how often God arrives in the midst of darkness:
in the shadow of the cloud on Mt. Sinai
or in the cloud as Jesus is transfigured;
in the mouth of the cave in deadly silence
as Elijah waited for the presence of God to pass by;
in the fear-drenched darkness of the upper room when Jesus appeared to the disciples
or in the darkness of the night on the sea of Galilee when Jesus calmed the storm;
in the darkness of the cave at the birth of Jesus
or in the early morning dawn as he appeared to Mary and the others.
In this season of Advent,
as the days get shorter and we live longer in hours of darkness,
let us live with renewed hope and anticipation
that God does and will continue to come among us.
Let us not lose heart.
As the heavens are torn open,
so also may our lives be broken open to the presence of God,
that others may experience the Light of Christ that is present in us. Amen.
