Many of us have endured seasons of life when hope seemed thin or failing altogether. Seasons filled with such sorrow, loss, doubt or suffering that it seems the forces of evil might actually be greater than the forces for good.
But they are not. And there is a truer, deeper hope to be found in the middle of the suffering. Advent embraces the mess, the pain, the uncertainty of suffering, and still draws us into a depth of hope that transcends anything our human experience can offer.
“If only... So that... Yet Lord...”
Ann Voskamp says it this way: “You can’t lose hope, because Hope has a name and His name is Jesus.” Let's begin unpacking this and more in today's message…
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—Isaiah 64:1-9 (CSB)—
If only you would tear the heavens open and come down, so that mountains would quake at your presence —2 just as fire kindles brushwood, and fire boils water —to make your name known to your enemies, so that nations would tremble at your presence! 3 When you did awesome works that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains quaked at your presence. 4 From ancient times no one has heard, no one has listened to, no eye has seen any God except you who acts on behalf of the one who waits for him. 5 You welcome the one who joyfully does what is right; they remember you in your ways. But we have sinned, and you were angry. How can we be saved if we remain in our sins? 6 All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind. 7 No one calls on your name, striving to take hold of you. For you have hidden your face from us and made us melt because of our iniquity. 8 Yet Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we all are the work of your hands. 9 Lord, do not be terribly angry or remember our iniquity forever. Please look — all of us are your people!
