Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down,It is reminiscent of Bonhoeffer’s description of a mining accident and the hope of the Incarnation as the distinct sound of knocking to those trapped beneath the weight of the earth. There is someone coming, and he is calling your name.
That the mountains might quake at Your presence--
As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil--
To make Your name known to Your adversaries,
That the nations may tremble at Your presence!
When You did awesome things which we did not expect,
You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence.
For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear,
Nor has the eye seen a God besides You,
Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.
You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness,
Who remembers You in Your ways
Behold, You were angry, for we sinned,
We continued in them a long time;
And shall we be saved?
For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
And all of us wither like a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
There is no one who calls on Your name,
Who arouses himself to take hold of You;
For You have hidden Your face from us
And have delivered us into the power of our iniquities.
But now, O LORD, You are our Father,
We are the clay, and You our potter;
And all of us are the work of Your hand. (Isaiah 64:1-8)
The great window of a torn-open heavens and the massive ladder of a God who descends are the expectant images that remind us God is scandalously near. Picturing this hope, our imaginations can run wild at the thought of quaking mountains, awesome deeds, and great reversals we did not expect. But so these windows and ladders are the stirring and expectant vessels of smaller and seemingly insignificant glimpses of a God among us. Even in the soul who can admit that he is a wandering child is something of the radical reach of a Father’s love. In the company of a friend through cancer is the image of the one who is nearer than a friend.
In Isaiah’s particular cry is an invitation to pay attention to the unlikely and the unexpected in the great things of history and the small things of our daily lives. Isaiah’s particular cry is an invitation to hear the cries of those before us as well as the cries of our hearts, which may just be answered by the cry of God Himself. Indeed, how scandalous is the image of the infant Christ looking up at his young mother, his cries joining humanity’s own. There was a particular moment in history when humanity heard God weep. And there will be a day in history when this same Christ will dry every tear from our eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment