A Beautiful Interruption
Dr Kate Harrison Brennan launches our Advent series with a reflection on Christ interrupting our world in a beautiful, political and dramatic way.
Jessica Smith resonates with Isaiah's longing for an answer when God seems so far away, so absent – and finds a beautiful answer in Christ.
Jessica Smith is Community Pastor at St George’s Anglican Church, Paddington and Common Grace's Operations Director.
Today's reading is Isaiah 64:1-9
Are you ever beset with longing? There was one year of my life, after it felt like just about everything had gone wrong, that was characterised by deep aching. Things felt out of shape - life wasn’t meant to be like this, the world wasn’t meant to be like this - and the tone of the year was one of crying out to God to make it different.
In today’s reading, Isaiah the prophet hauntingly cries out in longing and lament, interceding for the people of God. Isaiah cries out with such deep desperation. It’s a cry of pain and anguish, for God seems so far away, so absent, so other. Yet in dependence, and a deep awareness that there’s no other way for things to be fixed he cries out ‘rip through the barrier’, ‘tear through whatever keeps us apart’, ‘be active, come down, fix it’.
God came and met Isaiah’s longing for intervention in the bizarre birth of a tiny baby, surrounded by animals and shepherds in a no-hope town, on the periphery of the empire. A strange and unexpected answer to Isaiah’s prayer.
This part of Isaiah – his future vision of Chapters 55-66 - relates to when the first exiles are returning from Babylon. They feel deeply abandoned by God. They’ve come home but to a wasteland, a destroyed sanctuary, to limited self-rule and where tensions abound between the returnees and those who have been living in the land. This was not the golden age the prophets had promised.
And so Isaiah voices the desperate questions: ‘Where are you God? and Why are we so wayward? Has your patience with Israel run out? Have you withdrawn your love and care for us?’
For hundreds of years the people of God lived in this silence.
As the New Testament opens, Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah are still in much the same position, living under Roman occupation with only their hope in God to sustain them.
Yet on them, the prophecies of the Messiah were dawning, and with them we witness the amazing answer to Isaiah’s prayer. To “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down”, God says ‘Yes’.
A resounding, surprising ‘Yes – I will come down. I will do the unimaginable and I will tear the heavens open. I will come from the heavenly realm and inject myself into time and place. I will be the wonderful answer you are hoping for. I will be with you.’
The very unexpected beauty of God’s answer to Isaiah’s heart-cry shatters, divides and transforms history. ‘I won’t restrain myself any longer, I won’t remain silent’. And as a result, societies have quaked and hearts have been set on fire.
After God’s incredible intervention, the heavens have been rent and there’s no going back! God is now with us; with us in the human person of Jesus, who has washed us clean and sits at the right hand of the Father. The chasm that Isaiah called out has now been breached. God is with us!
64 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
2 as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 From ages past no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who works for those who wait for him.
5 You meet those who gladly do right,
those who remember you in your ways.
But you were angry, and we sinned;
because you hid yourself we transgressed.
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 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.
8 Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,
and do not remember iniquity forever.
Now consider, we are all your people.
Dr Kate Harrison Brennan launches our Advent series with a reflection on Christ interrupting our world in a beautiful, political and dramatic way.
Andy Abey remembers her time in Bethlehem visiting the Church of the Nativity, and reflects on the humility of Jesus' arrival.
Jessica Smith resonates with Isaiah's longing for an answer when God seems so far away, so absent – and finds a beautiful answer in Christ.
Greg Clarke, CEO of Bible Society, is re-learning to anticipate this season from an unexpected teacher – his a four year-old child.
Eliza Spencer rediscovers through Ezekiel the road to a new spirit, a new heart – replacing a heart of stone for one of justice and hope.
Dave Hack leaves behind the city lights of Perth for a week on the rough ocean, where he finds hope and peace in unexpected places.
Rev Philemon Akao from Solomon Islands shares about how fire across Melanesia draws us together, and sends us out.
Leonie Quayle discovers an unexpectedly beautiful deeper meaning behind one of her favourite Christmas carols.
For Brooke Prentis the unexpected beauty of the Grasstree symbolises the versatility, strength, and longevity of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian leaders.
Steve Bevis reflects on what he's learnt from the young Aboriginal people in Alice Springs who gather together at 'The Meeting Place'.
Melinda Dwight remembers her trip to Israel with leaders from many denominations, and invites us to lower our walls and set longer tables to share with many.
Three years ago Louisa Hope survived the Sydney Siege. Today she shares her story of faith, hope, reconciliation to help heal the divides in our country.
Tim Middlemiss reflects on the joy of becoming a new dad, and invites us to set our hearts on the future hope promised in Malachi.
Dr Robyn Wrigley-Carr reimagines Zechariah's silence as an unexpected gift, creating space hold the wonder of what God was doing through their family.
Dr Ross Clifford invites us to open our eyes this season to God's supernatural movements, and to the angelic encounters around us that herald God's goodness.
Wiradjuri man Adam Gowen finds beauty in the unexpected everyday moments where we can be surprised and delighted by God's goodness.
God’s Squad member Steve Barrington invites us to sing with Mary's song of revolution and justice this Advent.
Sister Susan Connelly hears the voice of John the Baptist through a friend, and calls us to the uncomfortable Christianity of the stable and the cross.
Jan Amelink reflects on journeying through a difficult year, yet finding unexpected meaning and hope through it, through the voices of close and faithful friends.
Jon Owen remembers an unexpected Christmas when a pregnant Mary and Joseph showed up at his front door. Literally.
Richard Quadrio went from decades ministering in a church, to serving in the Royal Australian Navy as a Chaplain where he found God in unexpected places.
Gershon Nimbalker finds in the birth of Jesus an unexpected revolution of solidarity, sacrifice and vulnerability, and challenges us to go and do likewise.
Bree Mills finds hope this Advent in the expectation and perseverance of Simeon and Anna as they prophesy over the life of Jesus mending the brokenness of this world.
Nicholas Alexander anticipates the unexpected joy of letting go and letting God being in control.
Scott Sanders closes our Advent series by celebrating the beauty of diversity, and the opportunity for us to draw near to those God's calls us together with in beauty, generosity and justice.