Isaiah 64:1-9
Mike Banister
The image of God that the writer of this passage conjures up is disturbing. As a father I would never aspire to be perceived by my children the way this Divine Father is presented by this prophet. In fact, an earthly father who exhibited these traits and behaviors might be in need of some deep psychological counseling. Perhaps more disturbing is the prophets acceptance of the Father’s misbehavior.
In verse 1, the prophet implores the Father to tear open the heavens and come down, he imagines God making a violent entrance, causing the mountains to quake at his presence. With a power that emits a fire that kindles brushwood and causes water to boil this God blusters onto the scene. Certainly the prophet gives us a picture of a character of overwhelming and frightening power – a metaphorical presentation of a Father full of anger and perhaps barely in control of Himself. We read that the Father came down and made the mountains quake and did awesome deeds we did not expect. This Father is unpredictable.
The writer tells us that for those who do right in the Father’s eyes and who keep Him constantly in mind - these obedient ones God “meets”. But with those who do not remember the Fathers ways, God is angry and withdrawn, hidden. “But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself, we transgressed.” The writer seems to have a moment of enlightenment here, realizing that the Father’s anger and his abandonment of His children actually provoke wrong doing in His children.
My mother had some memories of her father which weren’t very pleasant. He was given to fits of anger and, when he was angry he would turn the bill of his cap up as a signal that no one was to approach him. He would simmer sometimes for days – “hiding” from his children, indulging his anger. His behavior definitely had a negative impact on his eight children. You don’t have to be a professional psychologist to discern that a father who is angry and turns his face from his children might sow seeds of resentment and rebellion in them. In our time we are seeing millions of people who have rejected any relationship with a God like this one, a God who perhaps evokes memories of an angry, withdrawn parent.
But the prophet’s moment of enlightenment doesn’t last. In the next verse the prophet turns back to blaming the children. He writes that we are unclean, even our righteous deeds are like filthy cloth, our iniquities “take us away.” None of us call on your Name. “You have hidden your face from us, and delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.”
Would you call on the Name of someone who has angrily withdrawn from you? Someone who can’t bear the sight of you? Someone who turns his face from you, who is perfectly ready to abandon you to your iniquity?
Would you turn you face from your child under any circumstances? Would you simply abandon them to the consequences of their wrongdoing? How would you assess an earthly father who would do such things? Shouldn’t a Heavenly Father be at least as good as the best human father?
The most disturbing verses come at the end of this passage.
‘Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD, and do not remember our iniquity forever. Now consider we are all your people.”
Like an abused child pleading with an abusive father the prophet implores this God to lessen his anger. He reminds him that he is the potter and his children are the clay. But what kind of misshapen clay would such a potter produce? What kind of people might be produced by this kind of scripture if they unthinkingly accept such an image of God simply because it is in the Bible?
How can a follower of Jesus, a teacher who imagined a Heavenly Father like the Father in the parable of the prodigal son, a Father of unconditional love and grace, how could a Jesus follower not be horrified by this picture of a wrathful, unforgiving, punitive, pouting father as God. If God is a good shepherd, a hen who gathers his chicks around him, a Father running to welcome his returning son back from the far country, then how can he at the same time is be symbolized by an angry, rejecting father?
Surely we can joyfully await the birthday celebration of this Jesus who in his teaching offered mankind a wholly other image of God.
Mark 13:24-37
Chris Ayers
She was my wife’s mother's father's sister. Her name was Lillian.
When Vicky, my wife, was a little girl she would go to her Great Aunt Lillian’s with her mother and her mother's twin-sister, Jo Ann. Aunt Lillian, who lived in Blowing Rock, had a to die for view of Grandfather Mountain, lots of beautiful land, and a three story home with a big screened-in back porch. She would serve deer meat and bear meat for her guests. Yummy. While Aunt Lillian had indoor plumbing, upstairs and downstairs, she maintained an outhouse. She did not like for people to stink up the house. If you had to do the stinky, the number 2, you had to go to the outhouse. Now - the interesting thing about the outhouse was that it was a two seater AND it was wallpapered. To be specific, a nice expensive wallpaper, celadon green wallpaper. Why in the world would you wallpaper an outhouse? That was the question my wife asked her mother. Good question. And the answer Vicky's mother provided was that Aunt Lillian wallpapered her outhouse to keep out the cold.
Personally, I've never thought of wallpaper as a great source of insulation. Maybe I'm missing something. But here's my point, my Advent point. I find that a lot of Christians, to speak metaphorically, are like Aunt Lillian in that they wallpaper outhouses. Or put another way, we try to decorate things that stink, like the problem of suffering, like difficult Bible verses, like the second coming of Jesus.
Let’s start with suffering. Someone dies a tragic death and it’s because 30 people got saved or rededicated at the funeral service and if that person hadn’t died and had a funeral those people would not have been saved or redicated their lives to Jesus. A child is born with Down’s Syndrome. God put Down’s Syndrome on the child to make us appreciate our non-Down’s Syndrome existence.
In Mark’s so-called “little apocalypse,” one of the happy hunting grounds for endtimers, suffering is explained as a sign of the coming of the son of Man. But suffering, nor any of the other signs, are very good signs Suffering, unfortunately, is a part of the human narrative. It’s been a round for a long time. And the other signs of the end of the world have occurred countless times. The title of Richard G. Kyle’s book puts it well: The Last Days Are Here Again: A History of the End Times.
So what’s a Christian to do?
Not wallpaper over an outhouse, for starters. We need to stop trying to pretty up something that stinks. It stinks that people suffer. It stinks that Jesus said he didn’t know the end of time and that we believe Jesus was God and God is supposed to know everything. It stinks that the signs of the end are so useless. It stinks that Jesus said this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Well, that didn’t come true. It stinks that Christians ever since Jesus statement didn’t come true have jumped through theological hoops to let Jesus off the hook for his statement not coming true. It stinks that the text is so full of judgment and grace is nowhere to be found. What if we are asleep when Jesus comes back? What if we aren’t perfect? Didn’t Jesus say something about grace!
Leslie Weatherheard, in a wonderful sermon, preached that we need to put a lot of our questions in a drawer titled “Awaiting Further Light.” Not a bad idea.
Jesus in Mark 13:37 tells us to “stay awake.” More than staying awake, I think modern Christians need to stop spending so much time and energy explaining things that can’t be explained. More than “staying awake” we need to keep in mind that in Mark 13 Jesus responds to his disciples’ words of admiration of the temple with a prediction of its destruction. What we must do this Advent is ask how Jesus would destroy each of our churches. Now that should get out Advent worship off with a bang. Are we building the churches God would have us build or are we wallpapering outhouses?
Rosalie Mann
Mark 13: 24-37
DOOMSDAY STEW
I am a skeptic. As I began reading Mark 13: 24-37, my first reaction was: “Oh, jeez! More fodder for the doomsayers and eschatologists.” (OK - I confess. I MAY have said “Oh, Jesus!” instead of “Oh, jeez!”)
As I continued reading, my second response, made in the same vein, was: “ More ingredients for ‘Doomsday Stew’.”
Verse 32 is actually one of my favorite Bible verses, but it is overshadowed by the other verses. My overall (skeptic’s) impression of these verses: “Oh, brother.”
These verses are just a few of the ingredients in an amalgam of end-of- the-world prophecies that I call “Doomsday Stew.” In Christianity, ministers, premillennialists, and dispensationalists are the “chefs” of this “Doomsday Stew.” They gleefully pick out Bible verses to add to the cooking pot, hoping that more ingredients will equate to more flavor; and in turn, more believers. Everything from the Biblical “pantry” that might be savory is added as an ingredient to the stew. Selecting ingredients from the non-Biblical pantry is also acceptable.
“Doomsday Stew” varies according to the “chef.” Different chefs have different recipes, but most contain at least a modicum of these basic ingredients: The sun will not shine. The stars will fall from the heavens. Earthquakes. Famine. Smoke. Apocalypse. Armageddon. Heaven. Hell. A great tribulation. The “rapture.” Floods. Destruction. Book of Revelation. Left Behind. The Second Coming. The Son of Man coming in clouds. The 1000-year reign. Great pain and suffering. And to add a little spice - teeth gnashing.
The stew is then served to their congregants, parishioners, and followers in quantities varying from small spoonfuls to overflowing bowls. And, along with the stew comes a message. “The end is coming soon. Accept Jesus NOW. Don’t wait!!” the minister tells us with great urgency as he feeds us the “Doomsday Stew.”
“The end of the world is May 21st!” was the message given by a California preacher recently, as he served up second and third helpings of “Doomsday Stew.” Believers, fearing that they would face “months of judgment amid destruction before the world’s end.....,” quit their jobs, sold their homes, and moved to California to await the final day of reckoning and their rapture.
“Don’t be left behind during the end days. Make sure you are part of the ‘Jesus’ team. Join now!” exhorts a “chef” as he ladles out his stew to a youth group of teenagers.
“It could happen tomorrow. It could happen tonight. Will you be READY? Are you part of Jesus’ ‘elect’?” This is a popular message.
What are the ministers and others trying to tell us with their “Doomsday Stew” and their messages?
Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. And.... BELIEVE...
because you are afraid. BELIEVE....... because of fear.
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Do you preach a ministry of Christianity based on “Doomsday Stew” and fear? Or, do you preach a ministry of Christianity based on love?
