Isaiah 64:1-9

First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2005
Isaiah 64:1-9 (Hope)

For now well over a hundred years, Biblical scholars have accepted the idea that Isaiah was written by two and perhaps three authors. Isaiah, the prophet of Jerusalem, composed chapters 1-39. Another prophet writing wrote chapters 40-55. A third prophet, or the second prophet in a different setting, wrote chapters 56-66. The three parts of Isaiah have always been edited together. They share common themes and theological outlooks. Nonetheless, the historic circumstances surrounding the author of our focal text are decidedly different from those of the early part of the book. Specifically, chapters 56-66 address those who returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity (see Ezra and Nehemiah). They now behold the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and God’s holy temple. The sight of the ruined temple provides the historical context for this prayer (Isaiah 63:18; 64:10-13). The prayer of Isaiah is a mixes contrition and confession, petition and hope. The contrition and confession comes as the prophet acknowledges how few call upon the name of the Lord or rely on God. The destruction of the temple and Jerusalem was understood by the prophet to be God’s punishment for sins. The petition and hope is expressed in the prophets desire for a rebuilt Jerusalem and temple. It is also in the desire to see vengeance served against God’s enemies–likely those who both destroyed the temple but also those who stand in the way of the temple’s reconstruction.

This texts uses a variety of metaphoric images to convey its message. Isaiah asks that the enemies be caused to be like twigs ablaze or like boiling water. The picture envisioned is that of chaos. Unlike a log or coals which burns steadily and predictable, kindled twigs burn rapidly. They crackle and pop. The air pockets in the space between the wood causes the flames to bounce off one another. Similarly, boiling water rolls and bubbles. The writer had likely seen armies lined up in long, orderly rows, marching to destroy. He prays for their ordered marched to be disassembled.

To describe "us" (i.e., the people of Judah), Isaiah said that they had become like one unclean and like filthy rags. Unlike today where we make dish towels for the explicit purpose of cleaning, rags were probably the remaining material of old, worn garments. Something once in tact had become torn. Next, Isaiah describes his people as dried leaves. Something once vibrant had become lifeless. Finally, Isaiah, perhaps extending the metaphor of dried leaves, says that they have been blown about. Something once grounded has become scattered. Isaiah’s description of how they are encounters his image of what they might be–clay in the hands of God, the potter. In the act of making a pot, a potter reverses the process that Isaiah has described. Taking useless, scattered, earthen materials, the potter forms the pot into a useful, in tact, assembled object.

There is a close relationship between the hope that Isaiah has for the reforming of the temple and the city and the activity of repentance and God’s forgiveness. Where we often think of forgiveness as purely and internal matter, this writer envisioned forgiveness as an essential step in rebuilding the physical world in which they lived. It would to some rethinking, but it is perhaps some rethinking we ought to do, for us to consider repentance and forgiveness as essential steps in the rebuilding of our finances, our families, our careers, our church structures and our communities.