“Oh, that you would rend the heavens”
“Oh, that you would rend the heavens”
Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac (Translated by Alex Awad)
Look down from heaven and see,
from your lofty throne, holy and glorious.
Where are your zeal and your might?
Your tenderness and compassion are withheld from us.
16 But you are our Father,
though Abraham does not know us
or Israel acknowledge us;
you, Lord, are our Father,
our Redeemer from of old is your name. Isaiah 63:15-16 (NIV)
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze
and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!
3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Isaiah 64:1-3
We meet this Advent Season at a time full of challenges, conflicts and contradictions. Many of us in Bethlehem continue to be concerned about Coved -19 and its many consequences. There are all kinds of feelings that pervade our land. Despair and frustration on the one hand, after the decision of some Arab countries to normalize relations with the power that is inflicting daily injustices on us and threatens to annex what little left of our homeland. This is beside all the daily shootings and killings of innocent young people in the West Bank and Gaza. Anger and a sense of helplessness and the fear of what the future may bring. On the one hand, we want to rejoice in the Christmas season, to light up the Christmas tree and give gifts to the children. On the other hand, we want to forget about the harsh realities that we face. How we long to reflect on the joy and peace that the Advent season brings.
Today, we still feel the The cruel siege of Gaza, normalization and the threat of annexation come to us almost 100 years after the Balfour Declaration, the promise that the British Empire gave the Jews the green light to establish a national homeland in Palestine. At that time, the British considered themselves the owners and guardians of Palestine. They gave themselves the right to control the fate of our people. In their view, Palestine belonged to them. Something they owned. They did not care about its people and their destiny. They claimed that the land was empty and then determined it as, “a land without a people for a people without land”! They knew, however, that the land had a population, but considered its inhabitants worthless.
No regard for Palestinians, as if we did not exist. But worse, they don't care about our future. In their eyes we are like nothing. The appeals of the Arab Christian leaders fell on deaf ears. If we do not serve their interests, we are worthless in their eyes. They don’t consider us their brothers and sisters. Why did we write and call on our Western brothers and sister to aide us? Oriental Christians, no one on earth wants to listen to you!
Many years, the people of this land found themselves in a similar situation. They were surrounded by many powerful empires and certainly felt their threat. They witnessed the destruction of their land and cities. They were exiled. They looked for hope.
In the text we read, Isaiah waited for God's just judgement, having seen and spoken of the glories to come. He wanted to comfort his people with God’s promise of peace. After predicting the Lord's Messiah saying:
"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,”
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—"
(Isaiah 1:61-3)
And now he's asking: When is this going to happen? Come, Lord, and make these words a reality. The earth is full of poor, broken-hearted, captured and oppressed people. Rescue and save. You are our Father! You are our Redeemer! I wish you would tear the heavens apart and come down! There is such a crisis in Isaiah's faith; theology and faith tell him something about the God of justice and consolation, but indeed he says something else around him, captivity, destruction, darkness and injustice.
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down! These words may reflect the longings of many today. Where are you, God? How can you be silent about injustice and overwhelming coercion? How do you allow this arrogant to control the lives of the peoples of the earth? Will God break the heavens and come down to rescue us?
In this Adventist Season, we remember that the God of this earth is not silent. He is not far. But here is the divine mystery: God came to us in weakness. God was embodied in a child living under occupation and empire, and he experienced both as he entered our world. His family had to travel to take part of a census ordered by Caesar. Herod tried to kill him, and Jesus became a refugee. As if the world and its empire had realized that the birth of Bethlehem’s child was their greatest enemy. He's the one who's going to triumph over them. He is the one who will not bow to Caesar, nor to wealth and his power. Nothing that Caesar would offer him will derail him from the mission of saving his people.
When God came into our world, he chose to come through the helpless and the oppressed. From the Little Town of Bethlehem, he came to redeem us from this world and its kingdoms; He came as a friendly king and servant. His weapon was love, love of God and of neighbor. He came to establish a kingdom of another kind. It is not like the kingdoms of Caesars, Caliphs, Crusaders, Harrods, or Ottoman Sultans. It's not like Netanyahu and Trump. It is the kingdom of prayers, lovers of good, peace and justice. It is a kingdom with the emblem of the cross, not like the Crusaders, but in the form of the Cross of Calvary. A Cross of Love... A Cross of sacrifice... A Cross of Redemption...
God is not silent. God is not far. Yes, he came down from the heaven, rend the sky and came to earth. But we need the eyes of faith. We need to read events and the world around us with the eyes of faith. With the eyes of the Gospel. The kingdoms of the world have come and gone, and Christ remains the focus of our worship and our crowned king. He is not the Messiah of coercion, injustice, and indifference, but the Messiah of the Gospel, the Son of God, the slaughtered lamb who washed the sin of the world.
Yes, their kingdoms came and went away, while Christ’s is, “yesterday and today forever!”.
Moreover, their kingdoms came and went, and the powerless people of the earth, who have no political base were exonerated. Didn't Jesus tell us: “The meek will inherit the earth”?
God is with us. He is with us along with the follow of Christ everywhere who understand his message. We have got solidarity from all over the world. I am receiving messages from all over the world. There are brothers and sisters who have not bowed to the beast and to his kingdom.
The message in this Advent Season: God is with us. Jesus is with us. His birth reminds us that he has torn the sky and descended as Jesus, the Son of Mary. The message is to us: Don't be afraid, little flock. Believe, read the events with the eyes of faith.
The message is resilience. We're here! We're not going! They hatched conspiracies against us and on our land, and we stayed. Our steadfastness and survival are our resistance. So, let's live and work. If God is with us, who can stand against us.
Let us invest ourselves in the kingdom, the kingdom of prayer. This is the kingdom of the child of Bethlehem, the refugee fugitive who was incarnated into our world. Today we are his followers. Yes, we must remain and embody another kingdom, so that we will be the conscience of the world and a message to them about the God of this earth, all the earth, the owner of the earth, who has everything in his hands, who will one day judge the living and the dead. He is the one who said: Here I am the creator of everything new. His glory, dignity, and power forever, Amen.