Not just any Father

Isaiah 64:1-9

November 28^th & 29^th, 2008

             First I need to make a slight correction.  I first thought of the title for this message a month ago, and I thought it sounded pretty good “A divine pottery lesson”, taken from verse 8 of our text.  This week when I started to look at these verses more closely, the title I know needed to change so the new title, for those keeping track of such things is “Not just any Father”.

Over 15 times in the Old Testament God is described as their Father and twice in this text and once time just preceding this text.   Isaiah is prophesying to God’s people when they are literally stuck in a foreign land called Babylon.    People and nations more powerful than themselves are setting the agenda for their lives, and their children’s lives.   There has been and is great disregard for their divine Father’s actions in their lives.    Their worship turned away from the actions of their loving Father  to various stars, wooden idols, and as a result their lives were marked my such things as greed, injustice, bribery and the like.   In the previous chapter  he writes “But you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us or Israel does not acknowledge us”.  In other words all human Fathers, all earthly helps, come up wanting against enemies and situations that are well beyond their control.   It is a tough but good life lesson  when we realize that only our heavenly Father can deliver us from our seemingly “intractable situations”.  That only our heavenly Father, can deliver us from the sin that so easily entangles us.  Only Jesus, knows what it is like, and bears alone our diseases and our sicknesses, as Isaiah says “truly he has carried our sorrows, and bore our infirmities”.   Isaiah was reminded as we are reminded, that when we are asked to call on “Our Father”, God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children”.  Jesus himself, in his hour of greatest need prayed to heaven “Abba Father, everything is possible for you, Take this cup from me, yet not what I will by yours be done”.    Isaiah new that if help would be on the way it would have to come from the one who made his people his very own.

So what does he do, he prays, boldly he requests that his Father would act.   That the Lord would make himself known dramatically as he has in the past.  “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence….and that the nations might tremble at your presence”.    You’ve done it in the past on Sinai, you brought Egypt to their knees as your brought your people through the Red Sea.     Isaiah’s prayer is quite destructive forces.  Isaiah starts out with what he knows that Lord has done.  Past actions, that beyond a shadow of a doubt, our Lord was involved in on behalf of his people.     Now were any of those sitting in exile there when the mountains shook while he gave the 10 commandments?  Not at all!  Were any of the Israelites in Babylon present when Abraham received his promises?  Not at all!   Yet, and this is key, these actions of God were done for them as much as they were done for the people years before in Egypt.   The same holds true for us.   When we are stuck, we rely on the God who has done things for our benefit, long before we were born.  The accounts of the OT and the accounts of Jesus are our stories.  Jesus is the king who came for you and me riding on a lowly donkey.  Jesus came for you and I as his resurrection power, Holy Spirit, and forgiveness were placed on his the baptismal showers.   Isaiah prayer starts by speaking  of God’s past actions, might, and promises. 

God acts, God is almighty, and God is holy, but we are not.  “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like polluted garment.  We all fade like leaf….There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of your iniquities. (Isaiah 64:8-9).”   Just like clay cannot on its own turn itself into a beautiful piece of art, no more can we turn ourselves toward our Father’s direction.   Isaiah confesses a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless.  That is, before God himself, we naturally are prone to flee from him, and that even the best we offer him is like a polluted garment.  This isn’t just low self esteem.  This isn’t giving oneself an unnecessary guilt trip.   This is simply the truth, that when it comes to this relationship being strained or even cut off, the one doing the fleeing is not the loving, rescuing, Father, but rather you and me. 

Then we come to a glorious conjunction, and when you see this after a message of strong law, you can start to smile.  “But, you O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter, we are all the work of your hand.”  God answers our pray to rend the heavens, by being the ultimate in a sacrificing Father.  He sends forth his son, for you, not by rending the heavens, but by entering a stable.   Through him our Father does some amazing work on what seems like worthless clay.   He cleans the clay, and molds us into a clean, sparkling pottery.  The clay is made beautiful by the crucified and risen master potter.   You are here today, being worked on by your Divine pottery maker.  To him be the glory both now and forevermore.  Amen.