Finding Our Way Back
November 27, 2011 | Anita Retzlaff | Isaiah 64: 1-9, Psalm 80, Corinthians 1: 3-9, Mark 13: 24-37

Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. We greet the advent season today with high hopes. Just catching a glimpse of the Christmas tree evokes a feeling of excitement and anticipation. Doesn’t it? This tree stands here in all of its splendour urging within us hopes for the next few weeks: meaningful traditions shared, gestures of love, hospitality offered around food, friendship and of course, worship and singing and joy to the world.

The first three verses of Psalm 80 evoke another image in my mind. It is kind of a “traditional” God image I must confess. I imagine God sitting in front of a warm fireplace: a yellow glow and red flames dancing. I lightly shake God’s shoulders in the way one does in order to get someone’s attention. “Do you see me God? I need you. We need you. Because you are in charge of eternity and totally wise and because forgiveness is your thing, please, fix up our relationship messes so that we can all sit here with you, enjoy the warmth together and put all of our bad mistakes behind us.” Wouldn’t we all enjoy the advent and Christmas seasons to the fullest if our relationships were absolutely healthy, if we felt close to God and good about ourselves all at the same time? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be free from worry and totally secure?

“Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock!” Give ear! Are you paying attention God? “You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up your might and come to save us!” God, you are all powerful. Come! Help us! The image of God enthroned upon the cherubim is a reference to Israel’s history when God was known to reside in the holy place, the portable Ark of the Covenant. God was seen to be present in the ark as the people of Israel fled Egypt, wandered the wilderness and eventually - after long last - settled in the land of Canaan. God’s power was seen to be present in this specific place, enthroned upon the cherubim, the winged creatures that adorned the Ark of the Covenant. Here is power! “Restore us O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.”

Israel was always running into trouble. And it was not simple stuff. Israel kept turning away from God. Just as quickly as God would do a new thing and a good thing for the people of Israel, in a flash these people would not only forget about Yahweh God but would begin to worship other gods and give in to all sorts of temptations; greed, violence, self-centeredness and self-pity. So, time and time again as we read through the Scriptures, the Old Testament especially, we hear God’s people asking for forgiveness and yet one more chance.

So we begin our advent worship with the call for restoration. Israel, God’s chosen people, call upon God for salvation despite the fact that they have dumped their God, as one would jilt a lover, unceremoniously, not only once but over and over again. They plead with the Great Shepherd to once more lead and protect them. They bargain with God and promise that they will mend their ways and all will be well if only God will just forgive, restore them, one more time. And so they wait upon God to make things right.

You might ask, “So, what has this to do with advent?” If you have not yet recognized it; this is precisely our predicament too. We approach the birth of Jesus this advent season, with a deep desire to put things right, to make life good, to restore relationships so that all will be well. The warmth of God’s presence as experienced through the warmth of our personal relationships is something we long for especially at this time of year. Restore us O God, let your face shine that we might be saved. Can we find our way back into good relationship where things have been dicey? Can we find our way back to God so that it feels right?

For anyone who has been through some form of family turmoil or break up you will know the difficulties that the Christmas season can bring. Family traditions are suddenly dislocated and delicate negotiation becomes necessary in order to restructure celebration times and intimate family moments. And things are just not the same. When such a seismic family shift occurs, huge gaps open up and the high and holy days become particularly difficult. The warmth and the safety of family togetherness becomes elusive. The longing for joy and intimacy seems a long way off. The nature of fractured relationships vary greatly. There are stand offs between parents and children, a sudden explosion between longtime friends, between siblings and even between an individual and their community. The joy and high expectation of this season come crashing down.

With all the talk of waiting and anticipation of the birth of Jesus a lot of our attention during the advent season is given to evaluating and re-evaluating our relationships. How are we positioned to celebrate and to welcome Jesus into our lives? Advent becomes a time of soul-searching; a time when we find our way back to God. We can only find our way back to God when we make peace with a situation in which we have been cut off. I do not mean that we can restore all relationships. Some relationships are forever severed and sometimes for the better. However, there is always a time of making peace with that reality, offering blessing to those who are gone and seeking personal restoration of joy and spirit, personally and with God, after a particularly painful disruption.

In other words we are always in need of restoration. We are often finding our way back from something, from some difficult falling away or falling out. The story of God’s relationship with Israel underscores the neediness of humanity and shows a pattern that always comes around to God’s invitation of grace and safety. Another word for grace and safety? Salvation! God saves us; God makes our lives safe again; that is salvation. It is the cycle of love to which God is committed. God keeps coming around to save us from ourselves, from our enemies and from our ridiculously high expectations of what life owes us. So, it is a basic part of our relationship with God that we are free to call out, “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel… stir up your might and come to save us!” This opportunity is part of the way in which God works with us and offers continuing relationship to us.

And… sometimes we have to wait. For when we call out to God for salvation we do not necessarily experience that safety immediately because we don’t always know how to accept grace or recognize it. Waiting is part of finding our way back. And I believe that even while we wait we can be assured that though we can’t see it at the moment, God is actively restoring what we have broken. So it is not a stretch of the imagination to anticipate, to expect, that when we find our way back to each other after our relationships have been strained or broken, at the very same time, we are also finding our way back to God. Both movements require faith in the process and hope in the eventuality of restoration. The journey of finding our way back to health and wholeness, to restored relationship is all about believing that it can happen, that God is present even when peace seems unlikely. Therefore we call on God and we wait…

“Restore us O LORD of hosts, let your face shine that we may be saved.” To seek the light of God’s face is the ancient way of expressing the belief that God is present. By the light of God’s face we find our way back. In the very presence of God this advent we wait for the coming of grace in our lives and in our community. We wait for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who restores all people and calls everyone to peace. This advent we ask God to turn toward us, that in the brightness of God’s face we know salvation and restoration; right relationship with each other and with God.

Prayer:
O God that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence. 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. Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel you who lead Joseph like a flock… stir up your might and come to save us! Let your face shine and grant us peace. AMEN