“Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself” (Psalm 80:15).
Will God finish the work which he has begun in us? Have our errant ways exhausted his mercy? Were the glimpses of his work which we were afforded flights of naive passion? Were we an investment ill-made? All that power, all that light, the warmth of companionship, God the wind behind our back, Christ the hand upon our shoulder—it’s all gone. What are we left with?
The psalmist writes, “O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers? You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us an object of contention for our neighbors, and our enemies laugh among us” (Psalm 80:6). Over these weeks we’ve spent reflecting together, many of the passages which have encountered us have directed us to the certainty of God’s work in the world. It’s happening. God’s doing it. However, part and parcel with the situation we’re in before the coming Jesus is the ambiguity and confusion of prayers apparently unheard, a world apparently closed, the intervals between our sobs and groans apparently filled with silence. Our hearts shake “as the trees of the forest shake before the wind” (Isaiah 7:2). We’re “tossed to and fro by the waves” (Ephesians 4:14). We keep sending out a dove, to see if the waters have “subsided from the face of the ground,” but the dove finds “no place to set her foot” (Genesis 8:8-9).
The psalmist writes, “Restore us, O Lord God of hosts! Let you face shine, that we may be saved” (Psalm 80:19). This desperate plea expresses the heart of our situation. We appear abandoned. God’s holy vine, his people, appear torn apart: “They have burned it with fire; they have cut it down” (Psalm 80:16); “the Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah” (Isaiah 7:17). Here, in the silence, in the great tribulation, God speaks his word to us: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20; see Matthew 1:22). God’s word, his transparency in our ambiguity, his clarity in our confusion, is Immanuel. The birth of Jesus makes good on God’s promises; it gets us in on what God’s been doing this whole time (Romans 1:1-2). God has not abandoned his investment. He has been working in us. His mercy is inexhaustible. As the apostle Paul writes, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). When we are surrounded and indwelt by the acute tragedy of this life, we have God’s word who “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:4). This power, which brings life from death and holiness from depravity, is what’s at work in our blindness, what’s speaking in our deafness. It’s the power that’s at work in us—now!
Today, I’d ask you to sit with a worthy saying: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). This Spirit, from whom Immanuel comes (Matthew 1:20) amidst the question mark of our lives and by whom Immanuel is raised from the question mark at the end of our lives, is “the guarantee of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:13), the presence of God’s future transparency, his future clarity in the coming Jesus.
Further Reading: Psalm 80; Isaiah 7:10-16; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
Written by Guest House Theologian, Tim Morgan. These reflections are a complimentary addition to our Advent Blend Coffee Bags. Scan the QR code each day to read the most recent reflection.
More Advent reflections can be found here.