As we begin another Christian year with Advent, we enter a tender time in our lives—some of us because we’re grieving or hurting, some because we’re frazzled by our own choices, some just because it’s a season that touches deep places in our souls.

All of us yearn for something to be different. We look around in our own live, in the economy, in our politics, in the world, and we yearn for change, yet despair of its coming. And sometimes we are paralysed by that despair.

Both of our texts for today speak to both of those - desire for change and despair of its ever coming – they’re evocatively deep ancient texts, and touch places in our souls that we rarely allow to see the light of day. And they’re every bit as evocative of what we need 2500 years later!

Both sound like laments: You can hear the plaintive cries--

O God, come

Lord, let your face shine—let us know you’re there!

How long must we wait?

Tear open the heavens and come down!

The people cry out for God to be made known.

And like us, as soon as they recognize their need for God, it spurs them into a reality check—they recognize where they have gone wrong. Like the bumper sticker says, if God seems distant, guess who moved?

In this coming season it’s easy to move away from God—life gets in the way, and in our culture there’s no such thing as Advent, just Christmas – and even that has little to do with God anymore. We’re not so different from the ‘we’ of the text.

So, we too must do a reality check. We need to take Advent seriously and look hard at what is wrong or missing that we so yearn for change.

Let’s go back to the Isaiah text and take some reflection time with the ancient people…..

Listen as they pray….listen with the ear of your heart; it may help to close your eyes or whatever your prayer posture may be….

v. 3 We look back at what you’ve done in the past God—awesome deeds that we did not expect, that shook us up…..

Looking back, how has God been there for you in the past?

v. 5 We see how we’ve messed up, God, and blamed you for not guiding us…

Looking back, where have we not taken responsibility for our own behavior, or lack of action?

v. 6 And now we’re held in the grip of our own mess, God, carried away on a wind of our own making…

Looking at now, what’s engulfing you?

v. 7 We’re disconnected from you God, and sometimes it feels like you don’t even exist!.......

where do you wish God was? What do you yearn for God to do?

AND YET. And yet, we say….O God, you are connected. We DO believe it.

You are our Father and Mother who gives us life….., the shepherd who gently steers us towards the safe and healthy places, and seeks us out when we wander off…..the Potter who yearns to make something of the clay that is us. We ARE all the work of your hand.

So come God, come!

For those of us who need a loving father or a strong mother, come and wrap us in your embrace….

For those who need guidance, come and mold us into what YOU want us to be for once.

For those who have messed up, come and help us begin again in your way

For those of us blown about by circumstances, come as a solid rock on which we can rely………..

For God DOES come. All the time. Trouble is we don’t see it.

God the embracing father comes in that person who so deeply cares for you that you dare to believe you are worth loving

God the life giving mother comes in the regularity of a sunrise or season

God the shepherd comes in the strength of others during your tragedy times

God the potter comes in that small group that’s holding us accountable for our own growth

There is no limit to the times and ways and places God comes

We’re so busy calling for some far off God to ‘rend the heavens and come down’ that we’ve forgotten how to put ourselves into the Presence of the God who is already here. All around us…all the time.

Here is hope. Hope is in the calling for help, the calling for the God you’re not even sure you believe in…the calling itself is an act of hope.

But as we said last week and the week before, it has to be intentional. God does not force us into this relationship.

Song Seek God, in every one and every thing, every day of your life.

In this season of tenderness and vulnerability, let us try to seek God, not the right gift, the perfect recipe, the prettiest decorations, the best job, the happiest family, the greatest bargain….. but seek God, who is already seeking us.

And the change we yearn for will come. Because we will become the change we want to see, for we will be the people of God, the people of hope.