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Isaiah 64:1-9 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. 4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. 5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? 6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. 7 No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people.
Mark 13:24-37 24 “But in those days, following that distress, ” ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; 25 the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ 26 “At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. 28 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 29 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. 30 I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. 32 “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. 35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back–whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’ “
The Coming LORD
Today we begin the season of Advent, a time of reflective preparation for the arrival, the “advent”, of Jesus Christ’s birth at Christmas time as well Christ’s expected return in the Second Coming. The term ‘Advent’ derives from the Latin word adventus, which means ‘coming’ or ‘arrival’, and holds deep significance in Christian traditions. This year we are going to examine four reasons that Jesus was sent to us. He was sent to claim His crown as King, He was sent to reclaim his people from exile, He was sent to proclaim the Kingdom of God and finally, Jesus was sent to proclaim the Good News. This morning we are going to look at why Jesus was sent to claim His crown as King, as Lord of the universe.
We often think of Advent as the time when we decorate the church for Christmas, when we light the Advent wreath through the four weeks that are Advent. We sing special hymns that we don’t sing at other times of the year and we wait with anticipation for Christmas.
But Advent begins not with twinkling lights or cozy manger scenes, but with a cry—a cry that echoes from the prophet Isaiah and reverberates in Jesus’ apocalyptic words: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” This is not the gentle whisper we often associate with the season. This is not a polite request. This is a scream. It is longing. It is ache. It is the prayer of people who have come to the end of their own strength.
And Jesus, in Mark 13, speaks of darkened suns, falling stars, and the call to stay awake, watchful for a God who comes not according to our timetable but according to God’s.
These texts may sound unsettling, but they bring us to the very heart of Advent. Because Advent is not about pretending everything is fine. Advent is about daring to hope when everything is not fine. It is about acknowledging that we cannot heal ourselves, save ourselves, or fix the world—and expecting God to come into the midst of it all.
“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down”. This is the plea of the prophet Isaiah in chapter 64, verse 1. How often have our hearts prayed for the same? How often have we longed for God to break into this broken world and set right the wrongs? How often have we yearned to see Him come down and claim His crown as rightful King? To bring the chaos of our times under His reign of peace?
But the Scriptures this morning pull us in a very different direction. They confront us with longing, disruption, cosmic shaking, and the deep ache of waiting.
Isaiah’s community knew disappointment. They had returned from exile with great expectations—visions of restoration, revival, rebuilding. But what they saw instead were ruins, opposition, and spiritual exhaustion. They look at the rubble and say, “We have all become like one who is unclean… our iniquities take us away.” They are painfully honest about their failures, yet they cling to a deeper truth: “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter.” Advent begins exactly there—between disappointment and hope, between honest confession and stubborn trust.
Jesus, centuries later, speaks into a similar tension. In Mark 13, he talks about stars falling, heavens shaking, and fig trees sprouting. “Keep awake,” he says, “for you do not know when the master of the house will come.” Keep awake, watchful for a God who comes not according to our timetable but according to God’s.
At first glance, Jesus’ imagery sounds frightening—a cosmic unraveling. But Advent teaches us that divine disruption is often the doorway to salvation. God tears open the heavens not to destroy, but to come close. Not to frighten, but to be with us. Not to end the world, but to heal it.
Today, let’s sit with these texts and let them teach us: What we long for. what we honestly confess, who God truly is and how we watch and wait.
We’ve all prayed that prayer: “Come and make it right, Lord. Step in and do something about this mess.” At Advent, Jesus is sent as the answer to that prayer. In sending Jesus, God comes down. Isaiah’s cry is one of the rawest prayers in all of Scripture. It is the prayer of people who have come home from exile expecting triumph, restoration, rebuilding—only to find ruins, shattered hopes, and a community spiritually exhausted.
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” It is a prayer that says: God, this is too much for us. We need you. We need you not just in a symbolic sense, not in a comforting idea, but truly, actually—for real.
There is something profoundly honest about longing. Longing means something matters. Longing means we haven’t given up. Longing means we are awake to the brokenness of the world and awake to the God who can heal it.
And Advent is the season when Christians learn again to long. We long for peace in a world filled with violence. We long for justice where there is exploitation. We long for reconciliation where families are divided, where communities are fractured. We long for physical healing, emotional healing, spiritual healing. We long to see God, to feel God’s presence. We long for the kingdom to come in fullness. Isaiah names that longing.
Advent is a season of intentional waiting, longing for the arrival of the promised Messiah. As we enter into this waiting, we recall the longing of humanity for a Savior, the longing of Israel for the true King, the longing of every heart for healing. And we marvel at the mystery of how God fulfilled this longing – by opening up the heavens and coming down to us himself through Jesus. In the Incarnation, God becomes flesh and lives among us. He steps into creation, into our brokenness, and enters our pain. This is the thrill of Advent: in sending Jesus, God comes down.
In sending Jesus, throughout history, God has revealed His will to His people. He shows us His heart and character through the beauty of creation, the covenants and Law, the Tent and Temple, miraculous acts of power, and powerful words of prophets. But now, in Advent, He does the unthinkable. He shows us himself. Do you want to know what God is like? Look to Jesus. Do you want to know how He acts? Look to Jesus. Do you want to know how He loves? Look to Jesus. “Since ancient times,” Isaiah says, “no eye has seen any God besides you” (v. 4). Yet not even the prophet himself could have anticipated this hope – in sending Jesus, God reveals himself like never before. Jesus is the full revelation of God’s character, will, and heart. He is God in the flesh.
It is stirring and thrilling to recall the hope of Advent – Jesus sent to us, God coming down, revealing himself in the flesh. But in verses 5-9 of this passage, Isaiah reminds us with chilling clarity why we needed Advent in the first place. Our slavery to sin, persistent failure, and cursed disobedience all continued to condemn us. Even our righteous acts, He says, are like filthy rags. Isaiah does not simply blame the world “out there.” He looks in the mirror. “We have all become like one who is unclean…We all shrivel up like a leaf.” He describes a people disconnected from God, swept away by their own failures, distracted, spiritually sleepy. It sounds remarkably like the spiritual diagnosis Jesus offers in Mark 13—people who are not paying attention, not awake to what God is doing. Confession is not about shame. Confession is about truthfulness.
Advent invites us to name what is cracked in us: our impatience, our self-reliance, our cynicism, our apathy, our forgetfulness of God, our tendency to numb ourselves rather than pray, our desire to control rather than trust. Isaiah says, “There is no one who calls on your name.” It is a recognition that people have stopped depending on God. But this confession leads somewhere.
After all the honesty—after naming longing, after naming sin, after naming fatigue—Isaiah speaks perhaps the most important word: “Yet.” “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father.” “Yet, we are the clay and you are our potter.” “Yet, we are all the work of your hand.” The entire hope of Advent hangs on that “yet.” It reminds us that even when we are faithless, God remains faithful. Even when we are broken, God is still shaping us. Even when the world feels unstable, God is still the potter carefully forming something new.
Isaiah’s prayer is not confidence in human effort. It is confidence in God’s character.
And this leads us directly to Mark 13. When Jesus speaks of the sun darkening and stars falling, he is not trying to terrify. He is describing a world where the old ways of living are passing away. He is talking about God interrupting business-as-usual. The coming of the Son of Man is not destruction; it is redemption. It is God coming in glory to finish what began in Bethlehem. It is the God who hears Isaiah’s cry finally tearing open the heavens in fullness.
And Jesus gives us an image to hold on to—the fig tree. “When you see its branches become tender and leaves sprout you know summer is near.”
In other words: Even when the world looks barren, even when winter seems endless, God is at work beneath the surface. Something is growing.
Something is ripening. Hope is swelling in the branches. The kingdom is near.
But Jesus also says something else:“No one knows the day or hour.” Not the angels. Not even the Son. Only the Father.This is not meant to frustrate us. It is meant to free us. We don’t have to know everything. We don’t have to control everything. We don’t have to predict the future. Our calling is not to be fortune tellers. Our calling is to be faithful.
Isaiah prays, “Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people” (v. 9). In Jesus, we see that God is set on answering this prayer through restoration and healing. He comes down and He reveals himself, all for the purpose of restoring us and our relationship with Him. This is Advent. Our hearts are weighed down with gratitude. Out of our history of brokenness, Jesus crafts a future of restoration.
The miracle of Advent is this: God answered Isaiah’s cry in a way no one expected. When Isaiah prayed, “Tear open the heavens,” he could not have imagined how God would answer. God did tear open the heavens— but not with thunder and earthquake. With a baby’s cry. God came down in flesh, in vulnerability, in poverty, in love. He came down to a lowly manger, born not as a king but as newborn born to peasant parent.
And Jesus promises God will come again—not in weakness this time, but in glory. Not to suffer, but to restore. Not to bear sin, but to wipe it away.
Advent stands between two arrivals—between the Christ who came and the Christ who will come again. It asks us to live awake to both.
And Jesus promises he will come again—to finish what he began: to restore, to judge with mercy, to heal creation, to wipe away every tear.
Because of the sin-broken reality of our world, we often find ourselves crying out for God to do something, to intervene and set things right again. We want Him to reveal himself and bring the scattered lost back to His heart. In Advent, God does exactly that.
In sending Jesus, God comes down, reveals Himself, and restores us. He doesn’t only send a sign, a message, or a servant. He sends His Son Jesus to claim His crown as rightful King.
Many of us carry our own versions of Isaiah’s cry. We look at the world—the violence, the division, the suffering—and whisper, “God, please come. It’s too much.” We look at our families—strained relationships, loved ones in pain—and we say, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” We look at our own hearts—our weariness, our failures—and we long for God to come and reshape us. And the promise of Advent is this: God hears. God comes. God is coming still.