Advent 1: A Different Restoration

True restoration is about right relationship. Rather than a return to the status quo, true restoration disrupts the status quo.

Artwork: “Long Walk to the Fire” by Carsten Ten Brink

“Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved,” goes the refrain from Psalm 80.

Be careful what you wish for or so the axiom goes. I guess that means we should be even more careful what we pray for. Our passage from Isaiah starts with a petition from a people in exile asking God to “tear open the heavens and come down” (64:1), an act the speaker imagines would make the mountains quake with the presence of God. Come down in a big and mighty show of force. And I imagine that God in all God’s power could do just that. But the footsteps of the Creator among Creation have always been much more gentle and subtle than that. 

I think that we like the prophet here, longing for God to do something dramatic, imagine what we would do if we were as powerful as God. We put ourselves in that place and then we ask God to do as we would do if we could. Fortunately, we are not God, and if we want to see what God is doing, we must listen…