O Savior, Rend the Heavens Wide
Isaiah 64:1-9 Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and come down. Mountains then would quake because of your presence. 2As fire ignites stubble and as fire makes water boil, make your name known to your adversaries. Then nations would quake in your presence. 3You did amazing things that we did not expect. You came down. Mountains quaked because of your presence. 4From ancient times no one has heard. No ear has understood. No eye has seen any god except you, who goes into action for the one who waits for him. 5You meet anyone who joyfully practices righteousness, who remembers you by walking in your ways! But you were angry because we sinned. We have remained in our sins for a long time. Can we still be saved? 6All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth. All of us have withered like a leaf, and our guilt carries us away like the wind. 7There is no one who calls on your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you. So you hid your face from us. You made us melt by the power of our guilt. 8But now, Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand. 9Do not be angry, Lord, without limit. Do not remember our guilt forever. Please look closely. All of us are your people.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. (1 Corinthians 1:3)
On Sunday, my family was together to celebrate my birthday. Shelley gave me two presents. I ripped open the wrapping paper on the first box. It contained a pancake maker – a pancake maker that presses the shape of R2D2 and Darth Vader into the pancakes. I ripped open the wrapping paper on the second box. It contained a toaster – certainly not a regular toaster – a toaster in the shape of Darth Vader’s helmet!
My wife does not know, nor does she understand Star Wars. But she does know and understand her husband.
The prophet Isaiah prays for God to rip open the heavens. But this ripping and rending is not to bring presents. It would be to rip and rend the heavens to bring judgment upon Israel’s enemies.
Isaiah prays, “Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and come down. Mountains then would quake because of your presence” (Isaiah 64:1).
As a response to Israel’s rebellion and worship of false gods, the Lord allowed Israel’s enemies to overtake them time and time again. With prophetic foresight Isaiah looks ahead to the time when the Lord will allow Israel’s enemies to overtake them and God’s people will be living in exile in Babylon. These will be dark days for the people of God. Judah will be overrun by the Babylonians. Her citizens will be carried as captives to a foreign land. Even their king will be made a prisoner in Babylon. Jerusalem, the city of God, will be destroyed. The temple, the house of God, will be leveled and its sacred vessels carried away. These will definitely be dark days.
It seems like God’s enemies were triumphing. God’s enemies smugly defy God and gladly oppose God’s people. It seems like no one can resist them. Isaiah turns to God and asks him to step in and demonstrate his power in a sudden, violent way – so that his people might again be delivered from their enemies.
Isaiah prays, “Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and come down. Mountains then would quake because of your presence. As fire ignites stubble and as fire makes water boil, make your name known to your adversaries. Then nations would quake in your presence” (Isaiah 64:1-2).
Isaiah pleads that God will rip open the sky to come down in a way to make the mountains quake, the stubble burst into flame, and the waters boil. He wants the Lord to rend the heavens and come down in judgment like he did with the Flood, the tower of Babel, and Sodom and Gomorrah – drowning the wicked, spreading out the rebellious, and destroying the perverse.
Isaiah admits, “You did amazing things that we did not expect. You came down. Mountains quaked because of your presence” (Isaiah 64:3). Who would have expected the ways God rescued his people in the past? He rescued his people by sending devastating plagues (Exodus 7:5), parting of the Red Sea with a strong east wind (Exodus 14:21), destroying the walls of Jericho (Joshua 6), and the scattering of the Canaanites with hailstones (Joshua 10).
It seems like these are dark days for the Christian Church in America. It appears as if God’s enemies are triumphing over God’s people. The abomination of abortion is promoted. The butchering of bodies is celebrated. The sin of sexual immorality is revered. Evil is called good. Wrong is called right. The pagan worship of “Mother Earth” is more religious than the worship by most Christians. The idolatrous devotion to sports is more powerful than devotion to the Savior by many Christians. Radical secularism rules our day. The Church’s influence on our culture has certainly diminished.
We can cry out with Isaiah, “O Savior, rend the heavens wide.” How long will God allow this low point to last? When will God intervene and act? We call out, “Strike down your enemies, O God! Deliver your people, O Lord!”
Yet, remember why God allowed the enemies to overrun his people. It was in response to Israel’s idolatry of false gods and their apathy toward worshiping the true God.
Could God be allowing our enemies to oppose the Christian Church in response to our idolatry and apathy? How often are God’s people apathetic to worship, disinterested in Christian morals, and callous to bringing children up in the training and instruction of the Lord? We must admit that the hearts and minds of God’s people – that includes us – have become dull and distracted. The ministries of God’s churches are hampered by inadequate participation, low worship attendance, and lack of financial support.
We may be pretty excited to see God come down to bring justice upon his enemies. But wait. … Are we the enemies? Are we praying for God’s judgment to come upon us? Have we incurred God’s righteous wrath over our pathetic sins and apathetic faith?
Isaiah sees it. “You were angry because we sinned. We have remained in our sins for a long time. Can we still be saved? All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth” (Isaiah 64:5b-6a).
The word “unclean” means “polluted and defiled.” The Old Testament Levitical laws described many things such as certain animals as being “unclean.” Isaiah confessed that the people themselves were “unclean” and placed himself among the polluted and defiled. Isaiah then emphasized the disgusting and revolting character of sin. We might think we’re pretty good people and consider all the great things we do for God and others. But Isaiah emphasizes that even our so-called righteous acts are nothing but “filthy cloths” to God. Our English translation softens the harshness of this Hebrew phrase. It really refers to a woman’s menstrual rags. God views our works of the flesh as something disgusting, embarrassing, to be thrown away.
Isaiah asks a great question, “Can we still be saved?” How can we be saved when we are so unclean and filthy in God’s eyes?
Isaiah then describes what sin has done to every person. “All of us have withered like a leaf, and our guilt carries us away like the wind. There is no one who calls on your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you. So you hid your face from us. You made us melt by the power of our guilt” (Isaiah 64:6b-7). Sin makes us lifeless and dead like dry leaves that skitter and scrape across the ground in the autumn wind. By ourselves we have no life and can produce nothing of value in God’s eyes. As a result, God hides his face and turns the sinner over to their own natures. As sinners abandon God to indulge their sins, God then abandons them to their imaginations. … That is a terrible judgment!
Advent is a season of repentance. God is giving you this time to repent of your apathy, to confess your indifference, to admit your idolatry. He is giving you this season to turn from your pathetic sins, to ask for help with your apathetic faith, to pray for the Holy Spirit to make you different in your indifference to the Lord’s ministries. He is giving you this time to recognize your filth and acknowledge your lifelessness. He is calling for you right now to turn toward him to seek his forgiveness. To beg for cleansing. To ask him to shine his face on you again. To pray for the Holy Spirit’s sanctification. To plead for undeserved mercy instead of the judgment you deserve.
Isaiah prays for that mercy. “But now, Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. All of us are the work of your hand. Do not be angry, Lord, without limit. Do not remember our guilt forever. Please look closely. All of us are your people” (Isaiah 64:8-9). “But” – such an important word. Despite our righteous acts appearing like menstrual rags; despite our unclean nature; despite our lifeless faith life – “but” we can still call God our Lord and Father. God is our Lord. This name means he is a God of free and faithful grace, the God who made a covenant of salvation to Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, … and you. He is also the God whom we can wondrously and confidently address daily in our prayers, “Our Father in heaven …”. No matter what we’ve done, no matter how far we’ve gone away from God, no matter how embarrassing and disgusting we are, God still considers himself our Father and calls us to himself as his adopted children.
Isaiah also writes, “From ancient times no one has heard. No ear has understood. No eye has seen any god except you, who goes into action for the one who waits for him” (Isaiah 64:4).
Just as no one could have imagined how God would deliver his enslaved people through the Exodus, so no one could ever imagine how God would deliver enslaved humanity through Jesus. Who could conceive that God would allow his Son to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin? Who could imagine that God would send his one and only Son as a substitute to redeem the world from sin and deliver all humanity from death? Who would consider God would accomplish this salvation by sacrificing his own Son? What human mind could have anticipated the empty tomb? Would anyone create a plan where the Creator takes on the flesh of his creatures to saved his fallen creation?
God certainly did rend the heavens and come down! It was our Lord Jesus Christ, “who for us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became truly human” (Nicene Creed). Watch for the Son of God who came meek and mild, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger (Luke 2:12). Watch for the Son of Man who will be “coming on clouds with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26).
Jesus is the answer to Isaiah’s prayer. God rends the heavens to send a Savior who takes God’s just judgment and righteous wrath. Jesus wore our filthy rags and gave us his righteous robes to wear. He became unclean with our sins so we might be washed clean by his baptismal waters.
In a few weeks, you will be ripping and rending the wrapping paper to open your Christmas presents. Your family knows and understands you. I’m confident they will give you good gifts.
Our Savior certainly knows and understands what we need. At Advent we rejoice that our Savior ripped and rent the heavens wide at his incarnation to defeat our enemies of sin, death, and the devil. He defeated them through his birth, life, death, and resurrection. He ripped open his grave and made the very gates of hell quake. At Advent we also rejoice that our Savior will one day – on the Last Day – rip and rend the heavens wide in power and glory. Then he will deliver God’s people by destroying our enemies once and for all. Make Isaiah’s Advent prayer your Advent prayer: O Savior rend the heavens wide. Amen.
[God] will keep you strong until the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:8).