Voices: The minor chords of Advent

Advent directs the church’s attention to the prophets, those servants of God who taught Israel to anticipate the Messiah and who shaped how Jesus conceptualized his messianic ministry.

More specifically, Christians often turn to Isaiah 40-55, noting how the suffering servant is key to God’s plan to redeem his servant Israel.

But as I have reflected upon—and struggled with—Isaiah 54 over the past few weeks, my reactions have been less about hope, joy, peace and love. Rather, I have found myself mired in the minor chords of Advent, a musical score too often neglected, but that I have found necessary to my continued growth as a disciple of Jesus.

Humility

Like other oracles in this collection, Isaiah 54 posits a grand future for Jerusalem and its people. The promises of God are so remarkable, they cannot help but evoke difficult questions in the heart of the sensitive, historically aware reader.

• Is the God of Judaism and Christianity nothing more than a mirage?

Israel has shown remarkable—perhaps even miraculous—resilience as a nation, but it never has experienced the golden age described in the prophets. Moreover, the nation has experienced hardships that seem to be precluded by the predictions of texts like Isaiah 54. Have God’s words failed?

• Was Jesus’ understanding of the Messiah’s ministry wrong? Is that why some of the prophecies of Isaiah 40-55 seem so incongruous with what actually has taken place over the last two millennia?

Clearly, we cannot ignore Isaiah 53’s portrayal of a suffering servant who brings redemption, but can we privilege this rendition of the Messiah’s work over others that seem to present him as a conquering warrior who works within the present historical and political realm to create a kingdom that will attract “the nations” to Judaism and its Torah?

• Or are the dispensationalists right?

N.T. Wright is just one of many New Testament theologians who argue—persuasively—the prophecies of Scripture are fulfilled in Christ alone. But what if this reading is really a gross violation of how the prophets expressed themselves?

There are answers, of course, to these questions, ones scholars have labored for generations to construct, refine and defend.

But when we are confronted with the evidence afresh, when we ourselves must wrestle with God’s message to his people, we cannot be surprised when others—atheists, orthodox Jews, dispensationalist Christians—find our explanations less than satisfactory.

And this is not all bad, for it inculcates in us a humility that paves the way for love and leaves open the possibility of unity within the body of Christ.

Lament

Our awareness of human history, when placed alongside the hopeful visions articulated in Isaiah 54 and elsewhere, also should motivate us to lament.

The sad and sordid tale that is the human experience often is summed up in how “the nations” have treated ethnic and religious Israel. When we see the mistreatment heaped upon this group of people throughout the past 2,500 years, we see a reflection of both our own suffering and our own inhumanity.

This terrible history is why Christ had to come into our world. It is why he had to suffer the deprivations that so often characterize our experience. It is why he had to die a death he did not deserve. The fact he loves us—and loves Israel—enough to make that sacrifice is worthy of celebration, but the need for it is worthy of lament.

Moreover, I lament the fact no one ever has experienced the blessed material, social and emotional existence described in these prophetic expressions of hope. My soul yearns to know there is some group of people somewhere who have lived for generations on end saturated by the blessings of this life and protected from its griefs.

Even if I cannot live that experience myself, it would comfort my aching heart that someone else had. It would strengthen my faith to see a monument to God’s faithfulness in a city drenched in pearls and overflowing with happy, healthy children—even if that city were not my own.

The fact that even the wealthiest nations on earth teeter on the brink of historical irrelevance, and that the nation to whom these words were spoken has faced attempted eradication on numerous occasions, breaks my heart.

It forces me to place my own, private grief in a much larger and more disheartening context. It draws out of me that biblical art so often ignored in our happy-go-lucky, cookie-cutter churches—the art of memorializing the human experiences of suffering, confusion, frustration and loss.

Desperation

But lament is not enough.

Reading the promises of God in Isaiah 54 pierces my heart with a desperate longing to see those promises come true.

It isn’t just about wanting to see the evidence supporting my faith. It isn’t just about wanting to be able to draw a discernable line from the words of Scripture to the events of history.

It also is about the practical consequences of God’s vision coming true for individuals, families and communities who suffer. It is about seeing the old made young again. It is about seeing the disabled soldier prance on renewed legs. For me, it is about seeing.

The fulfillment of these promises would improve not just the quality of life of this or that person. It would justify their faith in a God who loves his people and keeps his word.

It would vindicate those who needlessly suffer, whether in the gas chambers of a concentration camp or under the thumb of some sex-trafficking degenerate. It would signal the restoration of a moral order that is the prerequisite of lasting peace, an order that guarantees a future without sin and death.

Advent calls us to look back on what God already has done, but it also calls us to look forward. It calls us into the desperate struggle to see God’s kingdom consummated on earth (Matthew 6:10) and God’s creation comforted by the perfect discharge of God’s will (Romans 8:19-22).

We feel this desperation every day (Romans 8:23-25), but Advent gives our desperation room to breathe. It surfaces the longings we so often suppress just so we can get through the day. In so doing, Advent turns our attention once again to the God who can satisfy those longings.

Wade Berry is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Ranger and resident fellow in New Testament and Greek at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.