December 3, 2023

While We Wait...

“While We Wait, Hope Waits For Us”

Isaiah 64: 1-9

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence—2 [a]as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! 3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down; the mountains quaked at your presence. 4 From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. 5  You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.[b] 6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 7 There is no one who calls on your name or attempts to take hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered[c] us into the hand of our iniquity. 8 Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.

The prophet Isaiah writes, “No one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God but you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for you!” Let our waiting Hope be as active as the greening that we see. We light this first candle in celebration of the new and very present Hope.