Waiting (Isaiah 64:1-8)

Podcast – Camas Friends Church

“Extended Open Worship” week. The following is a brief introduction to that time…

Isaiah 64:1-8 (NRSV):

1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
2 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.
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 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.

Queries:

What hopes—whether yours or others’—feel most urgent to you today?

How are you experiencing or witnessing desperation?

What clarity or power do you find in the image of “Potter” for God?

Where is God? Where do you sense the ongoing but not-yet-complete work of God taking place?

Of what are we collectively guilty? What are our collective transgressions?

What does waiting for God entail? What do wait-ers do?