tornado warning

​1st Sunday in Advent – B                                                                   LSB #’s 566:1-3, 5; 579, 348
Text – Isaiah 64:6b
 
We all fade like a leaf, & our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 
 
TORNADO WARNING
 
 
This past August, 17 semi-trucks were traveling on a stretch of Interstate 96 when a tornado touched down with wind speeds up to 125 mph.  Every one of those trucks was dumped on its side simply by the force of moving air.  One driver said,
“As the storm approached, I pulled over, stopped, & literally felt the cab of my semi compress.  Then my entire semi went airborne with a 62,000 pound payload.”    The wooded areas along that stretch of I-96 look like a giant weed whacker went through them.  Though it is simply air, moving really fast,   wind can do a lot of damage. 
And that is the picture Isaiah is painting with the sermon text.  Our iniquities, like the wind, can do a lot of damage.  All of us fade like leaves of fall & our sins take us away.   It’s what naturally happens whenever a leaf or a branch is disconnected from the Vine.   It fades away.   It dies & disappears into oblivion.   Sin is doing that now to all of God’s creation. 
In spite of knowing what sin does, you & I still cling   to things of this world.     They wrap themselves into the nooks & crannies of our mind & our memories.    For example, as I drive into the neighborhood where Jan & I live, there are many Christmas lights beautifying the drive home.  They bring peace & serenity to my soul,     & I end up clinging to them. 
Clinging to sentimental thoughts about Christmas is not sinful, but it does leave me vulnerable to being taken away by my iniquities.    Christ is the only foundation that endures through the sinfulness of this world.  It’s easy enough to believe that.  It is a lot more difficult to build every aspect of my well-being upon that foundation. 
Beautiful Christmas lighting can lift your spirits when you have an easy life as I do. 
Compared to at least 80% of the world, I live in the lap of luxury.  I expect that it takes more than lovely Christmas lights to lift the spirits of someone living in Ukraine or in the Gaza Strip.  When our lives are too comfortable, we easily fall into the trap of trivializing the spiritual aspect of our lives.  Are any of us today begging God to, “rend the heavens & come down”? 
Sure, we do complain about all the lawless & ungodly behavior in our nation, yet I have not heard any of us sounding like Isaiah as he intercedes for God’s people: “Oh that you   would rend the heavens & come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence – as when fire kindles brushwood & the fire causes water to boil – to make your name known to your adversaries, & that the nations might tremble at your presence!”  (Isaiah 64:1-2 ESV) 
From our vantage point here in the USA, do we see any nations trembling at God’s presence?   And to be honest, it’s not all that often that my heart trembles either.    Yahweh almighty has been very, very good to us.  He has blessed us beyond measure, with exceedingly more than any of us deserve. 
Can you remember seeing a child walk out into a yard to pick a dandelion?  Then the child holds that ‘flower’ up to you, smiling, like they just found one of the world’s treasures.  That sense of wonder & appreciation for God’s blessings is gone for most of us.  Sin has done that to you & to me.  We are fading like a leaf, & our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. 
It is not as easy as we think to build every aspect of our well-being upon the foundation of Jesus Christ.   Our sins blow away our best intentions like a tornado can dump 17 semi-trucks on the side of the freeway.    And when Satan takes down our Christmas lights what are we left with?     Do you realize how trivial the spiritual aspect of your life has become? 
Christmas is coming – only 22 more days.  Many of us are looking forward to it & the season of Advent is sort of in the way.  We have to get through it to get to Christmas.   In the last chapters of Isaiah, the heavenly age promised in chapters 40-55 is coming, yet for a season the old age will linger with all of its pain, brokenness & idolatry.    You & I are at the point where we have to get through this old world to get to heaven.  It is the most difficult challenge of our lives. 
Isaiah was writing of the people in exile at Babylon.  Yahweh almighty had been very, very good to His people.  He had blessed them beyond measure, with exceedingly more than any of them deserved.  Under king Solomon they were one of the greatest, wealthiest nations, in the history of the world. 
In response, they trivialized the spiritual aspect of their lives & 400 years later it was all gone.   God took it all away & sent them to live in a foreign land, with people who spoke a strange language, under a king who went insane.   The iniquities of the Israelites had, like the wind, taken them away – away from the foundation of the promised Messiah. 
Giving voice to the struggles of God’s people, this text from Isaiah is a classic example of their relationship with Yahweh.  Almost 1/3 of the psalms are of this type = argue, protest & complain.   A lament expresses our fury over the deep disappointments of life.   No matter how blessed we are, what God created the world to be & what it is now are two very different things. 
Even unbelievers can feel that dissonance.  They just don’t believe there’s a god at work guiding & directing all of it to a good end.  As God’s children, we trust that He will not leave us at this dissonance, but will one day restore all of creation to perfect harmony.    That coming perfect harmony is what the season of Advent is pointing us to. 
 Neither does the prayer in Isaiah leave us at the dissonance.  It begins there with a cry for help: “Oh that you would rend the heavens & come down…”   That, combined with our struggles, urges us to take a closer look at ourselves: “Behold, You were angry, & we sinned… & our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”  As the prayer closes we have a more balanced view of our relationship with Yahweh: “But now, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, & You are our potter…  Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, & remember not iniquity forever.”  (Psalm 64 ESV)   All that you & I have ever known is life tainted by iniquity.  Jesus came to change that. 
In Isaiah 64, the people lament that the cities of Israel have become a wilderness, Jerusalem is a desolation & all their pleasant places have become ruins.  Isaiah prays that God would come down & put the fear of God into their enemies who’ve destroyed their land.  Yet God sent those enemies to destroy because His people were no longer calling upon His name. 
There are many similarities to our culture & even the so-called Christian church in our day.  We’ve not yet been conquered by a foreign power, but the waves of lawlessness & ungodly beliefs & practices could certainly be viewed as warnings & judgments upon our people.  We are no longer a nation that calls upon the name of the Lord.   That will have consequences. 
This text from Isaiah is the cry of the church during Advent when we are especially concerned about our alienation from God, & troubled by the awful consequences of human sinfulness.   Advent is designed then to look beyond our alienation & sinfulness to God’s intervention – the death of His Son Jesus to make atonement for evil. 
Isaiah prayed for God to rend the heavens & come down in power to cleanse the earth of evil.  That is how God will return when He comes to judge the world, but with Advent we are not only looking forward to that time.   We are also looking back to the time when Jesus arrived in what appeared to be the absolute opposite of power – as a helpless baby resting in a manger. 
The Jews of Jesus’ day were looking for power that they could acknowledge as strength & control.  Instead, God demonstrated strength in what humans consider to be weakness.   True strength can act in mercy because it does not allow fear to control it.  And though we ourselves are the epitome of weakness, we also can act in mercy because Yahweh chooses to work with His almighty strength through our successes & our failures.   The Holy Spirit is always one step, if not ten steps, ahead of even our worst decisions. 
Inherently, all of us take our sins too lightly.   In the sermon text we acknowledge that our sins sweep us away.   They overcome any & all the good that we ever do.   Yet, any & every problem we have in life is solved, in the final analysis, by turning back to God.  He will deliver, & trusting in His promise is an important aspect of repentance. 
Tornados can be frightening events, yet they also illustrate how dangerous are the sins that we tinker with.  They can & they do take us away from our Lord & Savior.   Fortunately for us, Jesus is persistent & He seeks us out wherever we may be.  He gives us warnings,   but also encouragement, & He always washes our sins away in His blood. 
Thousands of years ago, Isaiah was pleading for God to rescue His people.  Isaiah still speaks for us today in the words of the OT reading: “Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, & remember not iniquity forever.  Behold, please look, we are all your people.”  Amen.   
 
 
 
The Law is good; but since the fall its holiness condemns us all; it dooms us for our sin to die & has no power to justify.   To Jesus we for refuge flee, who from the curse has set us free, & humbly worship at His throne, saved by His grace through faith alone.  Amen.  LSB 579:5-6.