Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

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"O that you would rend the heavens and come down," prays the prophet Isaiah. What a preposterous prayer. Isaiah expects God to come to him. He expects God to come down out of His high and lofty abode and enter into this corrupt and stinking world. The world that God made and declared to be very good, but which we, by our sin have turned into something that God could never bless, Isaiah summons the living God to come down from heaven and clean up this mess that we've made.

What presumption. What arrogance. It takes a lot of guts to ask God to come down from heaven to do 'awesome things.' Who does Isaiah think that he is to ask such a thing? And, who does Isaiah think that God is that he should expect God to stoop so low and humble Himself so totally as to come down from heaven.

Any decent and self-respecting God would tell Isaiah to fix his own mess. 'You made the mess. You clean it up. And don't bother me again until you've got your life and my creation back to the condition in which I gave it to you.' At the very least, a God worthy of calling Himself a worthy God should expect to be properly persuaded to come down. 'What will you give me that will want me to come to you?' 'What will you do for me that will motivate me to do something for you?' Certainly He could not be expected to offer His services cheaply, let alone freely. (more…)