By Madison Franks, Student Writer
OTTERBURNE, MB – In Isaiah 64:1, the prophet lets out a shout of distress to God, lamenting aloud as he says to Him: “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down.” The political environment was unstable for Isaiah. Things in general were uncertain. He gave God a chance to answer him by laying his worries out bare for the eyes of the Almighty One to see. The One who sat “high and lifted up” (Isa. 6:1) was too high up, it seemed. Where was the God who once sat in a tabernacle in the wilderness with His people Israel? Was He now too far away, unable or unwilling to leave the heavens and pay attention to Isaiah, to Israel, to anyone?
A little while into the future, a baby was born. Isaiah himself announced the reality only a few pages back from the lament just quoted above. This prophet perceived a Child, a Son, whose Name would be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6); an acknowledgement of a reality he couldn’t fully grasp. For, if he could, surely he would have known enough not to let the lament leave his mouth, right?
Many years and a lot of suffering later, Isaiah’s lament is answered in a way so beautiful only God could have done it. The answer he receives is presence; Divine Presence.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
The One Isaiah saw became lower than any human thought He ever would, ever could. He became flesh. He dwelt here. He exchanged the tabernacle from the wilderness for His own body in the midst of His people. If ever any person needed to seek Him out, they no longer needed the high priest to go into His Presence on their behalf. Instead, they could now come in their full humanness and approach Him with dignity.
“On the other side of the air that we breathe is a reality truer than this one we can see.” This is something one of Providence’s professors, Joshua Coutts, said during his course on the book of Revelation. There is only so much we can see on this side of eternity, and Dr. Coutts’ reminder served us well to know that a reality exists out there, just on the other side of the very air that we breathe, if we could only poke a hole in the air and peel back the sky, where a God sits enthroned with myriads of creatures singing His praises. In this place, there is tangible glory and radiance and too much beauty to know what to do with. And it is this perfect and holy place that this enthroned God left.
Left, to come to a place very different. A place where He does not hear the same praises He once did because the creatures in this place do not recognize Him. A place where the Enthroned One started off with animals’ straw surrounding Him instead of angel upon angel who called Him “holy, holy, holy.” But, perhaps, this God of ours knew the trade He was making when He descended to us.
Perhaps this All-Knowing One saw the denials of entry as a young couple attempted to find a lodging in which the woman could have her baby. Perhaps He was aware of the unconventional birth in a place where cattle are meant to sleep, not humans. Maybe He saw the Magi walking and the star shining and the life with humanity He was about to go to. Maybe He saw a tree being cut down and formed into the shape of a cross. Maybe He felt the holes in His hands as He sat enthroned. And maybe He chose to come anyway.
Because, if this story is true, our God did know. More than that, He chose it with an unmatched joy. This story is good news at every time in the year. If God saw fit to dwell in the midst of the things He made, then Advent is the season of waiting for the realization of the God who foresaw, foreknew, forefelt, and still said, “I want them.”
