God Has a Different Plan
We begin the season of Advent with a
heartfelt call for our own repentance. We remember God’s faithful love for us, and call upon
God to help us to turn back. For “behold, you
are angry, and we are sinful” (Isaiah 64:4). In the
first reading and in the psalm, we recall God’s
promises and lament our unfaithfulness and
our guilt. We call upon God’s might and power
in order to save us. With Isaiah, we ask God to
“rend the heavens and come down, / with the
mountains quaking before you” (Isaiah 63:19).
Yes, God is faithful to us, because we are
the work of God’s hands. God is the potter, we
are the clay. And yet, our concept of how God
will come to save us is rooted in our own
expectations of a warrior God who crushes
mountains and thunders into our lives with
great noise and glory. But God has a different
plan: the Incarnation.