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Do we need God?

December 3, 2023

Isaiah 64:1-9  |  Psalm 80:1-7 1  |  Corinthians 1: 3-9  |  Mark 13:24-37

It’s here! Again! The most wonderful time of the year! Again! Advent! A beginning! A time of anticipation! A time of preparation! A time of waiting! A time of wishing! A time of  hoping! We’ve been here before, and yet it’s all new. Again!

Isaiah and the Psalm seem a strange, dark forward to Advent. We read of people who had turned away from and felt abandoned by an angry God. They blame God: “But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed…for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.” Isaiah 64. Then the Psalm becomes a plea for God to recognize, affirm, forgive and restore them to a time of harmony.

Well that sounds familiar – we blame God for the mess we are in and then we ask God to get us out of that mess? What are we asking? What do we need God to be? Is it God’s “job” to keep us out of trouble? Is it God’s “job” to find us a parking place, give us a winning lottery ticket, make our team win? Is it God’s “job” to forgive us again…and again…and again for what we have done to ourselves? Is it God’s “job” to comfort and heal us?

That is a question I’ve been asking myself for years, and the answer changes each time I ask, as I imagine the answer is unique to every person who asks the question. This Advent I will ask that question – again! What do I ask of God? What do I need God to be? And then, maybe, just maybe, I’ll ask, “What does God ask of me?” “What does God need me to be?”

Sally House