Advent: God With Us

Isaiah 2: 1-5 

In days to come
    the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
    and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
    Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction
    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
 He shall judge between the nations
    and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
    nor shall they learn war anymore.
 O house of Jacob,
    come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord! 

Waiting. We spend most of our lives waiting. Waiting to grow up. Waiting for a paper to be graded. Waiting to graduate. Waiting for a calling. Waiting for the doctor. Waiting for test results. Waiting for affirmation. Waiting for the weekend. Waiting for vacation. Waiting for family to arrive and waiting for family to go.  

 I am not good with waiting. When I must wait, I pace, I fuss, and I gripe. I announce to anyone within hearing “what is taking so long?” I push the elevator button harder, and I tap my foot louder and I check my watch often. I am no one’s example when it comes to waiting. I wish I were better at this waiting, I really do, but I am not. 

Voltaire writes, “We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.” Like the people of old, we wait.  

In the days to come…so says Isaiah. 

…but not now, not yet, but one day, some day. 

We wait and while we wait, we imagine what could be, and hope for what will be. 

In the days to come Israel looks, listens, and wonders. Come LORD, act. Come LORD, do something. Come LORD, show up. In the days to come, and please let them come soon. Like a cancer uncontained, Israel was surrounded by enemies and the time for war was imminent.  

The prophet will remind Israel that hope will not come from our frantic energies towards political prowess or in military might. It will not matter who sits on the throne. Their hope can only be in and from God.  

“In the days to come…” It is about waiting, not immediacy. It believes that God is the primary mover in whom we trust, but that requires waiting.  

We are still waiting for God. As with all of life, we wait for God not just during Advent, but for all seasons and for all time. 

I am sure I am not the only one who has a tough time waiting. Our technologies have crafted a theology of immediacy where we ask Google, Siri, or Alexa to tell us the weather, give us the stock report, and play us a song – and do this all quickly! We travel and our waiting mitigated with web sites to track our flights and gadgets to entertain us while we wait. We order packages online and receive them the next day, and in the meantime can trace its whereabouts on the way to our doorstep.  

We want what we want, and we want it now.  

Waiting on God is in part a spiritual discipline to be practiced against the cult of immediacy, for what is immediacy but a practical atheism. It is a distrustful activity for the sake of doing something, anything. Advent is the season for quietness and receptivity, even though the surrounding voices are shouting “hurry up!” Isaiah reminds us that to be human is to wait and that waiting includes waiting on God. God comes, moves, and works, but not upon our manipulations or control. Gestation always precedes celebration. 

This means waiting for God to transform our lives, but it also means God waiting for us to be the transformative change in the lives of others. In the days to come, Isaiah proclaims, we wait on God, but God is also waiting on us to remove our tools for destruction and lay hold of the tools for building and planting. The very nature of God is to transform our swords and make them into plowshares. 

Hope builds up by saying “I do, I will, I believe…” 

We are waiting on God for hope, and this is true and right for sincere hope in this world can only come by the hand of God. Just as we wait for God, however, God is also waiting for us. 

This waiting, this hoping, this longing for God with us and experiencing God in us is its own cosmic, holy dance. And so, as we wait, let us dance.  

Gregory DeLoach, Dean

Gregory DeLoach, grew up on a dairy farm outside of Eatonton, Georgia. Greg has pastored congregations throughout the state for nearly three decades, including in Mansfield, Chickamauga, Marietta, and Augusta.

Following 10 years as senior pastor of First Baptist Augusta, he became executive director of Developmental Disabilities Ministries, an Atlanta-based nonprofit, charitable corporation serving adults with developmental disabilities and their families. 

In February 2017, he joined the development staff at Mercer, having previously served on the University’s Board of Trustees and was later appointed as the Dean of the McAfee School of Theology of Mercer University. 

Greg is the author of two books, “Wanderings: A Pilgrim’s Walk on This Good Earth,” and “Catching Up With God: Freeing Ourselves for Divine Engagement.” 

He and his wife, Amy, have two adult sons, Clark and Aaron, and a daughter-in-law, Erin, who is married to his son Aaron.