May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable worship to you, Oh God, my rock and my redeemer.

Isaiah 1:10-15

1:10 Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

1:11 What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.

1:12 When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more;

1:13 bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation– I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

1:14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them.

1:15 When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.

Our God is a jealous, angry, wrathful God. Our God is a god who will hide her eyes and will not listen to our prayers.

Our offerings are an abomination to our God, our festivals, a burden.

What then does the LORD require of us? Are we not compelled to worship? Is prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving not the work of the temple? What shall we sacrifice if not cows, goats, and sheep?

1:16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil,

What is this evil that we have done? What is this iniquity that you cannot endure? Surely it is our sexual immorality that is a blight against us, we clamor to say. But what does the LORD say?

1:17 learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

Surely our sins are sins of the heart, evil thoughts, we want to believe. But these are not the sins that God names.

We declare confidently, our God is eternal, never changing. She will not suffer our sins to be spoken of, nor forgiven. Once stained, our souls can never be like clean cloth. But what does the LORD say?

1:18 Come now, let us argue it out, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

1:19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

Our God desires to be a merciful god.

1:20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

The Word of the LORD speaks out against us. It speaks against our worship, it speaks against our sins. The Word of the LORD names what is demanded of us. “Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”

The wrath of the LORD does not strike us. If we are willing and obedient. The wrath of the LORD is deferred. It is put off. It ever awaits us.

In Genesis when the LORD prepares to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah Abraham asks if there might be fifty righteous persons in the city, would God defer her wrath. So it is with us. God’s wrath waits to see if we will refuse to do good. God waits, to see our rebellion. Then shall we be devoured by the sword. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Walter Benjamin describes a painting by Klee in Thesis on the Philosophy of History which provides an image for this deferment:

“A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”

This Angel of history is also the angel sent to deliver the divine wrath. This angel arrives in history only to be thrown into the future by the weight of the catastrophe of history.

The Angel appears to be reaching out palms first, as if pleading with us to end this catastrophic progress. Unseen in the painting is the sheathed sword which often accompanies angelic visitors. The sword that will be unsheathed in the end of time. This angel is being pushed backwards by the time of this world, but someday, in some future, when this time ends and the time of the LORD begins, the Angel will stop its backwards journey, will draw its sword, and will fulfill the wrath of God. The branch that bares no fruit will but cut off and thrown in the fire. That which has been broken will be made whole.

What then will be a multitude of sacrifices? What then will be our solemn assemblies?

Our worship is a burden, our songs, a clanging gong, our incense, an abomination.

What then are we to do? How are we to defer God’s wrath, if not with the blood of a goat?

1:16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil.

1:17 learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

And now from Luke 12:40 “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

This wrath of God that ever awaits us, it is coming, it is coming at an unexpected hour. Our time is short. The time we have to cleanse ourselves, to rescue the oppressed, to defend the orphan, is running out.

Luke 12:32-40

12:32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

12:33 Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

12:34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

12:35 “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit;

12:36 be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.

12:37 Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.

12:38 If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

12:39 “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.

12:40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

If I am born free, it is to be a slave to Christ, and I await his coming at an unexpected hour, like a thief in the night.

It is God’s pleasure to prepare a Kingdom for us, truly it has already arrived, but it is not here fully. The promise of the Kingdom, made to Abraham has begun to be fulfilled, but it has not be fulfilled in full.

We are now living in the time in between. The time between the beginning of the fulfillment, and the final fulfillment, the time of the deferment of God’s wrath, and God’s Kingdom. God’s Kindgom and God’s wrath are two sides of the same coin. If God’s Kingdom is already but not yet, surely her wrath is also. If God’s Kingdom is deferred, so too is God’s wrath.

Now is the time of deferment. The angel of history is blown backwards by history, elongating this time in between. When the angel regains its footing, this time will end, suddenly, time will end, it will be the end times.

This now is the time that it takes for time to end. It is, in its own way, the end of time.

Time is coming to an end. Now is no longer the time for burnt sacrifices and solemn assemblies. Now is the time to prepare the way of the LORD.

Now is the time to burn the lamps late at night, for surely the Bridegroom is coming.

12:40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Like a thief in the night.

None would be caught unaware if we knew when the thief was coming, but as we do not, we store our treasures where rust does not defray, moth does not eat, and thieves do not steal.

We store our goods in the already but not yet City of God, and so we prepare ourselves for the already but not yet Wrath of God. We are living into a City we cannot see. We are a people living by faith and not by sight.

Hebrews 1:1, 11-16

1:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

11:2 Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.

11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

11:8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going.

11:9 By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

11:10 For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

11:11 By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old–and Sarah herself was barren–because he considered him faithful who had promised.

11:12 Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

11:13 All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth,

11:14 for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

11:15 If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return.

11:16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Like Abraham, we too are seeking a homeland, like Abraham,  we are strangers and foreigners on the earth. We too, do not know where we are going. We do not know when the thief in the night will come, and many generations have waited for his coming.

11:16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

A city is being prepared for us. A city on a hill. A New Jerusalem, on the mount of Zion, prepared by a God not ashamed to be called our God. A God for whom our worship is not a burden.

12:40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Isaiah warns us to prepare for the coming of this city, this city that comes with the end of history, that comes on the wings of the angel of the wrath of our God.

But we do not prepare for this city with incense and burnt offerings, with solemn assemblies or new moon festivals.

We prepare for this city with justice.

12:40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

At the unexpected hour, like a thief in the night, we will be called to account for the plight of the oppressed, the care of the orphan, and the status of the widow.

When we are not expecting it, time shall end and our judge shall steal into history like a thief in the night. Wrath will no longer be deferred, but will be made known in full.

Then we will plead “Did we not bring you sacrifices? Did we not meet with you in the temple?” and our God shall reply “I do not know you.”

We will not be asked to account for the countenance of our hearts. We will not be asked to recite creeds or dogmas. We will be asked if we have been a blessing to those in the city to which we have been sent.

We have been as exiles, sent into Babylon, and it has been for us to care for the oppressed. Temples God does not need, for the temple she will destroy and rebuild, but only those who are living blessings will be welcomed into the blessed City of God.

Our faithfulness will be accounted for by the well being of those around us, were we advocates for the oppressed? Or did we stand by while others were denied their rights? Were our tongues still when the powers and principalities persecuted those around us?

Did we desire a better country? A heavenly one? Or were we satisfied while our neighbours starved? Did we live in houses while our neighbours lived in tents?

Our burnt offerings will be as little comfort to us then.

Our God has called us to not live by the structures of this world, to not look back at them as we leave this city.

Instead we are to start living now as in the City to come.

12:32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

12:33 Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.”

12:40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Amen.