#Restore

 'Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, leading Joseph like a flock; *

shine forth, you that are enthroned upon the cherubim.

 In the presence of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, *

stir up your strength and come to help us.

 Restore us, O God of hosts; *

show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

 O Lord God of hosts, *

how long will you be angered

despite the prayers of your people?

You have fed them with the bread of tears; *

you have given them bowls of tears to drink.

You have made us the derision of our neighbors, *

and our enemies laugh us to scorn.

 Restore us, O God of hosts; *

show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.

Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, *

the son of man you have made so strong for yourself.

 And so will we never turn away from you; *

give us life, that we may call upon your Name.

 Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; *

show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.'

--Psalm 80: 1-7, 16-18

'Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.”'

--Isaiah 7: 10-16

'Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.'

--Matthew 1: 18-25

In Japan there is a practice that dates back 500 years called kintsugi.  When a piece of glass or pottery gets broken, it’s not thrown in the garbage, but rather it is taken and joined back together again with lacquer that is mixed with gold, silver, or platinum.  Kintsugi means “golden joinery.  Rather than being the end of an object's story, the breaking simply becomes another moment in its life. It is an act of restoration.

My own kintsugi.

This chalice fell off my desk in my previous parish.  Perhaps one would have looked at this broken cup and lamented the loss and simply tossed it away.  But a colleague, who is also an artist, made sure that didn’t happen.  She restored the chalice did so in such a way that is reminiscent of that Japanese art of kintsugi, for the lines of the original breaks are still visible.  It can still be used, yes, but you can still see those cracks.  It’s an important part of kintsugi, the reminder that even when things are restored they are still changed..  We can see the cracks, and rather than discarded or ignored, they are to be honored as part of the story of restoration.

Our God is a God of restoration, of healing and mending and putting back together that which was broken.  But like kintsugi, God restores in such a way that does not ignore the brokenness but honors it and gives it new meaning, of which our readings  for the Fourth Sunday of Advent remind us.  The Psalmist cries out to God in a moment of great anguish and trouble:  “Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance and we shall be saved.”  This cry is so profound, the pain of the moment so deep, that the Psalmist repeats this line three times, just to make sure God hears it—or maybe, to make sure we hear it.  This Psalm recalls a time when God’s people had moved so far away from God that their prayers seem to go unanswered, when they felt that God was literally giving them bowls of tears to drink. That pain is not forgotten or covered up, but it is named and brought before God along with the cry for restoration.  But what could that restoration look like?

The prophet Isaiah helps answer that.  He is engaged in a fierce argument with Ahaz, one of the bad kings of Israel, who is more interested in maintaining his own power and position than he is following the rule of law set forth by Torah, only invoking God in moments that suit him.  Staring at this political force that shows no signs of giving up his power, Isaiah proclaims boldly a promise of restoration:  a young woman will bear a child who is to be called Emmanuel—“God is with us.”  This baby is a time bomb in the midst of the great military and political force of Ahaz, one that he can neither ignore nor deactivate.  And this is what the restoration will look like:  the ever-present reality that God is with us.  It is for this restoration, this reality, that Advent invites us to a hopeful expectation.

Expectation, though, is not simply wishing.  As children we often don’t know the difference, but both Isaiah and the Psalmist expect God to break through.  They expect that restoration to come, and it is far more than a simply wish.  It lingers in the back of peoples’ minds for centuries until it is stirred up once again in Joseph, a carpenter from Nazareth descended from the house of David.  Joseph is told not only that the child his fiancé Mary is carrying will be holy, but will also be the fulfillment of that hopeful expectation.  He will be the agent through which God will restore the world.  He will be Emmanuel, “God is with us.”  I always laugh when I read this passage because the prophet who first gave this proclamation said that the child would be Emmanuel, yet Joseph names the kid Jesus.  Did he just forget, or is Jesus some kind of family name he and Mary liked better?  Well, if we pay close attention we notice that Emmanuel is what others will call him.  But Joseph names him Jeshua, or Joshua, which means “God saves.”  When Jeshua got translated into Latin, the child’s name became Jesus.  The point here though is that the child called “God saves” is also “God is with us.”

Emmanuel, it must be pointed out, is less of a name and more of a title.  It was true in Isaiah’s prophecy and in the angelic message to Joseph.  Because wherever Jesus is, God is there, present with the people of faith.  We see it play out in his ministry of love and restoration to the sick, the outcast, and the poor, and at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew Jesus’ parting words to his disciples are, “Remember that I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  God saves is God with us, and everything changes when we  realize God is with us, doesn’t it?  Hope springs eternal.  The broken pieces of our life are picked up and restored, given new meaning, new purpose. 

Each of us is carrying some broken piece or pieces with us as we move closer to the coming of that promised child.  We hold them gingerly in our hands—addiction, depression, grief from the death of a loved one, disappointment over the loss of a job, heartbreak over the end of a relationship, frustration over what has been going on in our nation’s capital.  We hold them in our hands and we come to the Communion table and we reach out our hands with those same words as the Psalmist: “Restore us, O God.”  Take these broken pieces of my life and help me find new meaning, new purpose.  We reach out our hands, and as Christ takes those pieces he gives us his very self in a morsel of bread, a sip of wine, medicine of immortality, the lacquer that restores our broken selves, not for the purpose of ignoring or forgetting our pain—no more so than the children of Israel could have forgotten theirs—but so that we may find strength to face the tender and sometimes daunting days and may have a hopeful expectation for what God is about to do in the world.

The question that Advent gives us is the same question Isaiah posed to Ahaz.  The same question that would later be presented to King Herod of Judea and to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who crucified Jesus.  That question is this:  What would happen if your life were so reorganized that this child’s presence became your central reality?  Would you be able to know God’s restorative power for your own life?  Would you co-operate with this child, with God, in the restoration of this broken world?