Living a few miles from the North Sea, it isn't hard to imagine the uncontained power of the sea, from the gentle lapping of a full tide on a still day, to the boiling anger of the sea in a storm.
For the people of Israel the sea was a ready to hand metaphor for danger, the mysteries of providence, the vast and unknowable, the lurking of monsters, and the preferred invasion methods of their enemies. The sea isd an untamed power - or so it seemed.
No surprise then, that when it came to finding ways to tell the world, and themselves, that God is in control, Psalmists and Prophets spoke and wrote about the ease and authority with which God navigated the seas, sustained the division between sea and dry land, and as Creator, set the boundaries for the oceans.
That's why Isaiah quite naturally conjures up a picture of God stilling the storms of historical events, making a way through the roiling politics and power-plays of the nations, reassuring little Israel that however big the waves of Empire, their God was the One who made new things happen - like freedom, justice, renewed hope, and a better future.
"This is what the Lord says—he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!"
Advent is about the advent of newness, the incoming waves of God's purposes, the harnessed powers of redeeming love and creative renewal breaking on the shores of human history, the incoming tide of hope and energy to do new things.
God is in control. "The government shall be on His shoulders..." Oh I wish!
But turn that wish into prayer, and let prayer become determined desire, performative words, interventive works and practices of mercy, redemptive gestures of compassion. Forget the former things. Don't dwell on the past. Pray as never before, and as an Advent prayer, "Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Pray it, and wherever and whenever we can, let God's Advent come through us.
Let the government of the Christ child, the love of the crucified Jesus, the transforming life of the risen Lord, begin where it must always begin; in hands that bring our gifts in worship of the Christ child, hearts obedient to the radical call of the Crucified, and borne on feet that follow the Risen Lord who goes ahead of us. And in all of this, trust the One who more than once commanded the sea, "Peace. Be still!"
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