First Sunday Advent

First Sunday of Advent
November 27, 2005

"No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him. O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands." (Isaiah 63, 64)

The prophet Isaiah has a vision of faith in a God who creates and cares for us endlessly. This imagery of the Father as the potter and creation as the clay holds many possibilities for understanding this mystical relationship. For the ancient peoples pots were an essential item of survival as well as objects of artistic decoration of. Much of what we know about daily life in ancient times comes from unearthed vessels of all sizes and shapes. Our universe, the earth that supports us and we ourselves are like that, incredibly diverse, unique and intricately interconnected.

We vessels of God are made to hold things, most especially each other. When we do we serve the very purpose of our creation intended by the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless we sometimes are empty pots longing to be filled up with love, the only content that will really satisfy us. I remember climbing up hill in Rome made entirely of broken pieces of pots discarded by the ancient Romans. In extreme cases we might even feel that our vessel has been smashed into many pieces. These are the times when our most powerful prayer comes from what we lack, without any perceived love, useful thoughts and deeds, entirely dependent on the love of God. This kind of prayer has the best chance of bringing about our realization of how much the Father loves us.

Vessels are not simply utilitarian. They are also created to be beautiful, mirroring the beauty of their creator. Every time we affirm the beauty around us, within us and in one another, we are reflecting the image of the Most High. Unlike pots, however, our beauty is not only on the outside. We are beautiful at the deepest level of our being, the only part of us which God sees.

Creation is not a one-time event. Our own bodies and souls are always changing, the divine potter re-creating them every day, just as certainly as the entire universe is also in a continual state of being created. My own loss of physical powers seems to go hand-in-hand with this experience. As something old and outdated is going away, something new and beautiful is being born.

An infallible mark of the spiritual life is the habit of being grateful. It is a time to be grateful for those who hold us when we are empty and broken. This is also a time of anticipation of being renewed and created again. We are entirely dependent on God's visitation and creative power. The most powerful position is one of dependence and patient waiting for our creation to be completed.