The Advent of Incarnation
“I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am’ to a nation that did not call on my name.”
Isaiah 65:1
This short verse reveals a God who is almost begging the people to come to Him. It reminds me of when a little child has been hiding and no one notices, until he or she runs out of a hiding place, saying, “Yoo hoo, yoo hoo, over here, over here … here I am!” While a little child just wants to get attention from an adult, God is longing for the people to be in relationship with Him. God is not the needy one here but is disappointed when His needy children fail to seek Him out for their needs and, instead, go to other gods. It seems to be the human condition that causes us to seek others, or other distractions, rather than God, who is the one who so freely gives and could come to our aid.
If you continue reading this chapter in Isaiah, you will see that the people just don’t get it. They continue following the “devices and desires of [their] own hearts”[1] rather than come to the Lord, who is always ready to be found by those who seek. Throughout Isaiah 65, we read of God’s vision for a new creation and a new relationship with humanity, all woven throughout a litany of the people’s arrogant and self-absorbed behavior.
Isaiah was not the only prophet to be the mouthpiece for a God who wanted nothing to separate Godself from those creatures made in His image. God spoke through these messengers for generations and generations, but to no avail …
Until … God’s love for humanity could no longer be contained from afar. God then emptied Himself of his divine privilege (Philippians 2:5-8), and took on the humility of human flesh to be one of us. God found a young woman living in a small village in a backwater country in a faraway corner of a great empire, who said, “Here I am, here I am,” just as God had spoken generations earlier through Isaiah. It was the “Yes” that changed the course of human history.
God always desires us to say “Yes” to Him, as Mary did. How are you being called to say “Yes, here I am” to God today?
[1] The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, “Confession of Sin,” Morning Prayer Rite I, 41.
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