Ember Wednesday in Advent
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Today marks the Wednesday in Ember Week of Advent. The four Ember seasons of the year have been set aside as occasions for prayer, fasting and penitence, as well as the times for ordination. They are sadly neglected today, but there is much that we can learn from them.
For the Ember days in Advent we hear from the great prophecies of Isaiah. The prophet looks forward to the messianic age and sees the nations coming to the temple in Jerusalem. The people will say “Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall come forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” It will be an age of peace in which swords will finally be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more.
The vision of the pagan world finally renouncing idolatry and warfare and coming to the temple in Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel may seem like a fantasy far removed from reality today, for violence and warfare are still very much with us and there is no sign of any lasting peace. But it is important to emphasise that this was as true in the time of Isaiah as it is now. The hope of the prophet was not based on naive optimism, but faith in the ultimate realisation of God’s purposes for the human race. Though God had chosen Israel to be a people that dwelleth alone who would not be numbered among other nations, his purposes were not intended just for them, but for all humanity and indeed the whole creation. God had promised to Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. The God of Israel was not simply a national God, but the maker of all things and judge of all men. Hence, for his purposes to be fully realised, it was necessary not only for the people of Israel to be faithful to him, the nations currently enslaved by idolatry must also abandon their idols and come to worship the one true God. Like the prophet Hosea, Isaiah saw the whole apparatus of the power state as the consequence of idolatry. Warfare and violence were not simply natural to humanity, as most people had supposed, but were consequences of the worship of false gods that caused the nations of the world to trust in their own resources, their fortifications and weapons rather than in the God who had created them in his own image and had made them for himself. Only when they renounced their idols and worshipped the one true God would there finally be peace on earth, their swords would be beaten into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
But surely, we might say, Isaiah was just a dreamer who refused to accept the world as it is. In fact, the whole point of his message was that he refused to accept this because how things were was not the same as they ought to be. Faith lay precisely in recognising this apparent contradiction and trusting in God that, despite everything, in returning and rest they would be saved and in quietness would be their strength.
Isaiah lived in a time of political turmoil and uncertainty. After the triumphs of the reigns of David and Solomon the nation had divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. As time went on they increasingly found themselves at the mercy of other nations, principally the rising power of Assyria. The smaller powers of Israel and Syria sought to force Judah into an anti- Assyrian alliance to protect themselves. It seemed to king Achaz of Judah that he had little option but to accept this or risk losing his throne. Isaiah advised him strongly against this. As we heard in the second reading for today he told him that the alliance would not last. God himself would give a sign “behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel. He shall eat butter and honey, that he may know, to refuse the evil and chose the good.” It is not clear what Isaiah originally intended this to mean, but (although the king failed to follow his advice) he proved correct that the alliance would not last. He would live to see the northern kingdom of Israel fall to the Assyrians, but, as he had predicted, the southern kingdom of Judah would survive, despite repeated rejections of the prophet’s advice to avoid alliances with other nations and trust in God. In returning and rest they would be saved and in quietness would be their strength. If the nation as a whole was unfaithful, there would remain a remnant who would not abandon hope and preserve his message for the future.
Centuries later his message began to find fulfilment in a new and unexpected way. A young virgin named Mary who lived in Nazareth was espoused to a man named Joseph, who was himself of the house of David. The angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her that she would be blessed among women. “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God: behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and shalt bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father: and he shall reign in the House of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” The Holy Ghost would come upon her and the power of the Most high would overshadow her, and she would bear in her womb the Son of God. With God nothing was impossible. In Mary the response of faith that Isaiah had looked for in vain in his own lifetime finally found fulfilment. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy Word.”
Isaiah had looked forward, despite all the evidence to the contrary, to a coming age of peace when the nations would renounce their idols and beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Though his words usually fell on deaf ears he knew that hope did not rest on the apparatus of the power state, but in God. In returning and rest they would be saved and in quietness would be their strength.
In Mary’s response of faith as the obedient handmaid of the Lord that hope for a coming age of peace finally took on flesh and blood. The son whom she bore in her womb would proclaim that a way of non violence was not simply a future hope, but a present reality. He would turn the other cheek and go the second mile. Though the powers that be seemed to have beaten him he would triumph over death by death.
As we prepare to celebrate the coming of the Saviour in great humility in time and history, let us also pray for the final coming of the Kingdom, when the great hope of Isaiah for the swords to be beaten into ploughshares and the spears into pruning hooks will be fully realised, in that new heaven and that new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
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