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I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth. The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm…  Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones.  Raise a banner for the nations. The Lord has made proclamation to the ends of the earth: “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your Savior comes! See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.’” (Isaiah 62:6-8a, 10-11)

This is an advent passage if ever there was one.  Why are the watchmen posted on Jerusalem’s walls?  To look out for danger and defend the cause of the Lord and his people?  One might think so.  We often have a heroic notion about our faith—like that somehow we are the ones who need to do the saving.  But the watchmen on the walls in this passage are not soldiers, at least, not quite.  They are sentinels, but that’s about where the metaphor breaks down. 

These are the watchmen of Psalm 130 that wait for the Lord like they wait for the morning—with an ever-piercing vigilance that remains alert and wakeful through every watch of the night. They are like the young girls of Matthew 25 who keep oil in their lamp while the bridegroom tarries.  They are the servants of Luke 12:36 who keep watch for the master’s arrival at any time.  They are marked by vigilance and preparation.    

But they also have quite a unique task unlike anything we tend to see within our own role as Christians.  These watchmen are there—day and night—to sleeplessly bang on God’s door with cries and shouts that permit him no rest and that remind him of his promises until he makes good on them. 

We tend to hold a very objective and logical view of faith that says: if he said it, he will do it.  And while that certainly is true, we then tend to leave it there and assume no further role for ourselves in the play of the divine theatre—for how dare we tell God what he should be doing?  We might be willing to tell other people what they should be doing, but never God.  Even if it means biting our tongue and dealing with simmering feelings of hurt, betrayal, and resentment toward God, we will pay the price, because we dare not confront our God.

Not so in the faith of the Old Testament.  The work of God and his people was a team sport.  If you look closely at Isaiah’s words: it is God Himself who has set these watchmen on the wall to be reminding him of his promise.  Telling God what he promised and telling him what he should be doing about it is a God-ordained work of prayer!  Not necessarily because God is forgetful (though the text does allow for the possibility that God really does need the reminder), but because this is work that we must be participants in. 

The work of the coming Kingdom is a work we all have a role in.  Some of us as watchmen on the walls, calling to God through the dark watches of the night to tell him to come already.  Some of us participate through our actions: removing the stones of injustice that block people’s paths, raising a banner to invite the lost others in. 

Jesus is coming again: and our waiting cannot be passive.  God has given us each a role in his advent.  What is yours?