Bible reading: Isaiah 64:1-9.

As you drive along the M4 towards Newport, you will see a sign which reads: “For Forest Drive, leave at junction 28”. If this piques your curiosity, you’ll leave the motorway and follow the Ebbw River past Rogerstone, Risca and Crosskeys. The valley steadily narrows and, shortly before you reach Abercarn, you’ll see another sign pointing you up a road to your right. For the next mile or two you will pass through woodland until you finally arrive at the Cwmcarn Forest Drive. You can now pay a toll and continue along a narrow road along hillsides, above deep gorges and past picnic places where you can stop to admire the views. It’s all very peaceful, sylvan and (you might think) unspoiled. Yet this was once the site of the Prince of Wales colliery which, at its peak, employed well over 1000 people, and which in 1878 was the site of a terrible disaster which killed at least 278 men and boys. The colliery closed in 1968 and today you’d hardly know that it ever existed.

If you go down to the Bluebell Railway in Sussex, you may well find the Great Western Railway steam locomotive no. 6989 “Wightwick Hall” haling train. Immaculate in her green livery, this loco looks almost brand new; but in fact she was built in 1948 and taken out of service in 1964. For 14 years she languished at the scrapyard in Barry, slowly rusting away, before being bought by a group of enthusiasts and transported to Buckinghamshire. Over the next two decades she was gradually rebuilt until a fire was finally lit in her boiler in August 2014 and steam was raised for the first time in 50 years.

One iconic symbol of central Europe is the “Stari Most” or Old Bridge in the city of Mostar. This stone single-arch bridge, a magnificent example of Ottoman architecture, was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557 and took nine years to build. An explorer of the time wrote that it was “like a rainbow arch soaring up to the skies, extending from one cliff to the other. I, a poor and miserable slave of Allah, have passed through sixteen countries, but I have never seen such a bridge, thrown from rock to rock as high as the sky”. As we know, the bridge, considered to be a military target, was destroyed by mortar fire during the terrible war in former Yugoslavia which raged in the early 1990s. Sixty shells hit the bridge before it finally collapsed – it was clearly built very well! A temporary wooden crossing was soon erected but it took many years (and a great deal of money) for a permanent new bridge to be built. This finally opened in 2004.

In January 1649, following a long and bloody Civil War, King Charles 1^st of England was executed outside the Banqueting House in London; the country became a republic under the so-called Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. Many Royalists fled to safety and, by all accounts, life became very dreary with events such as Christmas banned. Of course things couldn’t go on for ever. Cromwell died in 1658 and his son became Protector; however he had to cede much his power to Parliament. After an uncertain period which nearly became a second civil war, the Long Parliament convened and invited Charles’ son to return to Britain from exile in Holland. He landed at Dover in May 1660, travelled to London and was crowned as King Charles 2^nd in the following year. And England has had a monarch ever since.

So what do all these stories: returning a coalmine to forest, transforming a heap of rusting metal into a powerful locomotive, rebuilding a bridge that had been destroyed, bringing an exiled King back to England – have in common? Well, you’ve probably got to the answer by now: these stories (and I’ve deliberately avoided using the word) are all examples of restoration, of taking something that was destroyed or broken and making it as good as new. Devotees of “The Repair Shop” TV programme will know exactly what I’m talking about – some of the restoration work its team does, whether on books, paintings, boots, ceramics, radios, musical instruments, furniture or whatever, is truly remarkable.

Scholars don’t agree as to exactly when the book of Isaiah was written (although it was around six centuries before the time of Jesus) – or on whether it was written by one, two or even three authors! For early in the book we meet the prophet in the Temple, overawed by a terrifying vision of God. It seems to be time of peace. But by the time we get to the final chapters it appears that the Babylonians have conquered Judah and destroyed not only that very same Temple but the city of Jerusalem itself. One writer who comments on this passage thinks that its author was a Jew who, like Daniel, had been carted off to exile in Babylon. While there, he could not fail to have been impressed by that city, possibly the greatest in the world, with its Ishtar gate of blue brick-and-lapis lions, its huge bronze doors; and its twenty-storey statue-topped tower called ‘The mountain of God’. What a contrast that was to the pathetic village called Jerusalem with its ruined walls, razed temple, and rock-strewn streets. Like Nehemiah, this man must have wept, asked questions, and yearned for city and Temple to be restored to their former glory.

So, at the start of our reading, the prophet cries out in despair and agony: “Oi, God! Yes, you sitting up there in heaven! We always say that you’re an almighty God who’s done wonderful things:  the way you led our people out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, and sent fire and cloud to guide them through the desert, and miraculously fed them there, and took us into the Promised Land – those are part of our history. We also believe that you want to show the heathen people around us how great you are. So what’s going on, eh? Why don’t you get off your backside and come down to help us?” Well, that’s not an exact translation of what Isaiah said (although Jewish prayers can be quite bold and irreverent!), but I think it gives us the drift. Here is someone who is both puzzled by, and angry at, God who seems to be silent and inactive at exactly the time he’s needed.

But then the prophet starts to think more deeply about the situation. Is it right to blame God for not coming to his people’s aid at this time of calamity; or is it the people themselves, in their covenanted “special relationship” with him, who are at fault? The more he muses, the more he concludes that this must indeed be the case: the people of Judah have stopped doing the right things and are no longer worshipping or even thinking about God. That must be the reason things are so bad.

Or is it? Isaiah muses a bit more and comes to a different conclusion. “Hang on”, he says to himself, “That’s letting God off the hook too easily! Yes, we did start to stray, I accept that – but that’s the moment when he should have stayed in touch and corrected us. But he didn’t: in fact he hid himself away and left us to our own devices”. Is the prophet trying to goad God into defending himself, seeking to prod him into action? It certainly sounds as if he is, especially when he reminds God that he’s not only the Father of his people but also the Potter who is supposed to be moulding them. So, yes: Judah’s dire current situation is ultimately his fault because he took away his loving, restraining and shaping hand.

That’s so convenient, isn’t it? Terrible things happen in the world and, although most of them are actually caused by very human actions (or lack of them), nevertheless God is to blame because he decided not to get involved but left us to our own devices. Now I freely admit that there are awful things that happen, things such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, which aren’t caused by human actions; with these one might well want to challenge God as to why he created the world in the way he did. That’s a question which even the finest theologians can’t answer.

However we must recognise that most disasters, suffering and pain are either caused or made worse by what people do, often against good and sensible advice. So we see death and destruction in Gaza, caused by a complicated series of political events (or should I day mistakes) over a century and more. We see the suffering and squalor of people in the slums of Africa, the favelas of South America, the sweatshops of the Indian subcontinent, often caused by corruption, greed or an entrenched class system. We see peasant farmers starving because their crops have failed or villages wrecked by flooding, due to the changing climate and global warming which are product of decades of pollution from nations such as our own. We see people swarming (to deliberately use a loaded term) across the Channel and the Mediterranean because the unjust economic systems of their home countries have left them without hope. Dare we blame God for this? – especially when he has given us rules to live by, rules which we repeatedly distort or ignore? I think not.

Our world is a place of glorious beauty, variety and wonder. But it is also a place of tragedy, death and pain. Many agencies, some of them Christian, are working tirelessly (and often courageously) to meet the needs of those who are suffering the most. Yet their work is rarely more than a temporary solution: the deep problems of the world cannot be solved by applying a few sticking plasters. Indeed, I would say that the 1919 optimism of “the war to end all wars”, the 1950s enthusiasm of “the new Elizabethan age”, the 1960s belief that technology would fulfil all our needs, the 1990s expectation of the “peace dividend” that would follow the end of the Cold War, even the hope that the new Millennium would allow us to draw a line under the past and make a fresh start: all these have come and gone and we find ourself in as bad a state as ever. What we yearn for – just as Isaiah yearned all those centuries ago – is a transformation, a rebalancing, a renewal, a restoration of our planet. We Christians believe that this can only be accomplished by God.

Last Thursday the Ffos-y-Fran open-cast coal mine near Merthyr Tydfil finally closed. The mine, which covers an area equivalent to 400 football pitches and from which over 11 million tons of coal have been extracted, has been “a blight on the landscape” for the last sixteen years and been operating illegally for the last year. Most local folk are delighted to see it going, although it has provided work for more than 100 people. But big questions hang over the mine. Will its huge hole, over 600 feet deep be filled in? Will the debris and the machinery be removed? Will the land be decontaminated and reclaimed? Or will the site simply be abandoned? The mine’s planning permission stipulates restoration, and the mining company is supposed to have been putting money aside to fund this. However, with the cost for doing this estimated at well over £100m, the company admit that they can’t afford to carry out the work. They say that they are “committed” to restoring the site and are in “constructive discussion” with the local Council. But serious doubts remain: this is a saga that could run and run, and not finish with a happy ending.

Isaiah, back in the sixth century before Christ, fervently believed that God would bring restoration to his people. History shows that he was right in his belief. Christians down the centuries have believed, perhaps less fervently for the most part, that Christ will come to restore and renew the whole world, even the universe. That is the Advent hope to which we cling, perhaps wearily. And, as we have little hope that the politicians, the climate activists, the military strategists, the economists, the aid agencies, the scientists, the United Nations, or anyone else will actually solve our world’s intractable problems, we continue to cry out with the writers of Psalm 80: “Restore us, O Lord Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved”, and of Psalm 22: “O Lord, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid!” Yes, we do cry out; and we wait ever more impatiently for God to intervene and restore.