The Mystery of the Message

Isaiah 6, often thought of as the commission of Isaiah as a prophet of God, begins with a vision of God.  It is a majestic vision of God's glory; the Lord sits on his throne and just the train of his robe is enough to fill the Temple.  Above God stand the seraphim who declare God's holiness. The thresholds shake.  The Temple fills with smoke. 

This majestic vision in turn leads Isaiah to confess his sin.  The overwhelming holiness of God reveals his own lack of holiness.  He says "Woe is me!  For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!"

Isaiah's confession in turn leads to his cleansing.  One of the seraphim flies to Isaiah with a burning coal which is touched to his lips, cleansing them of impurity.  The seraphim declares "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." 

Next Isaiah's cleansing leads to mission.  After his cleansing, he hears the voice of the Lord saying "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"  Isaiah answers "Here am I!  Send me."

A vision of God leading to confession leading to cleansing leading to mission.  If the passage just ended there or at least went on to tell of Isaiah's highly successful career as a prophet then we could box this up as the next great church growth strategy that will solve all the church's problems and I could retire and live off the proceeds of my book sales.  Alas, the passage does not end there.  Instead, Isaiah is told what his message will be.

"Go, and say to this people:  Keep hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing but do not perceive.  Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." 

Isaiah is told to preach a message that no one can understand; a message for which God's plan is rejection rather than acceptance. 

And it is not only Isaiah who speaks of his message in this way.  Jesus quotes these very same words in the Gospel of Mark.  Right in the middle of telling the parable of the sower, a story about how only some will bear fruit while many will have the gospel snatched away, withered, or choked out of their lives, Jesus answers with the words of Isaiah when someone asks why he speaks in parables. 

Churches often place enormous emphasis on their methods of sowing and finding good soil.  Enormous amounts of time, money, and energy are spent trying to create and implement "effective" ministry plans which will reach those we think are most likely to respond to the gospel message.  But it seems the sower depicted in this passage is anything but "effective".  Wasteful and reckless seem to be more appropriate terms.  Jesus plainly says that the gospel is simply not something that will take root in everyone's life.  And yet that doesn't keep him from liberally casting the seed of the gospel wherever it might fall, three-fourths of it on soil where it has no chance to grow if the proportions of the parable are any indication.  Maybe this is because the sower knows that where the seed does take root it will produce a crop so extravagant that it will more than make up for the "wasted" seed. 

Perhaps the intersection of Isaiah's vision and its quotation in Mark is where we find our calling as the Church.  Like Isaiah, we have had a vision of God that has led to confession, cleansing, and mission.  However, the mission is never as simple as going out and finding good soil in which to sow more seed.  In fact, the parable of the sower suggests that if we view the mission that way then we are not bearing witness to the character of the sower who sows the seed liberally. The mission is bearing the fruit of the Spirit, a fruit which itself contains the seed of the good news.  It is living and proclaiming the message we have been given, not because we believe that we have the power to make this message take root but because it is our very nature by virtue of the seed God has sown in us. 

Discipleship: More Than Palm Waving

Scholars debate who it is that is speaking in Isaiah 50:4-9 and the rest of the so called "suffering servant" passages.  Is this Isaiah speaking? Is it a prophetic successor of Isaiah?  Should we understand this as the collective voice of Israel as a nation that suffers as God's servant?  Is this a prophecy about the coming Messiah, about Jesus?

Obviously, for those of us who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, it is easy to jump to that last option.  So many of the images found in Isaiah 49-53 seem to fit Jesus so well.  While I am not convinced that Isaiah (or the disciple of his who wrote these words) had Jesus in mind, I am convinced that Jesus must have often had these words in mind throughout his life and ministry, especially as he drew nearer to the cross.  In other words, I don't think it is so much that Jesus perfectly fulfilled some pre-existing expectation of what it meant to be Messiah (in fact, I am quite certain he was constantly exploding the pre-existing notions of Messiah) as much as he found his understanding of who he was as the Messiah in places where no one else was looking.  While others were looking for Moses, Elijah, and David all rolled into one, Jesus found his Father calling him to stand in the line of rejected prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.

It is fitting then that Isaiah 50 is one of the texts for Palm Sunday.  Those waving their palm branches welcome Jesus into Jerusalem as that Moses/Elijah/David figure.  But this celebration only lasts as long as the crowd fails to see Jesus as he sees himself, as long as they see him as one who has come to save by power when, in fact, he has come to save by suffering and weakness.  It takes less than a week for the chants of "Hosanna" to become chants of "Crucify him".

The role of prophet and disciple as described in Isaiah 50 and as modeled by Jesus in his journey to the cross serves as a sharp contrast to the fickle crowds of Palm Sunday.  The crowds celebrate only as long as things are going their way.  In contrast, the prophet/disciple has a face set like flint, a determination that can be compared only to the solid, steadfastness, and unwavering nature of rock.  The prophet/disciple is certain that the Lord is his present helper even when he is struck and spit on.  The prophet/disciple is confident that he will be vindicated even as everyone goes against him because he hears and is sustained by word of the Lord every morning.

God With Us

The words of Isaiah 7:14 are probably some of the most well known in the book Isaiah.

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel."   

This is almost certainly the case not because of their original context in Isaiah but because Matthew quotes them in the first chapter of his gospel to refer to the birth of Jesus.  However, if we read Isaiah 7 as a whole we can see clearly that this prophecy is not one that Isaiah expected to be fulfilled hundreds of years later.  It was a prophecy for his own time.  Isaiah was speaking about a child that would be born very soon.

Isaiah 7 begins by telling us that King Rezin of Syria and King Pekah of Israel marched against Jerusalem the capital of Judah where Ahaz was king and Isaiah a prophet.  Isaiah doesn't give us any details as to why the kings of Israel and Syria wanted to make war with Judah but considering the historical context of the time we can make a guess.  The mighty nation of Assyria was a threat to all of three these nations but was likely a more immediate threat to Syria and Israel due to their geographic location.  So its seems likely that Rezin and Pekah were trying to intimidate Ahaz in to forming a political and military alliance with them against Assyria, something Ahaz had been hesitant to do.

Whatever the reason for their advance, Isaiah tells us that Ahaz and the people of Judah were exceedingly fearful, their hearts were shaken "as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind", when they heard that these two armies were approaching their capital.  Isaiah tells Ahaz that however intimidated he may be, God's command is not to make this alliance with Syria and Israel.  Instead, Ahaz is to stand firm in his faith and trust that God will deliver him.  In fact, God even offers Ahaz a sign through the prophet Isaiah as assurance of what God has promised.  Ahaz refuses the sign claiming that he doesn't wish to test God but Isaiah says that he will be given a sign anyway.  That sign is the child that is promised in Isaiah 7:14.  Isaiah says that this child will be born and before he is old enough to understand right from wrong the two nations which Ahaz fears will be laid waste.  This child is given the name Immanuel because his birth was a sign that God (el) was with the people of Judah (Immanu meaning "with us").

Of course, Matthew was not unaware of all of this when he decided to quote Isaiah 7:14 in his writing of the gospel.  He knew that the child of which Isaiah spoke was one that would be born in Isaiah's day and not his own and Matthew was not trying to negate that original meaning.  Nor do I think Matthew was simply looking for any Old Testament prophecy about the birth of a child which he could then use to show that Jesus' birth was really predicted hundreds of year earlier, regardless of the original context of that verse.

Instead, by quoting this verse, I believe Matthew wants us to see the story of Isaiah and Ahaz in the story of Jesus.  Matthew's quoting of Isaiah 7:14 is not about prediction or proving that Jesus is the Messiah.  It is Matthew's way of saying this story is like that story; this story I am telling about Jesus is like that story of God delivering Judah from its enemies, it is a story of "God with us".  In Isaiah, the birth of Immanuel served as a sign, a real physical reminder of God's promise to deliver his people if they would trust in Him.  In Matthew's gospel, he wishes to show us that the birth of Jesus is a sign, a real physical reminder of God's promise to deliver his people if they would trust in Him.

Of course, Matthew will go on to show throughout the rest of his gospel that he means the quoting of this verse from Isaiah in ways even more radical than this.  Matthew reveals to us that Jesus is not merely a sign of God with us as Immanuel was only a sign in Isaiah but that Jesus himself is in fact God with us, the very presence of God himself in human flesh.  As God was with the people of Judah to deliver them from their enemies, so God became even more present among us by taking on our own flesh in order to deliver us from our worst enemies; sin and death.

What Won't Save Us

As I was eating lunch today, I was browsing the most recent TIME magazine.  It's one of those typical end-of-the-year issues.  It contained several articles that looked over significant events of the last several years and tried to assign some significance to them.  The one article I had the time to read was about the election of President Bush in 2000.  It recounted the details of just how close that election was; so close that it seemed the margin of error in counting the votes would always exceed the margin of victory by either candidate.  How the votes were counted depended on who counted them and their interpretation of what constituted a legal ballot cast.

Of course, the articles go on to discuss other important events of the last several years: 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, and the recent economic meltdown.  As I read this article and pondered these events, one question kept resounding in my mind:

How much more evidence do we need that democracy and capitalism, politics and economics are not our savior?  


Don't get me wrong.  Really, please don't assume I'm saying something that I'm not as so often happen with these topics.  I think government and economic policy are important; very important.  They have their place in our world and we should continue to work to improve our policies and laws as a nation.  I'm even mostly convinced that democracy and capitalism are the best forms of government and economics that we've come up with so far as a human race.

Hear what I am saying: as Christians we are called to work to improve the laws and policies that govern our world while also constantly reminding ourselves that they are not the ultimate answer.   So often we become so impassioned about these things that you'd think all of our hope rested in them.  But shouldn't the events of just the last decade be enough to convince us that these things will ultimately always fail us?  However great democracy is, everyone still laments the current character of our politicians.  Whatever merit capitalism has over other economic systems, it can not inhibit a greed powerful enough to collapse entire economies.  I am not suggesting we all become anarchists.  I am suggesting that while we need good laws and policies to help curb the systemic injustices of our world, ultimately all those injustices, all those evils that laws are meant to prevent arise from the human heart.  At the end of the day, we don't need more laws, we need God's Law written on our hearts.  We need ourselves and our world to be transformed by a God who is greater than us.  In other words, the genuinely Christians politic has more to do with sacrifice and faithfulness, our economy one of mercy and grace.

I think Isaiah 11 expresses this truth well, though in a much more poetic and eloquent manner than I have done here.  The people of Israel and Judah certainly knew the importance of good government.  They had prospered under the rule of David and Solomon but since then they had become divided and weakened by the poor leadership that followed.  Now Assyria stood on their doorstep and Isaiah was already prophesying that God's people would be reduced to a smoldering stump (see Is 6:13), a once mighty tree of a nation reduced to an almost nothing people sent into exile.

But in chapter 11, Isaiah says that out of that stump of Jesse, that kingly family that had been cut down by the foreign nations, a shoot would come forth and a branch would bear fruit.  However, as Isaiah goes on to describe this new king, it becomes clear that he can not be a mere human being.  Just another king who can be corrupted to play in the politics of power will not do God's people any good.  So while Isaiah longs for this new king; he also recognizes there is need of something more than simply improved politics.  The reign of this king must be the reign of God himself.  Isaiah tell us that the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, giving him the wisdom to judge justly and righteously, to uphold the cause of the poor, and to effortlessly defeat the wicked merely with the breath of his mouth.  Similar to last week's sermon text, this passage tells us that the king's just reign will lead to a radical peace.  Here it is a peace so complete that it is not limited to human relations but extends to all of creation.  Natural enemies, the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the goat, the lion and the calf lay down harmlessly together.  Infants play near cobras and adders without fear or harm.  This is a peace possible only when God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Of course, we understand Christ to have fulfilled this role as the one just judge and righteous king.  He is the one on whom the Spirit of the Lord rests, who was not blinded by power and influence, and who attended to the poor in his earthly ministry.  He is the one who we believe in his return will fully establish his reign as king and bring about the kind of complete justice and radical peace that is described in Isaiah 11.  It is not surprising then that John picks up the language of Isaiah 11 to portray the establishment of this kingdom in Revelation 19.  There Christ is portrayed as the one sitting on a white horse who is called faithful and true, who judges and makes war in righteousness.  He has the armies of heaven at his side but he does not need them because "from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations" which is to say that, like the kingly figure in Isaiah 11, his words, the mere breath of his mouth is enough to defeat all the enemies of God's people.  While the imagery of Revelation 19 is undoubtedly violent, it speaks to the peaceable kingdom that will finally be established when Christ's reign is made complete.  It is that kingdom which we await in the season of Advent.  It is the politics of that kingdom which are the organizing force of our lives even while we wait for it to be established in all its glory.

Trust, Justice, and Peace

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
 It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the LORD
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths."
For out of Zion shall go the law,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the LORD.

-Isaiah 2:1-5

These words poignantly capture the vision and hope of what Israel was called to be.  The city of Jerusalem is described here as a sort of lighthouse to all the nations.   It is lifted as a beacon to which all the nations flow like a river.  As the people of the world make this pilgrimage to Jerusalem they state the reason for their journey; that they may learn the ways of Yahweh.  In this way the highest of hopes Israel, God's express purpose for creating Israel, is fulfilled; God's law is not limited to his chosen people.  Instead, all the nations see the worth of Yahweh's teaching and therefore want to participate in it.  As a result, God's law goes out from Jerusalem and God himself acts as judge over the whole world.  The image of God as judge is a hopeful one because God is one true and just judge who will always rule righteously.  God's judgment is, in fact, so thoroughly just that it eliminates war.  The justice of God brings a peace so radical that the instruments of war, swords and spears, are no longer useful so they are converted into plows and pruning hooks, instruments that cultivate food and therefore, life.  Having been taught by Yahweh, the nations no longer have need to learn war any more.   

In a world like ours, it is tempting to see words like these as overly optimistic, even fanciful, unrealistic.  We all long for peace but isn't this a little naive?  

It is worth noting that these words were written at a time when swords and spears were prevalent and an immediate danger to the people of Judah.  While it is difficult to date these words with precision, they were surely uttered in the shadow of the threatening menace of Assyrian power. In comparison to the Assyrian superpower, Judah was a relatively weak and helpless nation, no match for Assyria's armies.  In Isaiah's day, it would have seemed that the only reason to say "that all the nations shall flow in to it (Jerusalem)"  would be if the armies of the nations were flooding into the city gates to conquer and pillage it. 

In contrast to that fearful situation, Isaiah reminds Judah of what they have been called to as the people of God: a people who walk in the light of the Lord.  This vision of what all the other nations will one day do concludes by reminding the house of Jacob what they must do now.  They must walk in the light that they have been given and trust God.  With the mighty Assyrian army on the doorstep of Jerusalem, it was tempting for God's people to grasp at any available political alliances that might save them.  Instead, Isaiah urges them to trust God to deliver them, to walk in his light, and have faith that God could accomplish the vision promised in these verses.  

In our world that kind of faith and trust will always seem naive.  There is really no denying that.  As long as we hold to the belief that trust in God is more powerful than tanks, we will not be counted among the sensible.  But Isaiah's vision is not one that fails to take into account the harsh realities of our world.  It simply goes on to also take into account the God who is mightier than any army.  It is ultimately this God, not our military and political intrigues, who will bring lasting peace to our world.  Trusting in that promise, we are called to be a people who walk in God's light whatever the circumstances.  

Job's Justification

This is our final week in our short trip through the book of Job. It turns out that this gloomy book has a happy ending. After enduring the loss of his family, wealth, and health, moral lectures about his own sinfulness from his friends, and even a few pointed questions from God himself, Job is finally vindicated. Although Job admits that he has spoken about things he did not understand, God's verdict is still that Job has spoken truthfully about God while his friends have not. Job 42 gives the details of Job's vindication and restoration. Job is blessed even more than before. He once again has his health, he is again blessed with 10 children, and his wealth in livestock is double what it was before. Job's restoration as a spiritual authority is symbolized in his sacrifice and prayer on behalf of his three friends which God accepts and his restoration to his former place of honor in the community is symbolized by all those who had known him before his suffering coming and dining at his house. Job was righteous before his suffering, he endured that suffering righteously, and in the end God vindicated or justified Job's faithful obedience as righteous by blessing him even more than he had before.

As I've been working through the book of Job, I've been struck many times by the parallels of Job's suffering with the life of Jesus. I've often wondered if Jesus' own reading of the book of Job as he grew up was instrumental in shaping his own understanding of his messianic mission; if perhaps passages like these in Job and the suffering servant passages in Isaiah led Jesus to the conclusion that he could suffer righteously. As I was reading this last chapter of Job today, I was struck once again by the parallels between Jesus and Job, especially as Paul sums up the story of Jesus in Philippians 2:5-11. The pattern of movement from greatness to obedience in humiliation and suffering to restoration and exaltation as a result of that obedience which we find in the book of Job is the same movement found in the Christ hymn of Philippians 2.

The pattern in both of these stories shows that God will ultimately vindicate those who place their trust in him; Job's fortunes are restored and Jesus is "exalted to the highest place and given the name that is above every name". But this pattern also clearly shows that the kind of trust that God requires is not easy trust that is only present when things are going well. Real faith, real trust is the kind that endures the suffering of Job, the kind that carries a cross.

The Vision That Transforms

In Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah has a tremendoues encounter with God.  Everything about this vision emphasizes God's glory and majesty.  God is seated on a throne, lofty and exalted, the train of his kingly robe filling the entire temple.  Majestic, six-winged creatures stand guard at God's throne covering their faces with two wings because God is too holy to look upon, covering their feet with two wings as a euphemism for hiding their nakedness before God, and using two wings to fly.  These magnificent creatures cry out "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.  The whole earth is full of his glory."  The temple shakes and fills with smoke.  That's enough to cause just about anyone to tremble.  

Enter Isaiah.  Upon seeing this spectacular vision of God, he knows that he is in trouble.  As a mere, unclean human being, he can not survive the overwhelming holiness of this God.  However, Isaiah is not destroyed by the vision but is cleansed and tranformed by it.  Isaiah is right to say that he is unclean and can not stand before God but rather than allowing that to destroy Isaiah, one of the heavenly messengers intercedes to make Isaiah clean.  Now, Isaiah is not only cleansed but also sent on a mission.  (Although, as we read on in Isaiah 6, we find it is a rather depressing and confusing mission but that is another blog post for another day.)  This vision of God transforms Isaiah's whole life.  

This is what we need as well; a vision of God that will transform us.  Of course, our vision of God may not be as dramatic as Isaiah's but we need a true vision nonetheless.  For Christians, that true vision of God is centered in the doctrine of the Trinity which is celebrated on this first Sunday after Pentecost known as Trinity Sunday.  The doctrine of the Trinity gives us a true vision of God by reminding us that God is:

Involved in our history and our world.  After all, there would be no doctrine of the Trinity if the Father had not sent the Son and the Spirit into his creation to engage it and redeem it.  The historical life of Jesus and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, by which God revealed himself as Triune, show us that our God is a missional God who is actively about the work of redemption and making our world new.  

Relational in the very essence of his being.  Our God is a God of relationships.  This is true not only because he wants to be in relationship with us but because God is contanstly in relationship.  Even God does not exist alone and isolated as an individual since God exists as three persons.  There is no God apart from the relationships that exist between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  

Characterized by holy and sacrifical love.  We see this most clearly in the person of Jesus as he willingly bears the cross.  However, this is not only a characteristic of the Son but of the Father and the Spirit as well.  None of the three persons dominates the other

 two but each has their own role in the Godhead and continually points to the other two.  Even though it is the Father who sends and may therefore be interpreted as being "in charge", Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane shows that the Son is free in his obedience to the Father.  Each person of the Trinity sacrificially makes room for the other two to exist freely while also being so bound in relationship to the other two that there is really only one God and not three.  

Just as Isaiah's vision informed his prophetic identity and mission, so also our vision of the triune God must inform our identity and mission as the Church.  We must be an iconic image of the Holy Trinity.  We are called to be a missional people, sent to engage our world.   We must recognize that we have been built for relationship; relationships characterized by holy and sacrificial love.  We must make room for others to exist freely with us, emptying ourselves of all power and position so that we might become inseparably bound in relationship with those who are different from us and as a result become intertwined as one body, the Body of Christ.  Inasmuch as we succeed in doing that, we will 

have succeeded in reflecting the love of the God that we serve and being the people that God has called us to be.  

A Face Set Like Flint

In Isaiah 50, the prophet gives a tremendous example of what it means to obey God in complete trust. He says that he has been obedient even though it has caused him to beaten and humiliated. This is an interesting statement in itself because to be beaten or shamed in the ancient world was often thought to be a sign of one's god abandoning them, In spite of this, the prophet remains confident that God has not only not abandoned him but will, in fact, vindicate him in the end. He believes, even as he is being oppressed and abused, that ultimately no one can stand against him because God is on his side. Those who oppose him will slowly wear out like a moth eaten garment. As a result, the prophet says that he has set his face like flint. He is so rigid in his determination to be obedient and faithful that there is an enduring, stone-like quality to his countenance. In v.10, the prophet calls upon his fellow Israelites to have this same trust in God, hoping that his own obedience will stir them to faithfulness as well.

Why does the prophet have such unfailing confidence that God is by his side? In v.4, he says that God awakens him every morning and speaks to him. It sounds as if God has been preparing the prophet for this moment for a very long time. He was not simply born ready to endure this suffering in obedience to God. Instead, it was the regular discipline of listening to God every morning day after day that has prepared him for this moment and empowered him to set his face like flint in the midst of persecution.

I imagine that Jesus read passages like this one and saw himself in them. I imagine that he knew that his radical proclamation of the kingdom of God would eventually land him in serious trouble and that he too would be beaten and humiliated. And I imagine that this is at least part of the reason that he constantly sought those lonely moments of solitude with his Father; he knew that when the time came he had to be prepared for that moment which would test his trust in his Father. It was only by this radical demonstration of faithfulness that the rest of Israel could be stirred to the same trust in God.

If this is true, then there is a crucial lesson for our own spiritual formation here. It is unlikely that many who read this will suffer physically for our faith in the way that the prophet or Jesus did. Nevertheless, we all face times of tragedy that challenge our faith in God. We lose a loved one to death, face difficult circumstances in our own lives, or even witness the suffering of others and wonder where God is in all of this. I think instances like these are at least part of the reason that we need a regular habit of listening to God in our lives; through prayer, meditation, scripture, worship, and any of the other means of grace by which God speaks to us. Those practices can sometimes feel mundane at the time but it is only by regularly seeking God's grace through them that we can endure in those challenging times in which we must be filled with a rock solid trust and faithfulness. To come to those difficult situations in life without any preparation would be like stepping up to the plate against a major league pitcher without ever having taken batting practice. However, if we continually seek to hear God's voice morning by morning then when the time comes we will not only be able to be faithful in our own struggles but we may even stir others to greater faithfulness as well.

Garments of Salvation

Trying to enter into this week's sermon text (Isaiah 61:10-62:3) is like going back to visit the rapidly changing city where I grew up after having been gone for a while; everything looks familiar but it's surprisingly difficult to find my way around and make sense of it all. The words of this passage are ones used throughout scripture (salvation, righteousness, praise) but they are used in odd ways. The prophet speaks of being clothed in garments of salvation and a robe of righteousness. What exactly does that mean?

Of course, the language here is relatively poetic in nature and therefore, to some degree, refuses to be pinned down to any precise meaning. Instead, this prophetic poetry invites the listeners to expand their concepts of these important biblical words to include a variety of meanings that may not have been considered previously.

In this passage, Isaiah creatively invites his audience to envision salvation and righteousness as clothes that an engaged couple would wear on their wedding day. This is an interesting metaphor considering what follows because those wedding clothes are a symbol of the new reality that will soon exist for that couple. Similiarly, Isaiah says that he has been clothed with salvation and righteousness "For...the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations." The prophet's message, perhaps even his own calling and presence as God's messenger, is a precursor of the salvation that God is about to accomplish. As a result, the prophet can not keep silent until God has established his righteousness and Israel becomes a symbol of God's royalty.

In the context of this passage, this salvation and righteousness has to do with God's deliverance of Israel from exile. Although 62:1 says that it is "her righteousness" and "her salvation", referring to Jerusalem, the context indicates that this has little to do with anything that Israel possesses. Instead, it has everything to do with God's glory which will be revealed when Israel is delivered from captivity. The nations will see Israel's righteousness and glory (62:2) but ultimately this is all to God's glory. It is not Israel's moral qualities that are on display but rather God's ability to deliver.

We too, simultaneously proclaim God's deliverance in Jesus Christ while awaiting that final deliverance upon his return. What might it mean for the Chuch today to raise it's prophetic voice and put on the "garments of salvation"? How might we adorn ourselves in preparation for and proclamation of our day of deliverance? How might our life togheter become a royal diadem in the hand of our God? To answer those questions sincerely will probably mean that we have to think of salvation and righteousness in broader terms, as the prophet invites us to do in this passage.

The Church and Social Justice

I won't be preaching this week because we are having the children's Christmas musical in our morning service. However, if I were preaching this week the sermon text would be Isaiah 61. One of the very last papers I wrote while I was in seminary was on this passage along with its quotation in Luke 4. In this paper, I elaborate on how I believe these passages should inform the participation of the Church in causes of social justice in our world. I have decided to post that paper here in place of my usual reflections on the sermon text for the week. You can download the paper at the link below.

An Anointed, Spirit Filled Community of Righteousness

Deliver Us From Exile

The words of Isaiah 40:1-11 are a message of comfort and hope in a time of tragedy and exile. The people of Israel and Judah have been deported from their homeland by the nations of Assyria and Babylon. However, more than merely a military-political act of the nations, the prophets tell us that this exile was a theological matter, brought about by God because of the sins of his people. In Isaiah 40, we find that this time of exile is coming to an end. God seeks to comfort his people and he tells them that their punishment is over; their penalty has been paid.

As a result, a voice calls out saying "Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness". This path is being cleared in the desert that lies between Israel's homeland and their current residence in Babylon. It will be the path of God's coming to their rescue as well as the path of exodus for the people from their captivity. V.5-8 say that "Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed" and that "all flesh is like grass...the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever". In other words, the return of God's people from exile is a testament to God's glory and God's faithfulness. It shows that his promises to his people were not thwarted when Assyria and Babylon took Israel and Judah into exile. Although it appeared that these kingdoms were in control of Israel's fate, these nations actually sprout up and then fade away like grass or flowers that are here one day and gone the next. These nations, the most powerful in the region at that time, were only serving God's word which stands forever. His promises to his people far out live the lifespan of these kingdoms and nations. Therefore, Israel is now to proclaim the good news that God reigns and that he will once again guide and care for his people like a shepherd.

V.3 of this passage (combined with a verse from Malachi) is quoted in the gospel reading for this week (Mark 1:1-8), the second Sunday of Advent. The way that Mark uses this quotation at the beginning of his gospel is extremely significant. This is because Mark clearly intends for John the Baptist to be understood as the one who is preparing the way for the Lord since he goes on to talk about John preaching in the wilderness immediately after the quotation. This, in turn, is significant not so much because of what it says about John the Baptist but because of what it says about Jesus since Jesus is the one for whom John is preparing the way. Therefore, by quoting this verse from Isaiah (along with the one from Malachi), Mark has already called Jesus Lord, a titled reserved for Yahweh, the one true God of Israel, within the first few verses of his gospel. Mark has proclaimed Jesus as "the Lord" of Isaiah 40, the Lord who delivered Israel from exile, without stating it in such explicit terms. Instead, he has invited those in his audience who know the story of Israel to see Jesus in light of that story; even to see Jesus as the one who delivers Israel from its exile under Rome in his own time.

In many ways, God's people continue to live in a kind of exile today. For some Christians around the world, this exile takes on a very real, political form in that they are a small minority in their own nation and they often suffer for their faith as a result. However, even here in America, when the Church is truly being the Church, we find ourselves in a certain kind of exile. That exile certainly does not come in the political form that it does for others since we hold a considerable influence as a large constituency within our democracy. But when we refuse to be defined by the politics of our nation and instead commit ourselves to being defined by our life in Christ, we begin to realize that the values of our nation, our culture, and our political parties are not and will never be Christian values. Compared to our culture, Christ has some very strange things to say about how we should use our money, live out our sexuality, and spend our time. So in this way, even the Church in America finds itself in exile. Like Israel, we are in need of deliverance from a land that is not our true home.

Therefore, we can take the words of Isaiah 40 to heart. Although they were written as words of comfort to a people in exile about 2500 years ago, they speak words of hope to our current exile as well. The same God whose word did not fail then is still faithful to deliver us today as well. So we continue to look forward to his coming kingdom and the deliverance of all of creation from its exile in sin.

Thy Kingdom Come?

"Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down." Isaiah 64 begins as an earnest plea for God to show up and do something. It is a call for God to exercise his mighty power as he had done in the past. The next several verses continue on with similar language asking God to come down and make his name known to his adversaries. Isaiah assures us that God acts on behalf of the righteous, the ones who remember the ways of God. Up to this point, you can almost hear Isaiah's audience cheering Isaiah on. Perhaps they even shout out "Amen" a few times or whatever the ancient Israelite equivalent of that would be. Certainly, God's people would get excited as the prophet Isaiah begins to talk about God doing mighty things on their behalf once again just as he did at the Exodus.

But then this passage takes a sharp turn. In the second half of verse 5, we hear about God being angry because Israel has sinned. There is even doubt expressed as to whether or not Israel will be saved. Isaiah says that they have become unclean; so unclean in fact that even the deeds they consider to be righteous are like mentrual rags. The people wither like a leaf and are blown away by the wind.

The crowd that was just cheering Isaiah on has received a punch to the gut. The wind has been knocked out of their sails. Just moments earlier they had been excited and adament about God showing up in their presence so that God's righteousness might vindicate them. But now they have realized what's God's righteous presence will mean for them as well. They themselves are not without sin. Therefore, if God comes to them as they have asked, it will mean that their sin will have to be dealt with as well.

However, this fact does not cause Isaiah to rescind his appeal to God. He continues to earnestly seek God's coming but he does so with the recognition that it will involve judgment for he and his fellow Israelites as well. Therefore, Isaiah calls upon God as a father and asks him to deal with Israel's sin but to do it mercifully and not with anger beyond measure. He describes God as the one who shapes the clay which is Israel; meaning that God has the right to do whatever he pleases with Israel but also that this God would no more discard this sinful and flawed people than an artist would discard a work of art into which she has poured much time and energy. God will deal with Israel's sin but Isaiah believes that he will do it in a way that will not destroy but salvage the damaged vessel.

There could hardly be a more appropriate message for the Church as we begin the season of Advent. In this season, we remember Israel's long and expectant waiting for a messiah while also looking forward to the final establishment of Christ's kingdom upon his return to earth. We will talk much over the coming weeks about how we long for God's kingdom to come so that all the wrongs of our world might be righted. But even as we hope for that kingdom, we must be reminded that the Church will not be excluded from the light of God's presence which will expose all sin and unrighteousness. When that day comes, we too will find that many of the actions that we regarded as our most righteous and pious acts are actually more like filthy rags in God's sight and that we may well have neglected the weightier matters of God's law. Therefore, we must continually look back to that man, Jesus Christ, in which God did rend the heavens and come down among us and take on our flesh. The same Spirit which lived in him must also rend our world and dwell among us so that we might become more and more like him now as we anxiously await the arrival of his kingdom.