One question rings down through the entire Bible. It is summed up in Psalm 1: do you follow the way of the Lord...or not? Are you a tree planted by streams of water...or are you dust in the wind? Do you love God with your heart, mind, and strength...or don't you? We often feel there must be some alternative way to either loving or hating God. But Scripture consistently shows there is no such thing. Chapters 7-9 of Isaiah bring us deeply into the folly of human sin and into the marvelous grace of God. Along the way, we are taught about the truth that God can be our sanctuary or our stumbling block - our great love or our great enemy. As with previous posts, we will go deep into Isaiah's text - there is a lot here to attend to.
With all of its strange and foreign names of places and people, chapter 7 is particularly intimidating. It helps to know some of the geographic circumstances: Egypt to the southwest and Assyria to the northeast are the major players. In between them are a host of small nations: Phoenicia along the western sea wall, Edom in the mountains to the north, Syria, Aram, Samaria, Moab, and Philistia. Samaria and Aram have arisen against King Ahaz of Judah. The Judean leaders are all gathered at the water supply on the road to Fullers Field - and the water supply isn't impressive. Ahaz's big decision: whether to turn to Assyria for help against these foes. It's crisis time. This is where Isaiah and his son meet them.
Isaiah's message is laid out in verses 3-9: "Who are Samaria and Aram, anyway? They are "smoldering stumps of firebrands" whose glory days are all gone. Their fire is going out. Stand strong." The real threat is not these tiny nations. The real threat is Assyria - the nation Ahaz is about to turn to for support. Isaiah turns to Ahaz himself in verse 10: "Ask a sign of the Lord your God..."
This is probably the biggest moment of these three chapters, because everything that plays out does so because of Ahaz's unimpressive response. "Isaiah's offer of a sign was one which the prophets of Israel used to make when some crisis demanded the immediate acceptance of their word by men, and men were more than usually hard to convince...by offering (Ahaz) whatever sign he chose to ask, Isaiah knew that the king would be committed before his honor and the public conscience to refrain from calling in the Assyrians, and so Judah would be saved; or if the king refused the sign, the refusal would unmask him." (Smith, 111-112). Ahaz refuses. "I will not ask..." (7:12) The implications are stunning. If Ahaz had only asked, what might have been the difference?
Next comes the judgment on Ahaz. It comes in the form of the famous Messianic prophecy that we hear at Advent. (7:13-17) One is coming who will bear the name of God himself. But by the time he is a young man, he will eat curds and honey - a diet which you wouldn't eat unless there was nothing else to eat. The land will be deserted. It is a picture of royalty and majesty that have been entirely impoverished. "...only his name remains to haunt, with its infinite melancholy of what might have been" (115) - Immanuel, "God-with-us".
In chapter 8, Isaiah turns from his appeal to the king to make his appeal to the people. Like the king, they are too impressed by Assyria to trust in the Word of the Lord. God "will become a sanctuary, a stone one strikes against; for both houses of Israel he will become a rock one stumbles over - a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem." (8:14) God is the one certain refuge that can be depended on in all of life. And there is a double-edge to that fact. For those who will turn to him and rely on him, he is a sanctuary. To those who don't, he is something they stumble over, that trips them up "which is overlooked, rejected, or sought after in a wild, unintelligent spirit, and only in the hour of need, and is then their lasting ruin." (Smith 123)
All of Isaiah's hope has been placed in the remnant by the end of chapter 8. In their arrogance and idolatry, Israel and Judah are destined to be overtaken by Assyria. There's no hope for them. But as we move into the first verses of chapter 9, something changes. We don't know how much time has taken place from 8:20 to 9:2 - whether it occurred over months or immediately - but his tone of voice has passed from sarcasm to pity (8:20-21); from pity to hope (8:22-9:1); from hope to triumph (9:2). The great judgment that has been prophesied for the land of Galilee, the way of the sea, the site of the worst of Judah's idolatries has now given way to a dawning of hope which is inexplicable apart from God. In place of poverty, hunger, and war, God's people are given harvest, victory, joy, and peace in the person of the "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" who has already been introduced in the child of chapter 7. There is new hope for Israel and Judah because God is still God - who is always greater, even than what we now know of him.
Our lesson from these three chapters is the lesson of the 'sanctuary'. It is always tempting in our day and age (as in every age) to treat God like one of the ingredients in a cocktail. He may even be the most important ingredient - but that still isn't enough. We may think that's unfair, but whenever people have turned from him into the ways of selfishness, wastefulness, injustice, and greed, he is no longer our sanctuary, but becomes our stumbling block. He trips us up. But the glorious good news is that if he trips us up, we can take a closer look at what we tripped on. We can recognize "Immanuel" in the God who allows himself to be rejected, to be cursed, to be tripped over, even to die on a cross, but who remains a refuge of mercy to those who turn to him. The stumbling block can still become our sanctuary.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 274: Isaiah 6 - Consecration, Call, and Commission
Isaiah 6 is very short. Do not let that fool you! There is a lot here, as I've found out in the last several days. This is maybe the longest post I've written. It would be wrong for me not to mention that nearly all of this comes from an out-of-print commentary on Isaiah by the 19th century scholar George Adam Smith. (Thank you, Half-Price Books!)
Isaiah begins chapter 6 speaking about the death of King Uzziah. We think he had burned incense in the temple, which only priests were allowed to do. (2 Kings 15). Why is this important? He worshipped his way, not God's way. His act was "one of presumption, the expression of a worldly and irreverent temper, which ignored the infinite distance between God and man. It was followed, as sins of willfulness in religion were always followed under the old covenant, by swift disaster." (Smith, 59)
Isaiah and the people had also ignored the infinite distance between God and man. Smith calls this the "besetting sin" of God's people. Gathered in the temple for worship, they have calloused hearts, they "trampled the courts of the Lord with careless feet" (65), and the disease of their hearts has blossomed into lifeless speech. They worship their way, not God's way: "Isaiah had been listening to the perfect praise of sinless beings, and it brought into startling relief the defects of his own people's worship." (69)
"Holiness" is who God is. Holiness is also the angels' great response to Israel's sin. "Holy" for the callousness of their worship, so careful yet so hard-hearted. "Holy" for the carelessness of their life, for the routine which makes them oblivious to "the shuddering sense of the sublimity of the Divine Presence." (65). "Holy" for the self-indulgent use of forms, rituals, and worship space which veils us from God's presence rather than impressing us with it. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." (6:3). Smoke fills the temple, smoke that is "the obscurity that envelops a weak mind in presence of a truth too great for it, and the darkness that falls upon a diseased eye when exposed to the midday sun." (68). This is the smoke that occurs when holiness and sin meet.
"Unclean lips" indeed. The worship that God's people offer to him should be a beautiful blossom. Instead, compared to the angels' worship, it is a "rotten leaf" which falls to the ground beneath the "stainless beauty" of the angels' praise. (69) Isaiah repents - "Woe is me! I am lost..." He invites disaster and rightful judgment upon himself.
Now comes the sequence of consecration, call, and commission. Consecration means cleansing. The angel heals Isaiah's unclean lips with a hot stone - an ordinary household means of conveying heat - instead of with a traditional Jewish sacrifice. The process is swift and domestic rather than painstaking and laborious. The effect is all the same. The new reality which is so often missed about the lengthy ceremonies of sacrifice is captured in this swift purging: total forgiveness. Isaiah is fit for the presence of God.
What kind of call does Isaiah then receive? It is not a compulsory call like being drafted into the military. It is not the wooing of a recruiter who says, "you're the kind of person we want for the job". Neither is it an escape from responsibility, a vacation, a honeymoon, or a lost weekend in Vegas. "Isaiah got no such call. After passing through the fundamental religious experiences of forgiveness and cleansing, which are in every case the indispensable premises of life with God, Isaiah was left to himself...He heard from the Divine lips of the Divine need for messengers, and he was immediately full of the mind that he was the man for the mission, and of the heart to give himself to it." (75)
The person God creates and the person God redeems is destined to become the person God sends. And yet for the maturity that is essential to reach this point, there is something childlike and free about the one who knows this forgiveness: "Here am I; send me!"
Then Isaiah receives his commission. He is sent to a people to tell them, "look, but do not understand." "How awful!" we think. "Doesn't God love these people?" This passage is more about a truth that Isaiah came to understand through his preaching: The Word of God repelled more people than it convicted. The Word of God has not only a saving power, but also "a power that is judicial and condemnatory." (80) Smith puts it well: "It marks the direction, not of (God's) desire, but of a frequent and a natural sequence." (79) This is a sequence which is found in Jesus' and Paul's ministry as well. The one who loves God's Word and who speaks God's Word finds the Word trampled on. Isaiah looks back on years of ministry. He hasn't failed. He hasn't been a bad prophet. This was his commission: "Go and say to this people: Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand." (6:9)
Finally, hope comes in the form of the stump which persists and lasts through all the tribulation: "'Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled." The holy seed is its stump.'" (6:13). At the close of this magnificent chapter, hope is found in a people who will last through all of this. All the judgment, sin, disappointment, and defeat that would come for Israel and Judah in their future exile was already explained on this day when God encountered Isaiah in the temple. "He has had the worst burned into him; henceforth no man nor thing may trouble him. He has seen the worst, and knows there is a beginning beyond." (86-87)
There is a new beginning for us too. As with Isaiah, it is on the far side of judgment. Our new beginning is in Jesus, who was judged for our sins on the cross, and has now entered into a resurrected life that we will share with him. Comforted with this, let us allow the Word of God to judge us and to cleanse us of sin so that we may know its salvation.
Isaiah begins chapter 6 speaking about the death of King Uzziah. We think he had burned incense in the temple, which only priests were allowed to do. (2 Kings 15). Why is this important? He worshipped his way, not God's way. His act was "one of presumption, the expression of a worldly and irreverent temper, which ignored the infinite distance between God and man. It was followed, as sins of willfulness in religion were always followed under the old covenant, by swift disaster." (Smith, 59)
Isaiah and the people had also ignored the infinite distance between God and man. Smith calls this the "besetting sin" of God's people. Gathered in the temple for worship, they have calloused hearts, they "trampled the courts of the Lord with careless feet" (65), and the disease of their hearts has blossomed into lifeless speech. They worship their way, not God's way: "Isaiah had been listening to the perfect praise of sinless beings, and it brought into startling relief the defects of his own people's worship." (69)
"Holiness" is who God is. Holiness is also the angels' great response to Israel's sin. "Holy" for the callousness of their worship, so careful yet so hard-hearted. "Holy" for the carelessness of their life, for the routine which makes them oblivious to "the shuddering sense of the sublimity of the Divine Presence." (65). "Holy" for the self-indulgent use of forms, rituals, and worship space which veils us from God's presence rather than impressing us with it. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." (6:3). Smoke fills the temple, smoke that is "the obscurity that envelops a weak mind in presence of a truth too great for it, and the darkness that falls upon a diseased eye when exposed to the midday sun." (68). This is the smoke that occurs when holiness and sin meet.
"Unclean lips" indeed. The worship that God's people offer to him should be a beautiful blossom. Instead, compared to the angels' worship, it is a "rotten leaf" which falls to the ground beneath the "stainless beauty" of the angels' praise. (69) Isaiah repents - "Woe is me! I am lost..." He invites disaster and rightful judgment upon himself.
Now comes the sequence of consecration, call, and commission. Consecration means cleansing. The angel heals Isaiah's unclean lips with a hot stone - an ordinary household means of conveying heat - instead of with a traditional Jewish sacrifice. The process is swift and domestic rather than painstaking and laborious. The effect is all the same. The new reality which is so often missed about the lengthy ceremonies of sacrifice is captured in this swift purging: total forgiveness. Isaiah is fit for the presence of God.
What kind of call does Isaiah then receive? It is not a compulsory call like being drafted into the military. It is not the wooing of a recruiter who says, "you're the kind of person we want for the job". Neither is it an escape from responsibility, a vacation, a honeymoon, or a lost weekend in Vegas. "Isaiah got no such call. After passing through the fundamental religious experiences of forgiveness and cleansing, which are in every case the indispensable premises of life with God, Isaiah was left to himself...He heard from the Divine lips of the Divine need for messengers, and he was immediately full of the mind that he was the man for the mission, and of the heart to give himself to it." (75)
The person God creates and the person God redeems is destined to become the person God sends. And yet for the maturity that is essential to reach this point, there is something childlike and free about the one who knows this forgiveness: "Here am I; send me!"
Then Isaiah receives his commission. He is sent to a people to tell them, "look, but do not understand." "How awful!" we think. "Doesn't God love these people?" This passage is more about a truth that Isaiah came to understand through his preaching: The Word of God repelled more people than it convicted. The Word of God has not only a saving power, but also "a power that is judicial and condemnatory." (80) Smith puts it well: "It marks the direction, not of (God's) desire, but of a frequent and a natural sequence." (79) This is a sequence which is found in Jesus' and Paul's ministry as well. The one who loves God's Word and who speaks God's Word finds the Word trampled on. Isaiah looks back on years of ministry. He hasn't failed. He hasn't been a bad prophet. This was his commission: "Go and say to this people: Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand." (6:9)
Finally, hope comes in the form of the stump which persists and lasts through all the tribulation: "'Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled." The holy seed is its stump.'" (6:13). At the close of this magnificent chapter, hope is found in a people who will last through all of this. All the judgment, sin, disappointment, and defeat that would come for Israel and Judah in their future exile was already explained on this day when God encountered Isaiah in the temple. "He has had the worst burned into him; henceforth no man nor thing may trouble him. He has seen the worst, and knows there is a beginning beyond." (86-87)
There is a new beginning for us too. As with Isaiah, it is on the far side of judgment. Our new beginning is in Jesus, who was judged for our sins on the cross, and has now entered into a resurrected life that we will share with him. Comforted with this, let us allow the Word of God to judge us and to cleanse us of sin so that we may know its salvation.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 273: Isaiah 5 - Gathering and Squandering
In chapter 5, Isaiah is calling for a full repentance for God's people. There is no quick fix for them, no minor adjustments to be made. This has made him unpopular. Picture the scene: Israel has been preparing for war with Assyria (2 Kings 15:29). This means they need the support of the people. They need confidence and patriotism. Isaiah's words of judgment and calls for repentance sound not only like a spoil-sport. They sound like the words of a traitor. How can he tell Israel that they should focus their energies on repentance instead of on preparation for war? How can he tell them to prepare to come under Assyria's power?
According to George Adam Smith, Isaiah knew that God's honor stands alone. We can't manipulate him. We can't put him in our pocket. He doesn't owe us anything. "To the Jews the honor of their God was bound up with the inviolability of Jerusalem and the prosperity of Judah. But Isaiah knew Yahweh to be infinitely more concerned for the purity of His people than for their prosperity." (Smith, 35) Prosperity is not proof that God is with us. If we love prosperity more than God, God is not fooled.
The heart of this chapter is the wild grapes - what they are and what can be done about them. It opens with a story. God's people - Israel and Judah - had a vineyard. They planted a crop of grapes. But the fruit went bad. Wild grapes grew.
The wild grapes are catalogued in a series of Woes from verse 8 through 24. These are dire threats. "Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field." (v. 8) "Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks..." (v. 11) "Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes..." (v. 18) "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil..." (v. 20) "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight." (v. 21) "Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent." (v. 22-23)
What we have is a picture of two great threats: the love of wealth and the love of pleasure. Smith calls the love of wealth "the instinct to gather" and the love of pleasure "the instinct to squander". They loved wealth, abusing their land. They loved pleasure, over-indulging in alcohol.
Our life with God consists in praying, serving, obeying, and loving him. Life goes terribly awry when we replace these with other things. God's people had grown accustomed to gathering without regard for God. They had also grown accustomed to squandering without regard for God. What Smith claims alcohol was doing to them could also apply to their disregard for God as a whole: "Nothing kills the conscience like steady drinking to a little excess; and religion, even while the conscience is alive, acts on it only as an opiate."
These people are unreachable, as is depicted for us in the third Woe from verses 18 and 19 - "Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes, to those who say, "Let God hurry, let him hasten to his work so we may see it...." They call out for swift judgment - "hurry, God!" - not having the slightest inclination that they are pulling this judgment towards themselves the whole time with their deceitfulness.
These are the wild grapes. And there isn't anything that can be done, as long as they reject instruction. A foreign power will come and sweep them away. Isaiah has told his people of God's judgment and it would soon come.
During the 4th century A.D., the Roman emperor Constantine became Christian. Nearly overnight, the once persecuted faith became fashionable. And as soon as it became fashionable, people found it to be corrupt. There then grew a movement of people who followed Christ together in the deserts near Egypt. They became renowned for their spiritual maturity. One of these "desert fathers" wrote "This is the great task of man, that he should hold his sin before the face of God and count upon temptation until his last breath." (Sittser, 75) This is what God's people failed to do during the time of Isaiah. I think that the experience of reading Isaiah 5 can lead us to a renewed strength to expect temptation, to be ready for it, and to fight it well. We can do this through Christ, "who has been tempted in every way, just as we are" (Heb. 4:15). He is our strength for the fight to stay humble, so that our instincts to gather and squander do not choke the fruit of God's Spirit working within us.
According to George Adam Smith, Isaiah knew that God's honor stands alone. We can't manipulate him. We can't put him in our pocket. He doesn't owe us anything. "To the Jews the honor of their God was bound up with the inviolability of Jerusalem and the prosperity of Judah. But Isaiah knew Yahweh to be infinitely more concerned for the purity of His people than for their prosperity." (Smith, 35) Prosperity is not proof that God is with us. If we love prosperity more than God, God is not fooled.
The heart of this chapter is the wild grapes - what they are and what can be done about them. It opens with a story. God's people - Israel and Judah - had a vineyard. They planted a crop of grapes. But the fruit went bad. Wild grapes grew.
The wild grapes are catalogued in a series of Woes from verse 8 through 24. These are dire threats. "Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field." (v. 8) "Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks..." (v. 11) "Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes..." (v. 18) "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil..." (v. 20) "Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight." (v. 21) "Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent." (v. 22-23)
What we have is a picture of two great threats: the love of wealth and the love of pleasure. Smith calls the love of wealth "the instinct to gather" and the love of pleasure "the instinct to squander". They loved wealth, abusing their land. They loved pleasure, over-indulging in alcohol.
Our life with God consists in praying, serving, obeying, and loving him. Life goes terribly awry when we replace these with other things. God's people had grown accustomed to gathering without regard for God. They had also grown accustomed to squandering without regard for God. What Smith claims alcohol was doing to them could also apply to their disregard for God as a whole: "Nothing kills the conscience like steady drinking to a little excess; and religion, even while the conscience is alive, acts on it only as an opiate."
These people are unreachable, as is depicted for us in the third Woe from verses 18 and 19 - "Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes, to those who say, "Let God hurry, let him hasten to his work so we may see it...." They call out for swift judgment - "hurry, God!" - not having the slightest inclination that they are pulling this judgment towards themselves the whole time with their deceitfulness.
These are the wild grapes. And there isn't anything that can be done, as long as they reject instruction. A foreign power will come and sweep them away. Isaiah has told his people of God's judgment and it would soon come.
During the 4th century A.D., the Roman emperor Constantine became Christian. Nearly overnight, the once persecuted faith became fashionable. And as soon as it became fashionable, people found it to be corrupt. There then grew a movement of people who followed Christ together in the deserts near Egypt. They became renowned for their spiritual maturity. One of these "desert fathers" wrote "This is the great task of man, that he should hold his sin before the face of God and count upon temptation until his last breath." (Sittser, 75) This is what God's people failed to do during the time of Isaiah. I think that the experience of reading Isaiah 5 can lead us to a renewed strength to expect temptation, to be ready for it, and to fight it well. We can do this through Christ, "who has been tempted in every way, just as we are" (Heb. 4:15). He is our strength for the fight to stay humble, so that our instincts to gather and squander do not choke the fruit of God's Spirit working within us.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 259: Isaiah 4 - Judgment
Isaiah 4 begins with glory. But this future day of glory will be preceded by a time of judgment: "Whoever is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning." (v. 3-4)
Commentator George Adam Smith thinks that Isaiah has realized the truth that all reformers must come to: that justice needs a judgment. We all start out as idealists who can picture a world of peace but are naïve about how hard that will be: "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 any more." (Isaiah 2:4) For a people yearning for peace, you could hardly pick a better slogan from somewhere in the Bible.
But our idealistic pictures of a peaceful society do not in themselves regenerate society. They only reveal the work we have to do. "It will only reveal social corruption, and sicken the heart of the reformer himself. For the possession of a great ideal does not mean, as so many fondly imagine, work accomplished; it means work revealed - work revealed so vast, often so impossible, that faith and hope die down, and the enthusiast of yesterday becomes the cynic of tomorrow." (Smith, The Book of Isaiah, 31).
We can't be healed until we are properly diagnosed. As Father Brown said, "No man's really good till he knows how bad he is, or might be". We can only reach the glorious future God has for us through judgment.
We think a loving God wouldn't judge. When we think of his judgment, we must keep it wed to his love. God's judgment comes from a merciful desire to restore, rather than a vengeful anger to destroy. George MacDonald wrote: "Nothing can satisfy the justice of God but justice in his creature. The justice of God is the love of what is right, and the doing of what is right. Eternal misery in the name of justice could satisfy none but a demon whose bad laws had been broken." (Unspoken Sermons, quoted from Baptized Imagination, 106)
God isn't a bad sport, pouting up in the attic of the universe, refusing to play. His judgment is a manifestation of his love. And because God is our loving judge, we enter into work of faith, labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 1:3). Jerry Sittser writes about how the early church's expectation of God's day of judgment helped them to live simple, hard-working lives of love: "(Athenagoras) also believed that Christian moral excellence was directly attributable to the Christian belief in the last judgment. "If we did not think that a God ruled over the human race, would we live in such purity? The idea is impossible. But since we are persuaded that we must give an account of all our life here to God who made us and the world, we adopt a temperate, generous, and despised way of life." (Water from a Deep Well, 59)
What we find is that judgment wed to love does not drive us away from God; it focuses us. "There is but one way of escape, and that is Isaiah's. It is to believe in God Himself; it is to believe that He is at work, that His purposes for man are saving purposes, and that with Him there is an inexhaustible source of mercy and virtue. So from the blackest pessimism shall arise new hope and faith." (Smith, 31-32)
Our hope is not that salvation will be easy. Our hope is that no matter how hard it gets, we can still hope in God.
Commentator George Adam Smith thinks that Isaiah has realized the truth that all reformers must come to: that justice needs a judgment. We all start out as idealists who can picture a world of peace but are naïve about how hard that will be: "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 any more." (Isaiah 2:4) For a people yearning for peace, you could hardly pick a better slogan from somewhere in the Bible.
But our idealistic pictures of a peaceful society do not in themselves regenerate society. They only reveal the work we have to do. "It will only reveal social corruption, and sicken the heart of the reformer himself. For the possession of a great ideal does not mean, as so many fondly imagine, work accomplished; it means work revealed - work revealed so vast, often so impossible, that faith and hope die down, and the enthusiast of yesterday becomes the cynic of tomorrow." (Smith, The Book of Isaiah, 31).
We can't be healed until we are properly diagnosed. As Father Brown said, "No man's really good till he knows how bad he is, or might be". We can only reach the glorious future God has for us through judgment.
We think a loving God wouldn't judge. When we think of his judgment, we must keep it wed to his love. God's judgment comes from a merciful desire to restore, rather than a vengeful anger to destroy. George MacDonald wrote: "Nothing can satisfy the justice of God but justice in his creature. The justice of God is the love of what is right, and the doing of what is right. Eternal misery in the name of justice could satisfy none but a demon whose bad laws had been broken." (Unspoken Sermons, quoted from Baptized Imagination, 106)
God isn't a bad sport, pouting up in the attic of the universe, refusing to play. His judgment is a manifestation of his love. And because God is our loving judge, we enter into work of faith, labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 1:3). Jerry Sittser writes about how the early church's expectation of God's day of judgment helped them to live simple, hard-working lives of love: "(Athenagoras) also believed that Christian moral excellence was directly attributable to the Christian belief in the last judgment. "If we did not think that a God ruled over the human race, would we live in such purity? The idea is impossible. But since we are persuaded that we must give an account of all our life here to God who made us and the world, we adopt a temperate, generous, and despised way of life." (Water from a Deep Well, 59)
What we find is that judgment wed to love does not drive us away from God; it focuses us. "There is but one way of escape, and that is Isaiah's. It is to believe in God Himself; it is to believe that He is at work, that His purposes for man are saving purposes, and that with Him there is an inexhaustible source of mercy and virtue. So from the blackest pessimism shall arise new hope and faith." (Smith, 31-32)
Our hope is not that salvation will be easy. Our hope is that no matter how hard it gets, we can still hope in God.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 254: Job 10-12 - Questions
We've all understand the importance of questions and answers. If we've been to a conference or to some official talk someone is giving, often there's a "Q&A" section afterward. We all have questions.
Questions keep us up at night. Questions wake us up in the morning. What woke you up this morning? Was it your alarm clock? Or was it a question?
In today's reading, Job bludgeons God with a series of questions: "Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked? Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as humans see? Are your days like the days of mortals, or your years like human years, that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin, although you know that I am not guilty, and there is no one to deliver out of your hand?" (Job 10:3-7)
You don't need to have questions like Job's to appreciate that he asks them. Job doesn't hate God. His questions come from intimacy with God. His questions arise from a life that has been lived in total delight and worship of God. He is offended because God feels distant.
When you pray to God today, what questions do you really have? I recall an overwhelming day, driving in my car, asking God, "why aren't I better than I am by now?"
There is a classic old book called Your God is too Small. It is a corrective for those of us who never risk saying what we really mean with God because we don't think he is very mighty. Job questions God as though he is the ruler of the universe. Job questions him as though he can take it.
Offer to God your real questions today. As you do, know that you are stepping out in faith. You are taking a risk with a real and living God. And think again of today's psalm: "The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore." (Psalm 121:7-8)
Questions keep us up at night. Questions wake us up in the morning. What woke you up this morning? Was it your alarm clock? Or was it a question?
In today's reading, Job bludgeons God with a series of questions: "Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and favor the schemes of the wicked? Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as humans see? Are your days like the days of mortals, or your years like human years, that you seek out my iniquity and search for my sin, although you know that I am not guilty, and there is no one to deliver out of your hand?" (Job 10:3-7)
You don't need to have questions like Job's to appreciate that he asks them. Job doesn't hate God. His questions come from intimacy with God. His questions arise from a life that has been lived in total delight and worship of God. He is offended because God feels distant.
When you pray to God today, what questions do you really have? I recall an overwhelming day, driving in my car, asking God, "why aren't I better than I am by now?"
There is a classic old book called Your God is too Small. It is a corrective for those of us who never risk saying what we really mean with God because we don't think he is very mighty. Job questions God as though he is the ruler of the universe. Job questions him as though he can take it.
Offer to God your real questions today. As you do, know that you are stepping out in faith. You are taking a risk with a real and living God. And think again of today's psalm: "The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore." (Psalm 121:7-8)
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 217: 1 Corinthians 1-2 - Christ Crucified
The first two chapters of 1 Corinthians are about simplifying things. Paul is peeling back the layers of the divisive Corinthian group, revealing the rotting core of factionalism and competing loyalties. Paul is saying that they need to simplify and get focused on the same thing.
Richard Foster describes the power of simplicity: "Have you ever experienced this situation? One person speaks, and even though what he or she is saying may well be true you draw back, sensing the lack of authenticity. Then someone else shares, perhaps even the same truth in the same words, but now you sense an inward resonance, the presence of integrity. What is the difference? One is providing simplistic answers, the other is living in simplicity." (Freedom of Simplicity, 13)
It's easy to have simplistic answers. We resort to them when we don't want to get bogged down, or when we just want to make somebody feel better. It's a lot harder to live a disciplined, committed life of simplicity. And what is our organizing center, the thing we should simplify around? This one thing: "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (2:2).
There are several things which seem so unpleasant about this. One is the taint of failure - that we're worshipping a glorified wimpy guy, somebody the old Saturday Night Live duo, Hans and Franz would have made fun of. The other is the focus on death. It seems so gloomy, like you've been living in one of those haunted funeral hearses in St. Augustine.
Paul contends that there is a powerful subversion going on at the cross. God is turning things upside down. "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God." (1:27-29)
There are two ways God turns things upside down. First, God chooses it. We often think of the power of choice in consumeristic terms: the more money you have, the more you can choose. Not often enough do we see that the choice to simplify - to eat less, to spend less, to watch less TV, to be chaste, to sleep more, to worship more, to pray more - are just as powerful. God chooses the way of the cross, and it is the "power of God." (1:18) Nothing wimpy here. This is the power of God, subverting our usual ideas of power.
Second, these things shame those who think themselves strong. We hate shame, but there is no denying that it exists. When we look back over our life, and want to forget that certain days, weeks, years, or decades even happened, when we are downright embarrassed about the trivial things we thought were so important, shame is what we feel. Paul's point is that we who spend most of our lives steering clear of anything that looks, sounds, or smells of death and stowing money away in every nook and cranny to safeguard ourselves against encroaching death will be ashamed when we see that life is all about dying to ourselves as early as we can - "dying young", in fact - so that our life can belong to God. We will learn that knowing nothing but Christ crucified is not the same as knowing nothing.
What we spent a lifetime scorning, we will realize was God's precise way of giving us value. Shame of Jesus, shame of the cross will give way, as it does for each Christian, to shame of ourselves that we ever scorned an act so beautiful. In fact, the cross is the very center of God's plans to enrich us; for being crucified with Christ is directly tied to the promise of the Spirit, which Paul describes: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him." (2:9)
'Christ crucified' is a simple approach to life. But it is not simplistic. It is an approach which trusts that if God really gave his Son on the cross for us, it is something beautiful and it is something serious which demands our attention and which will change us. God does not coyly play around with us, but has made himself abundantly clear. He speaks with a deep resonance at the cross of Christ. And we won't draw back, for he speaks sincerely. We will listen and find ourselves drawn into the beautiful life of God.
Richard Foster describes the power of simplicity: "Have you ever experienced this situation? One person speaks, and even though what he or she is saying may well be true you draw back, sensing the lack of authenticity. Then someone else shares, perhaps even the same truth in the same words, but now you sense an inward resonance, the presence of integrity. What is the difference? One is providing simplistic answers, the other is living in simplicity." (Freedom of Simplicity, 13)
It's easy to have simplistic answers. We resort to them when we don't want to get bogged down, or when we just want to make somebody feel better. It's a lot harder to live a disciplined, committed life of simplicity. And what is our organizing center, the thing we should simplify around? This one thing: "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (2:2).
There are several things which seem so unpleasant about this. One is the taint of failure - that we're worshipping a glorified wimpy guy, somebody the old Saturday Night Live duo, Hans and Franz would have made fun of. The other is the focus on death. It seems so gloomy, like you've been living in one of those haunted funeral hearses in St. Augustine.
Paul contends that there is a powerful subversion going on at the cross. God is turning things upside down. "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God." (1:27-29)
There are two ways God turns things upside down. First, God chooses it. We often think of the power of choice in consumeristic terms: the more money you have, the more you can choose. Not often enough do we see that the choice to simplify - to eat less, to spend less, to watch less TV, to be chaste, to sleep more, to worship more, to pray more - are just as powerful. God chooses the way of the cross, and it is the "power of God." (1:18) Nothing wimpy here. This is the power of God, subverting our usual ideas of power.
Second, these things shame those who think themselves strong. We hate shame, but there is no denying that it exists. When we look back over our life, and want to forget that certain days, weeks, years, or decades even happened, when we are downright embarrassed about the trivial things we thought were so important, shame is what we feel. Paul's point is that we who spend most of our lives steering clear of anything that looks, sounds, or smells of death and stowing money away in every nook and cranny to safeguard ourselves against encroaching death will be ashamed when we see that life is all about dying to ourselves as early as we can - "dying young", in fact - so that our life can belong to God. We will learn that knowing nothing but Christ crucified is not the same as knowing nothing.
What we spent a lifetime scorning, we will realize was God's precise way of giving us value. Shame of Jesus, shame of the cross will give way, as it does for each Christian, to shame of ourselves that we ever scorned an act so beautiful. In fact, the cross is the very center of God's plans to enrich us; for being crucified with Christ is directly tied to the promise of the Spirit, which Paul describes: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him." (2:9)
'Christ crucified' is a simple approach to life. But it is not simplistic. It is an approach which trusts that if God really gave his Son on the cross for us, it is something beautiful and it is something serious which demands our attention and which will change us. God does not coyly play around with us, but has made himself abundantly clear. He speaks with a deep resonance at the cross of Christ. And we won't draw back, for he speaks sincerely. We will listen and find ourselves drawn into the beautiful life of God.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 215: Hosea: 10-14 - It is Enough
I've grown curious about Abraham Lincoln in the last several years. I've been slowly reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals which chronicles Lincoln's rise to the presidency, through which he eventually welcomed earlier political competitors into cabinet positions. Out of the furnace of his campaigns, he recognized the gifts of those he defeated and those who defeated him. It gave him a thick skin for sure, one he would need as he led the nation into civil war for the distant dream of a stronger nation. It wasn't the best that Lincoln ever would have wanted to give his country. Torn to shreds by newspapers, mocked by friend and enemy alike, his service took its toll on him and his family, even as it took its toll on the nation. This is what interests me: the Civil War was violent, bloody, nobody really came out of it with anything even closely resembling total victory. The costs were just too high. But the high costs now seem worth it. It was bad, but we now see it as good.
Reading Hosea 13, I'm struck by this line about Israel's kingdom: "Where now is your king that he may save you? Where in all your cities are your rulers, of whom you said, "Give me a king and rulers"? I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath." What strikes me is this: that God gave Israel a king in anger. God's anger is brought on by Israel's rejection of his authority. (1 Samuel 8:7) Choosing their own king means they are choosing against God. Yet, in this anger, God gives it to them. Over time, as one bad king led to another (see 1 and 2 Kings), the day comes when God's wrath falls on Israel, leading them into exile, taking their kingdom away. This is all summed up neatly in God's phrase in Hosea 13: "I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath."
I like the Civil War narrative better: it was bad, but we now see it as good, it was costly, but it was worth it. I don't like the narrative of Israel's kingdom as much: it was bad when I gave it to you, and it was worse when I took it away. That just can't be all there is to it! And of course, this is the way we tend to look at the whole Old Testament narrative: "God created the world, the world fell into sin, God created Israel, and then things got worse...and worse...and worse...........and worse...until God himself said, "That's it! I'm coming down there." What's this narrative missing?
It's missing the same sense of cost that we all understand about the Civil War. Lincoln suffered. Union soldiers suffered. Confederates suffered. African-Americans suffered. Out of all the enmity and strife and fighting of that time, and the loss of life in the war being as stunning as it was, we all stand back and say, "it is enough." The cost has been paid. Who bears the cost of all this in the Old Testament? God does. God's children kill each other. God's children give their worship to false gods. God's children are known more for disobeying their God, than for being a light shining the righteous, holy, merciful character of their God. God bears the cost of all this. God suffers.
"They have rejected me," he says in 1 Samuel. They did, but God didn't reject them. God's kingdom moves in unseen, hidden ways while the corrupt kingdom degenerates more and more. Even the death of Jesus, as climactic and central and new as it is, has much more in common with the sacrificial, abiding, weak, suffering way of God's love as depicted in Hosea than we typically acknowledge. God's role in the Old Testament is not as the idle, distant, "get your act together" God. He is the God as portrayed in Hosea, the wounded, unyieldingly faithful lover, whose only Son will pay the ultimate cost. And all those who see with the eyes of faith will say, "it is enough."
Reading Hosea 13, I'm struck by this line about Israel's kingdom: "Where now is your king that he may save you? Where in all your cities are your rulers, of whom you said, "Give me a king and rulers"? I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath." What strikes me is this: that God gave Israel a king in anger. God's anger is brought on by Israel's rejection of his authority. (1 Samuel 8:7) Choosing their own king means they are choosing against God. Yet, in this anger, God gives it to them. Over time, as one bad king led to another (see 1 and 2 Kings), the day comes when God's wrath falls on Israel, leading them into exile, taking their kingdom away. This is all summed up neatly in God's phrase in Hosea 13: "I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath."
I like the Civil War narrative better: it was bad, but we now see it as good, it was costly, but it was worth it. I don't like the narrative of Israel's kingdom as much: it was bad when I gave it to you, and it was worse when I took it away. That just can't be all there is to it! And of course, this is the way we tend to look at the whole Old Testament narrative: "God created the world, the world fell into sin, God created Israel, and then things got worse...and worse...and worse...........and worse...until God himself said, "That's it! I'm coming down there." What's this narrative missing?
It's missing the same sense of cost that we all understand about the Civil War. Lincoln suffered. Union soldiers suffered. Confederates suffered. African-Americans suffered. Out of all the enmity and strife and fighting of that time, and the loss of life in the war being as stunning as it was, we all stand back and say, "it is enough." The cost has been paid. Who bears the cost of all this in the Old Testament? God does. God's children kill each other. God's children give their worship to false gods. God's children are known more for disobeying their God, than for being a light shining the righteous, holy, merciful character of their God. God bears the cost of all this. God suffers.
"They have rejected me," he says in 1 Samuel. They did, but God didn't reject them. God's kingdom moves in unseen, hidden ways while the corrupt kingdom degenerates more and more. Even the death of Jesus, as climactic and central and new as it is, has much more in common with the sacrificial, abiding, weak, suffering way of God's love as depicted in Hosea than we typically acknowledge. God's role in the Old Testament is not as the idle, distant, "get your act together" God. He is the God as portrayed in Hosea, the wounded, unyieldingly faithful lover, whose only Son will pay the ultimate cost. And all those who see with the eyes of faith will say, "it is enough."
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