I was sitting in Starbucks yesterday morning. There were signs that Halloween had arrived. One of the baristas was dressed like Maleficent. Another was dressed like a princess. One was Aladdin. Meanwhile, the soundtrack of the morning was a litany of Halloween songs, filled with strange minor chords, sound effects such as barking dogs, sirens, and low, ominous vocal harmonies. I heard a few lines that reminded me of horror movies I had seen when I was younger...movies I do not want to see again! But coming here I should expect to encounter some memory of something scary.
Ezekiel points us to what would be truly scary in his passage today.
Ezekiel 20-23 is about the unfaithfulness of Israel and Judah. Admittedly, this is a constant problem throughout the Old Testament. Many different books are covering the same main problem. Pressing on and engaging with the words not only gives us something to chew on. God's Word comes to us and challenges us in our present day. God calls Ezekiel to speak to his people, saying that "your ancestors blasphemed me, by dealing treacherously with me." (20:27). How scary that we have dealings with God and that humanity is capable of being treacherous in these dealings! Doesn't the world dull this sense in us? The nightmare of the human condition is how little we're aware of our condition. That is the tragedy of Oholah (represents Samaria) and Oholibah (represents Jerusalem) in chapter 23 - they prostitute themselves, relying on other nations more than God. They don't realize the danger they're in.
It is valuable to know the truth about this life, and Scripture gives it to us: we are built for relationship. Nobody is an island. Least of all with God, for he is the one who created us, who fashioned us with his own hand, on whom we are dependent for air, food, water, and for a body that works well. When we take what he has fashioned - ourselves, our relationships, our world - and use it for our own purposes, we deal treacherously. We aren't merely doing things our way. We are working against the plans of the one who made it all. What is scary is this: humanity is involved in this world, but isn't aware of it. We are unaware that each moment is a moment of faithfulness to God or treacherous enmity to God. Humanity will do all they can to resist this truth. Ezekiel himself turned to God and cried, "Ah Lord God! they are saying of me, 'Is he not a maker of allegories?'" Humanity will resist this truth. They will pretend its all make-believe kids' stuff. We live in a secular age, and this is what is truly scary: not believing too much about God, but believing far too little.
We must find a way to trust God. Our hearts are dark, but his is wonderful light. We must face up to him and engage with him to become what he would make of us. Today is All Saints' Day in the church, in which we remember all those who have submitted their lives to the God they love to allow them to become like him. We remember those who have devoted themselves to Jesus Christ who was crucified for us, who loves his enemies, who knows who and what we are, and still gives his life for us.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 280: Isaiah 10:5-34 - The Hand that Holds the Rod
I awoke this morning from a nightmare. I'm at a podium and all of my closest friends and family are there. I'm to speak about scripture and give a message. But the message isn't prepared. I'm nervous, terrified, speechless, mumbling, overwhelmed. I awake in a cold sweat, facing down the temptation that all I really am is a big phony, a religious performer.
Welcome to my personal Assyria.
We 21st century folks are quite advanced technologically and scientifically. The complexity of wealth management is like nothing the world has ever seen, is it? We have advanced indeed. In light of what we have become, isn't it difficult to believe in the God espoused by books that are 25 to 27 centuries old?
Welcome to our collective Assyria.
Assyria, of course, is the nation that is threatening Israel and Judah in the mid 700's B.C. But Assyria is more than that. Assyria was the first world power. When Assyria arrived on the scene, it's as though LeBron James showed up to play in a YMCA pick-up basketball game. Before LeBron showed up, you thought you knew who the good players were. Now, things have changed. Before Assyria, your realm of experience is narrow. Most days are like the others. Before Assyria, the foundations of your life aren't shaken. Before Assyria, its possible to have a child's faith in God because the world you knew as a child is still the same.
The effect that Assyria had on the ancient world was powerful. All the tribal deities of the ancient world are shown by Assyria to be nothing more than old movie sets to be toppled and repainted. Most of God's people fell for this. And although Assyria itself has vanished in the mists of history, the effect is the same with our "Assyria's." For our part, we experience a very visible world power called self-assertion, which makes our childhood faith seem like rubbish. We are miniaturized by global politics. We slip up on the life-force known as "it's not personal, it's business." Truth, honesty, patience, and love seem to be "after all but the playthings and victims of force." The tail seems to wag the dog. Assyria seems to rule God. The rod seems to shake the one who lifts it.
Isaiah 10:5-34 proclaims a mighty gospel: Assyria's rumor-mill, news-cycle, intimidation, world-dominance can do nothing about righteousness. This is nothing new for Isaiah. This is the only good news for all the chapters we've covered so far. God's people have chosen wealth and pleasure over God. (ch. 5) They present sham worship. (ch. 6) They are too impressed with Assyria (ch. 7-9) Chapter 10 is realistic: we don't stand a chance against Assyria. This would all be bad news except for Isaiah's key point: this devastation is really purification. And it was new for its time. Isaiah proclaims the same holy, supremely righteous God as Moses or David, but Isaiah carries it to a new level: "This was the first time that any man faced the sovereign force of the world in the full sweep of victory, and told himself and his fellow-men: 'This is not travelling in the greatness of its own strength, but is simply a dead, unconscious instrument in the hand of God.' (Smith, 176). In other words, Assyria may be powerful. But it's only a rod. Against the flood of imperial power stands Isaiah and a God who is supreme, who will permit these things to execute justice and purify people.
There are two conclusions from this: first, the Assyria of your life is just a rod in God's hand, not the other way around. "Everything that has come forcibly and gloriously to the front of things, every drift that appears to dominate history, all that asserts its claim on our wonder, and offers its own simple and strong solution of our life," our "Assyria's", are nothing but a dead instrument in the hand of our God. If the metaphor of a 'rod' sounds too abusive, think of a sculptor's chisel, or some sandpaper, or a nail file. My nightmare is my Assyria, the temptation to think that my faith is just an old movie set that looks nice but there's no real substance there. The general store isn't really a general store. The church isn't really a church. But Christ is more real than my nightmare. I can lay my nightmare before him and say, "God, however much truth there is my nightmare, whether or not I'm a "movie set Christian," I ask for you to give me a real love for you." In other words, "God, don't let my Assyria crush me, but use it to sculpt a real follower who is anything but a phony." God will use your Assyria too.
Second, if you are being purified, you are being deepened. As children, perhaps we had an easy, innocent trust in God (particularly if we had good parents). At some point, in building our pedigrees and resumes whether for the folks at the top of the heap in middle school or high school, or for the folks in the corner offices, we weren't innocent anymore. We don't have our innocent faith anymore. Your childhood faith may have been murdered by the Assyria's of this world. A new adult faith may need to be resurrected from the ashes. Isaiah teaches about a faith like this, which claims that no matter what happens in this world, everything and everyone will still have to answer to God's righteousness. This is our inheritance in Christ. It is what remains, no matter what.
Welcome to my personal Assyria.
We 21st century folks are quite advanced technologically and scientifically. The complexity of wealth management is like nothing the world has ever seen, is it? We have advanced indeed. In light of what we have become, isn't it difficult to believe in the God espoused by books that are 25 to 27 centuries old?
Welcome to our collective Assyria.
Assyria, of course, is the nation that is threatening Israel and Judah in the mid 700's B.C. But Assyria is more than that. Assyria was the first world power. When Assyria arrived on the scene, it's as though LeBron James showed up to play in a YMCA pick-up basketball game. Before LeBron showed up, you thought you knew who the good players were. Now, things have changed. Before Assyria, your realm of experience is narrow. Most days are like the others. Before Assyria, the foundations of your life aren't shaken. Before Assyria, its possible to have a child's faith in God because the world you knew as a child is still the same.
The effect that Assyria had on the ancient world was powerful. All the tribal deities of the ancient world are shown by Assyria to be nothing more than old movie sets to be toppled and repainted. Most of God's people fell for this. And although Assyria itself has vanished in the mists of history, the effect is the same with our "Assyria's." For our part, we experience a very visible world power called self-assertion, which makes our childhood faith seem like rubbish. We are miniaturized by global politics. We slip up on the life-force known as "it's not personal, it's business." Truth, honesty, patience, and love seem to be "after all but the playthings and victims of force." The tail seems to wag the dog. Assyria seems to rule God. The rod seems to shake the one who lifts it.
Isaiah 10:5-34 proclaims a mighty gospel: Assyria's rumor-mill, news-cycle, intimidation, world-dominance can do nothing about righteousness. This is nothing new for Isaiah. This is the only good news for all the chapters we've covered so far. God's people have chosen wealth and pleasure over God. (ch. 5) They present sham worship. (ch. 6) They are too impressed with Assyria (ch. 7-9) Chapter 10 is realistic: we don't stand a chance against Assyria. This would all be bad news except for Isaiah's key point: this devastation is really purification. And it was new for its time. Isaiah proclaims the same holy, supremely righteous God as Moses or David, but Isaiah carries it to a new level: "This was the first time that any man faced the sovereign force of the world in the full sweep of victory, and told himself and his fellow-men: 'This is not travelling in the greatness of its own strength, but is simply a dead, unconscious instrument in the hand of God.' (Smith, 176). In other words, Assyria may be powerful. But it's only a rod. Against the flood of imperial power stands Isaiah and a God who is supreme, who will permit these things to execute justice and purify people.
There are two conclusions from this: first, the Assyria of your life is just a rod in God's hand, not the other way around. "Everything that has come forcibly and gloriously to the front of things, every drift that appears to dominate history, all that asserts its claim on our wonder, and offers its own simple and strong solution of our life," our "Assyria's", are nothing but a dead instrument in the hand of our God. If the metaphor of a 'rod' sounds too abusive, think of a sculptor's chisel, or some sandpaper, or a nail file. My nightmare is my Assyria, the temptation to think that my faith is just an old movie set that looks nice but there's no real substance there. The general store isn't really a general store. The church isn't really a church. But Christ is more real than my nightmare. I can lay my nightmare before him and say, "God, however much truth there is my nightmare, whether or not I'm a "movie set Christian," I ask for you to give me a real love for you." In other words, "God, don't let my Assyria crush me, but use it to sculpt a real follower who is anything but a phony." God will use your Assyria too.
Second, if you are being purified, you are being deepened. As children, perhaps we had an easy, innocent trust in God (particularly if we had good parents). At some point, in building our pedigrees and resumes whether for the folks at the top of the heap in middle school or high school, or for the folks in the corner offices, we weren't innocent anymore. We don't have our innocent faith anymore. Your childhood faith may have been murdered by the Assyria's of this world. A new adult faith may need to be resurrected from the ashes. Isaiah teaches about a faith like this, which claims that no matter what happens in this world, everything and everyone will still have to answer to God's righteousness. This is our inheritance in Christ. It is what remains, no matter what.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Reading the Bible in 2014 - Day 277: Isaiah 7-9:1-7 - God: Sanctuary or Stumbling Block
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.
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.
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)
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