Scripture: “The One Who Endures…”
1 But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
Isaiah delivers this prophecy into the midst of a chaotic and troubled world. Little Judah, to whom he speaks, is just a pawn on the chessboard of nations. The king of Judah has been worried sick about his northern neighbors, Aram and Samaria, who have lately been conspiring against him. If they joined forces, surely Judah could not withstand the onslaught. But as Isaiah reveals in the previous chapter (Isaiah 8), Aram and Samaria are but small waves in the sea compared to the tsunami approaching from the east. The swelling empire of Assyria will soon engulf the entire region. The prophet Isaiah urges Judah and its king not to get sucked into this tournament of nations, not to try somehow to weasel or maneuver their way out of the coming storm, but instead to trust in God and live faithfully in God’s way. “Do not call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy, and do not fear what it fears, or be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy” (Isa 8:13).
Isaiah suggests that the fate of his audience, the fate of Judah, will depend on where they put their trust. He makes his point vividly with a metaphor. God is a rock, he says. Either a rock of refuge, a sanctuary against the raging tide that will soon engulf the region. Or a stumbling rock, a rock over which one trips and falls before being consumed by the storm (Isa 8:14).
It is advice as wise and otherworldly for us today as it was for Judah nearly three millennia ago. Amid chaos and trouble, everyone’s trying to figure it out. Conspiracies abound and multiply. People plot against one another and vie for power. Everyone is looking for the solution, the one thing that will make everything alright, and Isaiah says it’s like walking straight into the midst of the raging storm. Don’t get sucked into the storm, he says. You can’t defeat the storm. But you can take refuge. Trusting in God and living in God’s way (which is all that’s really in our control anyway) shields us from the powerful currents of the storm and helps us to endure.
Our world thinks of salvation as victory, as defeating an enemy. But the Bible often pictures salvation as endurance. When Jesus warns of troubled times, he concludes by saying, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13). And when Paul proclaims the salvation of God’s love, he does not speak of victory or conquest. Rather he promises, “[Love] endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:7-8). In a similar way, Isaiah assures his audience at the start of today’s scripture that the coming storm—and it will come; Assyria will sweep over the region soon in a terrifying way—is no match for the rock of God. “There will be no gloom for those who were in anguish,” he promises, indicating that for those who have taken refuge in the storm there will be relief. The storm will end. God’s love will not.
Scripture: Unpredictable Harvests
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
3 You have multiplied exultation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
This past fall, my brother and I signed up for a vegetable CSA arrangement (“community-supported agriculture”). There is a small Baptist seminary out on a farm in Dinwiddie County. Students there sign up not only to study the Bible but also to work the fields and experience firsthand the most common metaphor Jesus uses to describe the kingdom of God, namely sowing and harvesting.
Anyway, my brother and I quickly discovered that harvests are unpredictable. Each week we’d receive a newsletter from the seminary describing that week’s yield. One week there was a surprising abundance of Swiss chard and beets. Another week there was an apology for the poor yield of bok choi. One week there was a surplus of kohlrabi, which I’d never even heard of before—a weird, sort of alien-looking cousin of cabbage. Needless to say, this experience provided me with an exercise in culinary gymnastics, as each week I twisted and contorted recipes to accommodate the variations of that week’s harvest.
The unpredictability of the harvest brought to mind Jesus’ parable in which he says the kingdom of God is “as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how” (Mark 4:26-27). Which is to say, the kingdom of God is something for which we work and something over which we do not have control. “The speed would sprout and grow, he does not know how” is also to say that the kingdom of God is a mystery of grace, a gift that we cannot quite see coming, a provision of what we need, which may well be different from what we want.
The standout image from today’s scripture is light. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…” (Isa 9:2). Matthew quotes this scripture at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when Jesus begins to proclaim the good news, “Repent [or ‘change your mind’], for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt 4:16-17). The implication is clear. Jesus is the light shining on the people who have walked in darkness, and the kingdom of God is the new day dawning upon them. But the next image that Isaiah uses after light is harvest. “They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest” (Isa 9:3). Which suggests that this joy is not the joy of self-satisfaction or the joy of being in control. As we have seen in Jesus’ parable—“the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how”—the joy of the harvest is the joy of receiving a gift we cannot see coming. It is the joy of discovering what we need, which may well be different from what we want.
Speaking of a gift that we cannot see coming…many biblical scholars think that verses 2-7 of today’s scripture may have actually been written originally for the coronation ceremony of King Hezekiah, a king who helped Judah to steady the ship. In other words, Isaiah may be talking about a reality that he can anticipate. But many early Christ-followers, such as Matthew, reread this passage and detected within Isaiah’s words little clues that pointed beyond King Hezekiah to a harvest that Isaiah could not have even dreamed or imagined….
Scripture: A Goodness We Couldn’t Have Seen Coming
4 For the yoke of their burden
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5 For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood
shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Great will be his authority,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
In these verses, Isaiah envisions several things: liberation from occupying or threatening forces, the burning up of battle boots and uniforms of war, and the peaceful reign of a king who establishes justice and harmony in the land. And this vision maps reasonably well onto the reign of King Hezekiah, for whom these words may well have been written, and whom 2 Kings praises, saying, “He trusted in the Lord the God of Israel… [T]here was no one like him among all the kings of Judah after him, or among those who were before him” (1 Kgs 18:5). At one point during his reign, the king of Assyria brings a huge invading force to the walls of Judah, taunting the people and threatening them with destruction. King Hezekiah seeks the counsel of the prophet Isaiah and prays to God, and then miraculously one night 185,000 Assyrian soldiers drop dead in their sleep, struck down by the angel of the Lord. Among Judah’s host of less-than-stellar kings, Hezekiah compares favorably as a faithful ruler whose reign features more peace than war.
Why then did Matthew and other Christ-followers read Isaiah’s words and apply them to Jesus instead of the historical king for whom they were most likely written? Well, I can’t help but notice that Matthew quotes Isaiah’s prophecy (today’s scripture) just before Jesus’ sermon on the mount, and specifically before the beatitudes where Jesus delivers what you might call a manifesto for God’s kingdom, a vision of where God’s blessing is. And it’s not where you’d expect. God’s blessing is not in power but in poverty of spirit. It’s not in success but in mourning and meekness. It’s not in satisfaction but in hunger and thirst for righteousness. It’s not in the security of a surplus but in living simply and mercifully. It’s not in taking power but making peace.
These words of Jesus are like dynamite. They explode our expectations…and yet we stand transfixed by them, unable to shake the feeling that perhaps they are truer than anything we’d previously thought. They point to the kind of goodness you couldn’t possibly have seen coming. This is not the goodness that we wanted but the goodness we didn’t even know we needed. Which is perhaps to say, this surprising kingdom of Jesus has us all rejoicing as with joy at the harvest. Is it a coincidence that when Jesus gets to the end of this counterintuitive, upside-down manifesto of God’s kingdom, he says, “Rejoice, and be glad…” (Matt 5:12)?
While much of the world around us gets sucked into the storm of rival parties and competing nations, into the fear and dread and conspiracies and plans of people looking for the one thing that will make everything alright, Isaiah invites us instead to put our trust in God and live in God’s way (which is all that’s really in our control anyway). We cannot foresee the future. Even Isaiah, I think, couldn’t have imagined a savior like Jesus, who was born as humbly as he was, who died a death as shameful as he did. But Isaiah foresaw joy. Because he knew that God always provides, and that like a harvest, God’s provision often confounds our expectations, providing not what we want…but what we didn’t even know we needed.
Prayer
Gracious God,Our refuge in the storm,
Whose love endures and outlasts
All that would do us harm—
May our trust in you
And our willingness to repent and change our mind
Prepare us to recognize your strange grace
In a harvest that confounds our expectations,
And to rejoice and be glad.
In Christ, full of surprising blessings: Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment