Tag: prophet isaiah

The Great Task of Restoration (Isaiah 49:5-15)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

Before I was born, the Lord appointed me;
    he made me his servant to bring back his people,
    to bring back the scattered people of Israel.
The Lord gives me honor;
    he is the source of my strength.

The Lord said to me,

“I have a greater task for you, my servant.
    Not only will you restore to greatness
    the people of Israel who have survived,
but I will also make you a light to the nations—
    so that all the world may be saved.”

Israel’s holy God and savior says
    to the one who is deeply despised,
    who is hated by the nations
    and is the servant of rulers:
“Kings will see you released
    and will rise to show their respect;
princes also will see it,
    and they will bow low to honor you.”

This will happen because the Lord has chosen his servant;
the holy God of Israel keeps his promises.

The Lord says to his people,

“When the time comes to save you, I will show you favor
    and answer your cries for help.
I will guard and protect you
    and through you make a covenant with all peoples.
I will let you settle once again
    in your land that is now laid waste.
I will say to the prisoners, ‘Go free!’
    and to those who are in darkness,
    ‘Come out to the light!’
They will be like sheep that graze on the hills;
    they will never be hungry or thirsty.
Sun and desert heat will not hurt them,
    for they will be led by one who loves them.
    He will lead them to springs of water.

“I will make a highway across the mountains
    and prepare a road for my people to travel.
My people will come from far away,
    from the north and the west,
    and from Aswan in the south.”

Sing, heavens! Shout for joy, earth!
    Let the mountains burst into song!
The Lord will comfort his people;
    he will have pity on his suffering people.

But the people of Jerusalem said,

“The Lord has abandoned us!
    He has forgotten us.”

So the Lord answers,

“Can a woman forget her own baby
    and not love the child she bore?
Even if a mother should forget her child,
    I will never forget you. (Good News Translation)

What is the source of your strength?

Where do you go when you are weak?

To whom do you look, whenever you need support?

And what do you do whenever things go sideways, or somebody pulls the rug out from underneath you?

How do you handle circumstances that have gone awry?

What if you feel hurt, abandoned, misunderstood, neglected, disrespected, or discarded?

It makes sense to me that one would want to put trust in something or someone who is steady, unchanging, and (like God) eternal. Is anyone ever really restored if the restoration project is done with temporary or shoddy materials?

Restoration is a major theme in the prophetic books of the Old Testament. In today’s lesson, God speaks of bringing Israel back to her original calling and purpose. This would be accomplished through the nation of Israel and focused upon God’s Servant, the Lord’s Messiah. 

The scope and vision of what the Savior would do is enunciated by God: rescue people, lead them home, and show unending mercy. The Servant of the Lord is made a light for the nations so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

“Messiah” is more than a Jewish thing. The Christian tradition discerns Jesus as the Servant, the Savior of both Jews, and Gentiles – Christ is given to reach the entire planet.

The incarnation of Christ was meant for more than gathering Israel together, as if it were some sort of Bill Gaither Homecoming tour. Rather, Messiah’s place and power is so significant that it is to be shared with everyone in the world. Although Israel was to be a holy entity, and separate from the surrounding culture, their mandate had always been to be a light to the nations.

This has great import for Christ’s Church and every individual believer in Jesus. The church is much more than a country club which only caters to club functions and members. The church is a missional community with an outward focus, as well.

It has always been God’s vision to reach the nations. The Lord wants more than one group of people; God wants everyone. Along with caring for its own, the church is designed as a missionary enterprise which puts significant resources into shining the light of Christ to every nook and cranny of creation.

However, we are a wounded people, living in a culture whose first response to differing voices is to accuse, attack, and injure. Our hurts are carried by all of us collectively and personally, and it gives rise to bitterness, isolation, and resentment. When our hope runs dry, we become marked by cynicism, apathy, and escapism.

The vision of Isaiah gives us an alternative approach. Reflection on God’s mercy, salvation, and loving guidance leads to repentance. We freely turn from all of our unholy thoughts, words, and deeds. It leads to a restoration of our true calling as missionaries of faith, hope, and love to the broken world around us.

Restoration – divine restoration with rich everlasting spiritual resources – brings healing of the stresses and anxieties that plague our planet, and ourselves. 

Since God has a missionary heart, all of God’s people are missionaries to the world. It therefore behooves each believer to be taught, trained, and led into God’s restorative mission to the nations. 

Let us, then, build caring relationships and extend loving actions both to those within the church and toward those outside of Christian fellowship, so that God’s intentions are carried out. For we know that not one person on planet earth is forgotten by God.

Restoring God, you bring us back to close relation and fellowship so that we might extend your gracious purposes throughout the world. Revive us again, God, so that we can hear your call to the nations through our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Good News For Those In Need (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
    and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations…

“For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations. (New International Version)

This section of Isaiah’s prophecy looks forward to a better day. After centuries of downward spiraling into disobedience, the people found themselves on hard times.

In the prophet’s day, God’s people and their lives needed to be rebuilt, restored, and renewed; they needed salvation and deliverance; and the good news of healing, freedom, and comfort. 

The proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor is a reference to the Old Testament command to practice the year of Jubilee. The Jubilee was to occur every fiftieth year of Israel’s existence in the Promised Land. For forty-nine years there were individuals and families that would incur debt; indenture themselves into servitude in order to survive; perhaps land in a debtor’s prison; and, work hard in the fields that they once owned. 

The Jubilee Year, by Yoram Raanan

These were, indeed, hard times. But after the forty-nine years, on the fiftieth year, the debts were erased; slaves were freed; fields allowed to rest; and, the land restored back to its original owners.

God’s deliverance is not only spiritual, but also very tangible and real. Salvation is not just otherworldly, merely looking forward to the end of the age; there’s also the anticipation of transformation here and now.

The recipients of good news are those who are in bad circumstances. God turns toward the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, those who mourn, and the faint of spirit. God really does have a special concern for the lowly and the weak. 

It’s significant to note that, Israel as a whole, found themselves in need – not because they were victims of adverse situations – but because they failed to obey the stipulations of their covenant with God. 

For example, we have no evidence that the Israelites actually even practiced the Jubilee. By the time fifty years came down the pike, after God gave them the Promised Land, they had slid so far down the spiritual drain that it was completely off their radar to practice a Jubilee. 

It seems no one had any intention of forgiving debts, freeing their indentured servants, giving back the land to original owners, and providing the land itself with a well-deserved Sabbath rest. 

To not practice the Jubilee was to rob people of their land and be unjust to them. Yet, God loves justice and hates robbery. God pays attention to those who are not getting their very real and tangible needs met. So, God speaks words of hope and deliverance for those in circumstances beyond their ability to cope with.

The first few verses of today’s Old Testament lesson are the words that Jesus turned to and read in the synagogue when he began his earthly ministry. Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of this promise to deliver and provide. He came to usher in a Jubilee celebration that would have no end.

It may be easy to overlook these verses, believing that they don’t pertain to us. Gentiles are under no obligation to practice a Jubilee. After all, many people are blessed, both material and spiritual. Furthermore, we can always identify persons who are in much more need than we are. 

And yet, it’s important to recognize that the maladies of our hearts are very real. There are specific conditions in our lives that leave us in bondage and in need of restoration, renewal, and revitalization, just like the Israelites of old. 

Therefore, we must not suppress those realities and those needs, but name the conditions which are packed away in a closet of our heart deep inside us, such as:

  • the love of things and money
  • severed relationships
  • old grudges
  • hidden addictions
  • domestic violence
  • denial of depression
  • secret affairs
  • fear and anxiety
  • anger and hatred
  • hoarding of resources and greed

Outward smiles and small talk conversations may hide the truth from others, but they do nothing to hide ourselves from a God for whom everything is laid bare.

The good news is not just for someone else who has “obvious” needs. The gospel must touch our lives and bring us freedom, so that we can pass on good news to the legion of social ills that make our world sick. 

There are people all around us who need spiritual and emotional, mental and material help. Yet we will not have eyes to see them, or hearts to help them, if we ourselves stuff our burdens so deep within that we are blind and unable to see others.

What’s more, on the other hand, we may too easily misread these verses in a manner it was never intended to be heard, as if we are more in need than we actually are: 

“The Lord’s Spirit of consumer choices is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the middle-class. He has sent me to bind up the half-hearted, to proclaim more options for the limited, and release from Black Friday for the buyers, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s Cyber-Monday.” 

We may not be so crass as to say this out loud, but we might tend to misinterpret Bible passages, so as to avoid our own great poverty of heart.

And when we become expert at stuffing our emotions and our needs, we then fail to see the year of Jubilee. We may believe that other people, “those people,” need Isaiah’s words. However, we are also in need of the year of Jubilee. 

The truth for many is that they are either one paycheck, one prodigal kid, one mental health diagnosis, one serious illness, one drink, one affair, or one bad decision away from being one of “those people” – the people we typically identify as in need – the ones that bad things happen to – the ones we do not want to live next door to us.

We may not yet be vulnerable enough to admit our situation; and so, we keep practicing the denial of our spiritual poverty. Everyone is brokenhearted about something or someone, such as:

  • a wayward son or daughter
  • an unfulfilled dream
  • a lost relationship
  • a difficult illness or health diagnosis
  • a crisis situation

In addition, everybody is in bondage to something we would rather not admit; everyone needs renewal and restoration. 

What should we do? Where are we to turn?

Let’s turn from the things that have caused us to be in poverty and in prison, and delight in the Lord our God. Rejoice in the Lord.

God will make a sprout come up, and cause it to grow. 

God will rebuild our ruined souls. 

God will restore the places of our lives that have been devastated. 

God will even renew the places that have not seen renewal for generations. 

It begins with you and me allowing the justice of God to work within us, and not only for other people.

God cannot bring comfort to those who do not mourn; the Lord cannot turn grief into joy if there is no acknowledgment of a dire situation. To be an oak of righteousness, there must be a confession of despair and an allowance of the justice of God through Jesus Christ to work its way completely through us.

Let the Lord replace a head of grief with a crown of beauty. Let God place a garment of praise to replace the stinky clothes of grumbling. And, in this season of Advent, herald the coming of the Christ child as the hope of us all, to the glory of God. Amen.

Becoming Holy (Isaiah 4:2-6)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

And that’s when God’s Branch will sprout green and lush. The produce of the country will give Israel’s survivors something to be proud of again. Oh, they’ll hold their heads high! Everyone left behind in Zion, all the discards and rejects in Jerusalem, will be reclassified as “holy”—alive and therefore precious. God will give Zion’s women a good bath. He’ll scrub the bloodstained city of its violence and brutality, purge the place with a firestorm of judgment.

Then God will bring back the ancient pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and mark Mount Zion and everyone in it with his glorious presence, his immense, protective presence, shade from the burning sun and shelter from the driving rain. (The Message)

One of the characteristics of Holy Scripture I deeply appreciate are the wonderful prose sections letting us, the readers and listeners, know that our longings for better days will come. There is a day coming when all of our good imaginings of the future shall be realized; and our present circumstances of hatred, discord, jealousy, and envy of one another shall be a thing of the past.

Unfortunately, we will likely (and biblically!) have to see some devastating and violent loss, and experience some terrible and awful destruction of both body and soul. All of the Old Testament prophets spoke messages of both judgment and grace, suffering and glory. Although hammered with ruin, biblical readers are given glimpses of hope to see the possibility of life beyond all of the carnage.

In other words, there will indeed be restoration and renewal. All shall not be lost forever. Death does not have the last word; resurrection does. It will happen because God has a determined resolve to find resilient ways of restoring the divine/human relationship back to its original and intended peaceful good.

It takes faith to have hope, and hope to have faith, and love to win the day forever. If God can create ex nihilo, out of nothing, then the Lord can reform and renew that which already exists, even though it may be in an awfully deformed state.

The ones who remain, the survivors, are the remnant of true believers, the people who hold onto faith and patience in the face of adversity, hardship, and difficulty. These are the dreamers, the seers, the prophets who foresaw both the need for divine judgment, and equally understood the promise of divine restoration.

The earth will once again be blessed. A rainbow of promise shall rise to remind us all that the storms which ravaged us have passed, never to return again.

But let us also clearly understand that it is because of human stubbornness, of hard-hearted people failing to love mercy and show steadfast love, that got us in this pickle of judgment to begin with. There comes a point when the repeated refusal to change, and use the gifts God has given us, leads to our shelf life on this earth coming to a moldy ruin. To be thrown into the divine incinerator is something brought on by us, not God.

Evil is like a cancer which must be purged from our existence so that we can be clean and healthy. The commands of God are not meant to keep people under a heavy divine thumb, but rather to help people live well in this world in a good healthy way. Living a holy life means that we participate in productive spiritual practices that strengthen faith and support the spirit.

People become “unclean” when they take a different path which is inconsistent with how we were designed by our Creator to live. It would be a bit like believing we can ignore all traffic laws and drive how we want, and then are surprised when we are nearly killed in an accident. Sadly, the unclean perish in their self-preoccupations, with God’s generosity completely off of their spiritual radar.

Yet, no matter where we’ve come from or what we have done, there is always the possibility of rehabilitation, of renewing our relationship to God, experiencing the divine presence, and receiving divine grace.

Getting in sync with the healthy spiritual forces of this universe is like having the ancient provision and protection of God’s pillar of cloud by day and fire by night – reassuring us that we are not alone and belong securely in the merciful arms of a loving Lord.

In Christianity, a holy life and a clean heart results from the person and work of Jesus Christ. God got down to it, taking the judgment we deserved and giving us grace. All of the temporary ritual cleanings merely pointed forward to the once for all scrubbing of the cross.

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!…

 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 9:12-14, 10:21-23, NIV)

May you experience the blessing of becoming clean, and know the blessing of being holy and pure in all your relationships and activities. Amen.

The Righteous and the Wicked (Isaiah 26:7-15)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

The path of the righteous is level;
    you, the Upright One, make the way of the righteous smooth.
Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws,
    we wait for you;
your name and renown
    are the desire of our hearts.
My soul yearns for you in the night;
    in the morning my spirit longs for you.
When your judgments come upon the earth,
    the people of the world learn righteousness.
But when grace is shown to the wicked,
    they do not learn righteousness;
even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil
    and do not regard the majesty of the Lord.
Lord, your hand is lifted high,
    but they do not see it.
Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame;
    let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

Lord, you establish peace for us;
    all that we have accomplished you have done for us.
Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us,
    but your name alone do we honor.
They are now dead, they live no more;
    their spirits do not rise.
You punished them and brought them to ruin;
    you wiped out all memory of them.
You have enlarged the nation, Lord;
    you have enlarged the nation.
You have gained glory for yourself;
    you have extended all the borders of the land. (New International Version)

Within the Bible, there are really only two sorts of people: the righteous and the wicked. Repeatedly throughout Scripture, we are told that God attends to the needs, hopes, and prayers of the righteous; and conversely, God is opposed to the unjust practices and oppressive acts of the wicked.

The righteous are people who are attentive to God’s law and trust God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. For the righteous, God will make a way where there seems to be no way. If there’s a mountain obstructing the way of the righteous, they believe the Lord will flatten it. And if it isn’t flattened immediately, the righteous patiently wait, seeking to be obedient and full of faith, until it happens.

The world learns about life and faith and the divine through these postures of living by righteous persons. The exception to this is the wicked; they learn nothing. The wicked could see a mountain leveled before their very eyes, and refuse to see or acknowledge the power of God behind it.

All this is to say that the truly righteous persons among us stand out like a sore thumb to the prevailing wickedness of the world. Thus, the wicked would like to see them leveled, instead of a mountain. So, the wicked persons among us are committed to lies, half-truths, injustice, and even violence. They’ll use any practice that would knock down the righteous and advance the wicked person’s agenda.

Yet, in making this distinction between the two groups of people, we need to be very careful. Because whenever we group people, there is always the danger of assuming that the righteous are always righteous and the wicked always wicked – as if the righteous could never do any wrong, nor the wicked ever do anything right and just.

However, the reality is that we don’t live in a completely black and white world; there is a lot of gray. The world is far more complex than our simplistic categories of good and bad. This is why it can be so maddening to try and navigate this world each and every day.

So, when we speak of the righteous and the wicked, let’s have some clarity and understanding of the basic patterns of a person’s or a group’s life.

Biblically, the righteous are righteous – not because they are intensely moral and always actively obedient – but because the basic orientation of their lives is committed to communing and relating to the God of the universe.

And the wicked are wicked – not because they are belligerent and bullying – but because the general direction of their lives is continually bent inward to serve their own interests and ignore the Divine.

Therefore, the righteous have the foundational characteristics of yearning for God, and pursuing the Lord with all their energy. They desire a meaningful relationship with God that gives shape to their plans and purposes for living.

The righteous, as a general pattern of living, find their ultimate longings in life through belonging to God. They seek divine interventions for everything, and deeply desire the divine presence to envelop them and surround the world with love, mercy, and justice. Along with the psalmist, the righteous say:

I ask only one thing, Lord:
Let me live in your house
    every day of my life
to see how wonderful you are
    and to pray in your temple. (Psalm 27:4, CEV)

Like a deer drinking from a stream,
    I reach out to you, my God.
My soul thirsts for the living God.
    When can I go to meet with him? (Psalm 42:1-2, ERV)

As long as I have God, I don’t need anyone else in heaven or on earth. (Psalm 73:25, GW)

In contrast to these heartfelt longings, the wicked are dense and obtuse. They fail to see the beauty in any of this. Their end will be precisely what they have wanted throughout life: To be left alone and have space away from God altogether – which is the classic definition of hell.

But the righteous will also have their desires fulfilled, and shall experience peace and right relations forever with God.

How then shall we live?

Blessed is the person who does not
follow the advice of wicked people,
take the path of sinners,
or join the company of mockers.

Rather, he delights in the teachings of the Lord
and reflects on his teachings day and night.

He is like a tree planted beside streams—
a tree that produces fruit in season
and whose leaves do not wither.
He succeeds in everything he does.

Wicked people are not like that.
Instead, they are like husks that the wind blows away.

That is why wicked people will not be able to stand in the judgment
and sinners will not be able to stand where righteous people gather.

The Lord knows the way of righteous people,
but the way of wicked people will end. Amen. (Psalm 1, GW)