Isaiah

Well, now I'm in the prophets, and instead of starting me off light, say with Obadiah or Hosea, the Scripture starts me off with the big daddy of Isaiah. 66 chapters of prophetic goodness! Here are some of my major impressions:

1. Two dominant images of God stand out to me. First off, you have Yahweh as the judge (and jury). Come to think of it, God's also in the prosecutor role! It's a courtroom and God is putting Judah on trial. 3:13 and 41:21 are two clear examples. Then the second image is that of lover. Though too often jilted, Yahweh longs to continue in love relationship with his bride. 62:5 is but one example. Each of these images are so potent! And what's fascinating is that you see God simultaneously relate to the people as both judge and lover throughout the text. On one hand, the time is up and the sentence is coming. On the other hand, mercy is near and restoration is available. It's amazing to me that God can live out both postures at once. I know that as a father I sure can't! I'm either one or the other, usually depending on what my kids are (or aren't) doing at any given moment...

2. What a ministry the prophet has! I've seen this before in the Old Testament, but how much more so experiencing the 66 chapters of Isaiah! At one point while reading, I was struggling with the repetitiveness of the oracles. I mean, how many different ways can the Lord, through Isaiah, pronounce punishment on Judah...or Tyre...or Babylon...or Assyria...or... And then it hit me: IMAGINE BEING ISAIAH! Wow. Day in, day out, the brother has to experience these visions or oracles of doom and gloom, alternating with images of restoration and redemption. And then, he has to go preach it TO A PEOPLE WHO WILL NOT LISTEN! Talk about a job description that I would never want! Yikes.

3. Now that is a call story! More about Isaiah...what a crazy call story for him! Chapter 6. The guy is brought into the very throne room of Yahweh, is allowed to witness the Lord chilling with his seraphs. All of a sudden, he realizes that HE SHOULDN'T BE THERE. He confesses his sin, at which point he gets a LIVE COAL shoved up into his grill. Somehow that atones him, and then he gets called to serve the Lord as a prophet. He says yes, and then he's given his core message and it's one of encouragement, blessing and support for the people...NO! His prophetic ministry will be marked by condemnation and rebuke against a rebellious people. Wow! Reading that it made me grateful that my call story is slightly less, ah, intense that Isaiah's. Come to think of it, while I appreciated the content of Isaiah, the imagery, the themes, what it says about the Lord, I think I was most struck by Isaiah the person.

4. Lots of Jesus allusions in Isaiah. I made a list of perhaps 8 different Jesus passages in Isaiah. I think my favorite was the classic "suffering servant" passage from Isaiah 53. Such a strong picture of what Jesus would experience. I wonder what Isaiah, himself a suffering servant, would have understood as he preached that.

5. God had a word for me and my staff. I don't feel like this has happened a ton (not as much as I would have liked anyway) so far as I've been reading, so I'll close with this. Isaiah 52:7 is a passage that I've sat with before. In my experience, it's one of those texts that churches use on the front covers of their bulletins on missions Sundays. You know what I mean? This time, as I read it, I was so encouraged by it. Like at a heart level. As staff, what we do on campus, and in inner city Fresno, and in Bosnia, and in a thousand other places, is to bring good news. We proclaim peace. We bring good tidings. We proclaim salvation. We say to Zion, to the dorm, to the professors, to Banja Luka, to donors, "Your God reigns!" We do these things. And, as we do, God says "how beautiful on the mountains are YOUR FEET." Not some glamorous part of the body, but your dirty, stinky, grim-looking feet (seen my toenails lately?!?). Truly, as we engage in our mission, God calls our labor, our suffering, our hard work, beautiful. He holds it up in high esteem. It's a glamorous thing for Him! Mind-boggling! As we crank up for another school year starting soon (my first meeting of 2010-2011 is this Friday), 52:7 is God's good news and affirmation to me and my staff on our work. I'm so grateful for this word from Isaiah!