May 14, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“If only You would rend the heavens and come down, so that mountains would quake at Your presence, as fire kindles the brushwood and causes the water to boil, to make Your name known to Your enemies, so that the nations will tremble at Your presence!” (Isaiah 64.1-3)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

If only? Didn’t Isaiah believe in God’s revelatory word after all of that had been said and done? Wouldn’t his message be filled with promise instead of petition by this time? But I get it. He was a man of “made-clean lips” who was still in the midst of people with unclean lips. That would mean their brain, their heart, their spirit and their daily life was still guided by the “great disconnect.” We fall victim to the same disconnect even today, right? We become so frustrated with the world and our place in it that we are convinced “God doesn’t care,” God isn’t listening,” “God is punishing” or a combination of all three. Even in our most faithful and spiritually secure times, we can get lost in wondering why God hasn’t answered our prayers [or more aptly, why hasn’t God answered our prayers the way we want them!] So, Isaiah, after hearing the Word of God in dialogue in the previous chapter declaring what God has done on behalf of His namesake and for His name’s sake, is now wanting a visible tangible expression to be given to convince the world of God’s will, power and sovereignty. It is one thing for God to share the vision of what is going to happen. It is another for a taste of reality to whet the appetite of the seeker, backslider and unconvinced to believe and submit. Think of it this way. It is one thing to say “I love you.” It is another to demonstrate “I love you.” We hear the words. We want to believe the words. But actions speak louder than words. Isaiah has the experience of the vision of God in the Temple. He had an interaction with God through His angels who purged him and sanctified him for God’s work declaring the word, will, hope and truth of God even when it had seemingly been silent for so long… or simply given “lip service.”

Here is the foundation of the mistaken identity then of the Messiah which lingered for centuries until Jesus of Nazareth stepped into world history. That view of the Messiah as the commanding general leading an angel army against the worldly foes of other nations is what was held onto. It is that Isaiah 64.1-3 desire. James and John espoused that desire when they had been rebuffed by towns who would not offer shelter and hospitality to Jesus and the disciples. They asked Jesus for permission to call down “hellfire and brimstone” on them as the sense of righteous justice; or because they deserved it for being rude. I would remind us all that it was not a band of 13 which travelled from Caesarea Philippi through Samaria to Judea and Jerusalem from east of the Jordan to north/south highways leading from Africa to Europe. At times, the number of “disciples” who travelled with Jesus as Rabbi could have been 120 or more people. In the words of Ebeneezer Scrooge speaking to the Ghost of Christmas Present “…a tremendous family to provide for” referencing how many Christmases had passed since the first. For some communities, the number in this “merry band” may well have exceeded the resources of the community itself for its own members. We can all too easily get caught up in the “what about me” view of what is right and wrong. I had a sneaking suspicion this view of “the coming Messiah” is what the Temple leadership feared in light of the Roman occupation. While the people desired it to be free of their oppressors, the leaders feared it because their entire way of life would be compromise and even eliminated. [It is here that I will offer a comment based on the concept of “marginalization” from yesterday. In the post-modern mindset, marginalization is usually applied to the poor, outcast, immigrant, displaced, devalued, addicted etc. population. However, in the view of the gospel, which the Temple leadership proposed they were the marginalized and thus unacceptable, Jesus proposed that the rich and powerful were actually the ones who were marginalized. The test case was the Rich Young Ruler who walked away from the call to salvation because he was rich and powerful. The disciples were left wondering to themselves, “Who then can be saved if not the rich who have everything going for them?”]

Except, this was not the “coming of Jesus” that anyone expected. Why? Because it is the heart and mind and soul that had to be subjected to the will of God first. The previous chapter which emphasized God’s disappointment that “no one would go with me” is the guidepost to understand the servant position and posture. Job served. Joseph served. David served. Moses served (up to a point.) Jesus was the ultimate servant and role model for spiritual truth. He invited the disciples to follow after Him not as a leader of the band nor as cheerleaders and fans along the road. He was asking them and teaching them to walk in His path as He walked. Seeking to honor God and one another with sacrificial love (seeking the world aside and grasping the kingdom in our midst) is the true meaning of being a believer in Jesus as the Christ; being one of His true disciples. If we did that, individually as disciples and corporately as the Church, then that would be more powerful a transformative reality that “calling down hellfire and brimstone.” It will come to that, sadly, because the Church doesn’t think it can happen. It really hasn’t tried. It has tried to live the life of the temple leadership which was to be as much in the kingdom as the world would allow. That is the tepid water thinking which the Glorified Christ in Revelation said He would “spew from His mouth.” Let that sink in before we start begging God to wreak vengeance and havoc on the enemy when we are many times that very enemy.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness which we know is folly but righteous works which declare Your glory and further witness the truth that can set all who believe free. Hear our prayer, O Lord, and be gracious to us in the name of Jesus. AMEN.