Holding Fast in Tumultuous Times
A New Commentary on Isaiah, the 5th Gospel: (Part 2)
My first glimpse of Los Angeles was by plane. Cheryl, our oldest son, Lucas, and I flew across the city as the sun was setting. The streetlights were beginning their evening watch. But there was still enough light to see the Hollywood sign and the Griffith Park Observatory and trace, on my airplane window, a line to the hills of Echo Park where we would make our home. This is the vantage point from which we read the book of Isaiah.
We have an overview of the book. Isaiah was an important Old Testament prophet and the book that bears his name has the same number of chapters as the Bible has books. The light of Handel’s Messiah during the Christmas season reflects the words of Isaiah that help us trace the line from the Old Testament to Jesus. For example:
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” -Isaiah 40:1-5
After living and working as a pastor in Los Angeles for a few years, one congregant and I decided we would compete in the LA Triathlon. The preparatory training was a wonderful way to work out the challenges and frustrations of redeveloping a dying congregation. This short-term release was a small thing compared to the long-term results. I learned to see my city in a different light.
The 1.5 km (0.93 miles) swim off the coast of Venice Beach went well. By the end of the first 2/3 of the 40 km (24.8 miles) bike ride, I was feeling it in my legs. But then I turned onto Sunset Boulevard and pedaled into Echo Park. This was an area that had become my own through dozens of trips to shop, to meet congregants for coffee, and to drive our son to school. Without the barrier of a windshield and car doors, with nothing but air, sunshine and open road between me and my neighborhood, I saw things in a new light.
Here was the Cafe Tropical, a large purple building with the strongest coffee and the best chocolate croissants in town. I waved to the customers, enjoying their coffee as they watched us bike by. There was the old Presbyterian Church, once thriving, now empty and sold to be redeveloped as a boutique hotel, followed by the Dollar store and the small park that hosted a weekly farmer’s market. There was the building that used to be apartments and a bowling alley, now a series of restaurants, some making it and some not. I realized as I continued the Triathlon that I was no longer an onlooker but a participant in the life of Los Angeles. The joy shimmering out from my face gave me the energy I needed to complete the bike and run the 10 km (6.2 miles) to the finish line.
The book of Isaiah is as foreign to my life as Los Angeles was when this Texan first arrived in the city limits. The book is ancient, far older than the King James Translation, commissioned by Britain’s King James I in 1604. When Isaiah was written the Britons were nothing more than a variety of different Celtic-speaking tribes scattered in Iron Age settlements and hillforts across what is the United Kingdom today. We have almost no written records from their time on this planet. But we have the book of Isaiah.
800 years before Christ, the book of Isaiah was written during the reigns of four different kings. Israel was threatened by the Assyrian Empire. Around 701 BC, under Sennacherib, the Assyrians invaded Judah and captured other cities. They besieged Jerusalem, while failing to take the capital itself.
The book of Isaiah isn’t unlike museum pieces we pay to see. Yet, unlike stone or iron objects behind security glass, it was written and rewritten in scrolls and later in books, not as a hobby, not to draw tourists, but to be read as wisdom and guidance for future generations.
Developing this relationship with such an ancient text isn’t easy. It is essential to understand what God has done in Jesus. One of the first things I’ve noticed, now that I have written down the words of Isaiah through chapter 24, is that one challenge before us is all of Isaiah’s doom and gloom. For example, I woke up one morning, hoping for a word for the day, and began to write out chapter 24:
See, the Lord is going to lay waste to the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants - it will be the same for priests as for people, for the master as for his servant, for the mistress as for her servant, for seller as buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor. The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered. The Lord has spoken this word.
Well, good morning to you, too, Isaiah!
But then, later in the day as I was working out at the YMCA, it dawned on me.
You see, I enjoy reading about people who turned to God later in life. Books like There is a God by the philosopher Anthony Flew and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge’s Jesus Reconsidered. More recently, I have discovered Peter Hitchens’ The Rage Against God. Muggeridge and Hitchens in particular are Christian curmudgeons. The comfort, faith, and wisdom they find in their newfound faith makes their books a wonderful read. But that newfound belief hasn’t sunk deeply enough into their hearts to add hope to their despair over the loss of faith, indeed the loss of culture, taking place in their home country of the UK.
With this idea in mind, I continued writing Isaiah’s words in my journal. As I did so, it hit me that I was beginning to gain that same perspective I found while biking through Echo Park in the Triathlon. As I thought about my thoughts about my own country in these tumultuous times in the light of a slow and detailed reading of Isaiah I was moving from an observer to a participant. Let me try to explain:
Many people in the United States, on the right and on the left, are grieving the loss of things they value in their culture. American citizens are grabbing onto ideologies and conspiracy theorists, excusing the inconsistencies inherent in their positions, and justifying anger and judgmentalism against those with whom they disagree. Isaiah’s words of judgment and description, sprinkled with words of hope, provide a way to hold fast to the only One who gives us security beyond social change. The 5th gospel offers a way for us, not just to observe politicians and activist leaders, but to actively participate in makinggoodhappen in our lives, our relationships, and our community. My insight was strengthened as I wrote out the aftermath of the destruction described through Isaiah 24 in chapter 25:
Lord, you are my God; I exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago. You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin, the foreigners’ stronghold a city no more; it will never be rebuilt. Therefore strong peoples will honor you; cities of ruthless nations will revere you. You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat. For the breath of the ruthless is like a driving storm against a wall and like the heat of the desert. You silence the uproar of foreigners as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud so the song of the ruthless is stilled. On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich foods for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine - the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all people, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.
If we want to find a sure way to walk through the coming years and have hope for the future come what may, we will only find it in the Father of our Lord Jesus who put the point this way:
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
-Matthew 7:24-27