Day 40 -- Summation

Day 40 – Saturday

Looking Back

We have been on a journey through the 39 books of the Hebrew Bible (in the order of the Protestant Bible). This journey has taken us up mountains, down into the valleys, through desserts, storms, plagues, famine, pestilence, and human tragedy. And God was everywhere (though hidden and out of sight in Esther and the Song of Songs).


Relationship
The Bible is not a book of ideas; it is a story. I have suggested along the way that the Hebrew Scriptures (and the Christian Scriptures) are a Romance. What I have called the “core statement about God,” found several times in the Hebrew Scriptures, is about relationship. It says:

…you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing (this is the version that appears in Jonah 4.2). 

Gracious, merciful, and steadfast love are not philosophical concepts. This is a description of how someone relates to others. The narrative of the Bible expresses the relational nature of ultimate reality.

Even though anthropomorphic portrayals of God are the vehicle for describing ultimate reality, let it be clear that modern people of faith by in large do not actually believe in some Big Man in the Sky or the Man Upstairs. Poetic language points beyond crude images of God to a category of “person” that is beyond our limited way of picturing it. The personal language connotes some type of transcendent Personhood.

Praying to God and loving God are possible because God is a responsive kind of being. The relationship is described as covenantal. It is analogous to marriage. It is a relationship of union, partnership, and faithfulness. And everything depends on the fact that God is faithful. The phrase that is repeated over and over in the Hebrew Scriptures (and continues in the Christian Scriptures) is something like a marriage vow: I am yours, and you are mine. We belong to each other. It is usually worded something like this: I will be your God, and you will be my people.


Making Distinctions
Modern people are either put off by, or embarrassed by, some aspects of the Biblical story, such as a wrathful God, a judgmental God, a cruel God, a God who permits evil or even commands evil acts. My way of dealings with these embarrassing aspects of the Bible is twofold.


Progression
First, I accept the idea that there is a progression of truth as the Biblical story unfolds. As time moves forward the people have a clearer understanding of God. Older ideas drop out of the picture or become minor parts of the story. The Bible “matures” as it gets older because the human race matures. As we grow older we give up childish notions. So does the Bible. But it’s not a straight line. Some of the more immature ideas linger as time goes on.

Language
Second, I accept the fact that the Biblical writers use poetic license and metaphorical language, as well as anthropomorphic analogies. I will go as far as to say that nothing in the Bible should be taken absolutely literally.

Today is the last day of Lent, which we call Holy Saturday. It is that day between Good Friday and Easter. A weird day, liturgically speaking. It’s No Man’s Land. It’s the twilight  zone of Christian theology. We are caught between death and life. Between despair and hope. Holy Saturday is the Day of Ambiguity. But that’s where we all live in this earthly existence. And I think it is symbolic of the task of Biblical interpretation.

Human language and human thought leaves us somewhere between the distortion of the truth and the truth. The Bible story gives us the truth; but not the unvarnished truth. It is the truth refracted through human finitude. So, it is not the literal truth; but it is truth nonetheless.


Justice
In the Hebrew Scriptures we find the source of the belief, first articulated by the Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, and later repeated by Martin Luther King, Jr., that “the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” The terms justice and righteousness appear together more than 80 times. Both words refer to a type of justice: one is the personal treatment of individuals with fairness and respect; the other is the justice that comes through court decisions and legislatures—the systemic care for the powerless and the marginalized.

The God of the Hebrew Scriptures is the champion of justice. In virtually every book of the Jewish Bible the imperative for justice is found.

Peace
A vision of peace is also a central concern of the Hebrew Scriptures. The prophets frequently offer an imagined future golden age of total peace. Although Joel lived in a time when he wanted the people to turn plows into swords and make war, both Isaiah and Micah urge the opposite: to turn swords into ploughshares. The two-to-one ratio toward peace is perhaps symbolic of how the thrust toward peace trumps all the urging of war in the Jewish Scriptures.

There are both negative and positive aspects in the 39 books. But the positive aspects rise to the top like cream comes to the top in the churning process. The more healthy and mature elements of Jewish thought overcome the less healthy and immature elements if you allow them to.

A main concern throughout the first 39 books of the Christian Bible is safety and security. Enemies are everywhere. People feel threatened. Food is scarce. Life is fragile. Violence is a way of life. Military power matters. Yet shining through the story is the belief that trusting in God is the most important thing. A non-violent perspective is also present in the story. Something is struggling to be born. Namely, a broader vision of humanity.


The Fount of Modernity
The Hebrew Scriptures present humanity’s push toward justice, peace, wholeness, and compassion. It is a narrative that has helped shape Western Culture. The humane ideas of the Enlightenment and the development of democracies have their impetus from Genesis and Exodus and Isaiah, etc. The notions of freedom, liberty, human dignity, creativity, and scientific investigation come from the core message of the Hebrew Scriptures.

The mythological and philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman culture have contributed too. The other Middle Eastern cultures such as the Persian and Egyptian, etc., have also fed into the Hebrew and Christian streams. The Asian or Eastern ways of thought and life have their own unique gifts for our modern world. But the core values of my culture (America) have direct links to the Hebrew Scriptures. (And even the movement of Postmodernism echoes the prophetic critique of the Hebrew Scriptures.)


Transcendent
The story found in Genesis through Malachi presents us with an eternal, transcendent power which gives life and governs the universe. It is a power that is personal. It is dialogical. It can be felt. It is a Who. All Is-ness comes from It. It calls itself “I Am.” And from the I-Am flows the gifts of purpose and meaning.

Of course the Hebrew Scriptures do not purport to give a scientific description of reality. We can easily merge our scientific perspective with the drama of Scripture. I could refer to God as the Great Evolver—as that power which initiated the universe and moves within it at all times. Science can tell us the How of the universe. The Hebrew Scriptures tell us the Why of the universe. Without the Sacred Story there is literally no purpose or meaning to anything.

Atheists are people who haven’t yet come to understand the story of the Hebrew Scriptures. They may actually live by the values and assertions of these Scriptures, but they haven’t been taught to recognize them in the story.

Jews and Christians share the story of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Christian story expands upon it. But without the Hebrew Scriptures there would be no Christian Scriptures (new testament). Of course Christians and Jews see the Jewish man Jesus differently. Nevertheless, many Christians and Jews feel that we have the same basic mission: to bring the Light into the world; and as communities of faith, to be a light in the world.

Everyone lives by some story. As a person who was raised in the Christian tradition, I live by the Christian Story (which includes the Jewish Story). My way of reading the Story has changed over the years. I have come to read the Story as one of justice, peacemaking, compassion, love, and inclusion. I have had to reinterpret the Story as I have matured. The Jewish and Christian stories now speak to me of living a humane life. Moses said, “Choose life.” Jesus said, “I have come to give life, an abundant life.”



Epilogue

The 40th day of Lent brings us only to Holy Saturday. But Lent has no meaning apart from Easter.

On the Third Day something happened. No one witnessed the resurrection of Jesus. But the early Christians report that they witnessed the result of the resurrection. They write about encountering Jesus alive again—not resuscitated, not walking around as a zombie—but new form of being. It was the same Jesus they met, but a transformed Jesus. He had a body, a physical body. But it was a different kind of physicality. His body materialized and dematerialized.

It sounds like science fiction. Of course science fiction has made a habit of showing us things that can’t be done—until they can be done. What was once merely science fiction is now part of our everyday world. It is possible that something happened in the first century in the one we call the Christ that we simply don’t understand yet.

The one thing that is historically a fact is that after a historical person—a Jew named Jesus—was executed by the Romans, a religious movement began that seems to have no rational explanation without something like a resurrection. That movement grew and expanded even through the threats of death and through many actual executions. The members of this movement seemed to have no fear of death. They introduced into the world the love of enemies. These followers of Jesus helped the needy, resisted tyranny, eventually set up hospitals, invented universities, and supported scientific discovery.

The record says that it all started after their executed leader came back to them, instructed them, ate meals with them, and then disappeared into another dimension so that his Spirit could indwell them everywhere.

Easter gives us a glimpse of the golden age that the prophets spoke of. We are called to work toward that harmonious and peaceful existence. It is a realistic ideal without which humanity has no purpose for being.

Easter is the revelation of the enduring meaning of life. Heaven is not somewhere we go. It is something we bring to earth by our best human behavior. God is in the mix. We are partners with God. We live within a Covenant relationship. United with God we live joyfully in the midst of the continuing struggle. We receive the gift of hope from the Story of the Hebrew Scriptures. As a Christian I fully embrace the Hebrew Scriptures in continuity with the experiences of the early Christians, which I find to be true in my own life.

Our mission is this: Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6.8).

Day 39 – Friday -- The Book of Malachi

Day 39 – Friday

The Book of Malachi

Here is the time line:

• Exiles return from Babylon.
• The temple has been rebuilt.
• Malachi speaks his message.
• Ezra and Nehemiah return.


Love
Bible is a love letter from our Creator. There is romance in the air. And Malachi will address some of the issues of romance in the last chapter.

Clergy
Malachi has harsh words for the clergy. They aren’t doing their job. They don’t have a sense of the Sacred. They tell people what they want to hear. God says, “You are insulting me.”

Offenses
Malachi points out other sins. The people practice witchcraft; they cheat their spouses; they tell lies in court; they mistreat windows and orphans (the helpless); they steal the property of foreigners. Men are divorcing their wives. (Where did the romance go?) This reminds me of the Covenant/Marriage theme throughout Scripture—referring to the union and partnership of God and God’s people.

Percentage
They are robbing God by not bringing their tithes (ten percent of their harvest, flocks, and herds) to the storehouse. God challenges them to put Him to the test. Bring your tithes and God will “open the windows of heaven” and pour out blessings. (The Christian Scriptures do not mandate tithing.)

Empty Seat
Malachi (his name means “messenger”) says that God will send a messenger to “prepare the way” for his coming (3.1). In the penultimate verse he names him: Elijah. (This is why at the Seder Meal, Jews leave an empty seat for Elijah.) The New Testament writers see John the Baptizer as this “Elijah.”


Consistency
There is a verse that is quoted a lot: Malachi 3.6: I am the Lord; I do not change. Perhaps the hint is in the next phrase: That’s why you haven’t been wiped out.

I think the meaning is not some philosophical idea of an “immutable Being.” Rather, the verse is declaring that God is faithful to Her promises; that He keeps His covenant agreement; She does not go back on Her word. Her character is one of consistency and faithfulness.

The Hebrew Scriptures do not portray God in philosophical terms. God is not an idea or static Being. God is personal and “emotionally” responsive. Everyone should read Abraham Joshua Heschel’s two volume work titled, The Prophets. Heschel takes the reader through dozens of passages and shows the Hebraic understanding of God as a passionate, personal being. The Hebrew Scripture’s use of anthropomorphic language in regard to God is partly out of human limitations; but also says something about the very nature of Israel’s God.


Family
The family theme is important in Malachi. God says He hates divorce. God criticizes men who are unfaithful to their wives. At the end of the book the prophets says that when Elijah comes he will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents. And God reminds the Jewish community of the extended family of Israel—their ancestors—who made a covenant with God.

Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors? (2.10)

“Our Father who art in heaven” is not just a Christian prayer, it is a Jewish prayer too. The Oneness of God—monotheism—is one of the main affirmations of Jewish theology. This verse only encompasses the Jewish context. But in the Book of Acts Paul extends it to all humanity:

From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth…we are God’s offspring (Acts 17.25-29).

One Creator. One race: the human race. We are all sisters and brothers. There is still a strain of Evangelicalism that teaches people to believe that only Christians can claim God as their Father. This traditional exclusive framework for the Gospel is gradually disappearing, thank God.

By the term “father” the Bible means “source.” God is also our Mother. It’s true that the phrase God our Mother never appears in Scripture, but God is imagined as a mother figure in Isaiah, Exodus, and the Psalms. When some Christian brother or sister insists to me that God is actually our Father and not our Mother, I am always tempted to ask, “You mean God has a penis?” Very few people will admit to such crude literalism. We use human analogies when speaking about God, who is beyond the limits of our human language. Our analogical language for God contains some truth, but not complete, perfect truth.

“Our Father who art in heaven, Thou art our Mother too.”



Finish this: When I think of my relationship with God as a romance, I…

Day 38 – Thursday -- The Book of Zechariah

Day 38 – Thursday

The Book of Zechariah

This book, the longest and most complex of the minor prophets, is commonly referred to as “the Revelation of the Old Testament.” It is full of visionary writing, what we might call “fantasy.” Visionary writing suspends the ordinary rules of our normal approach to reality. Visionary and apocalyptic writings usually have a cosmic setting. They putatively “see the future.” There is sometimes a vision of a golden age of peace. So, we must read this book as poetry and symbolism.


Zechariah is really two books: 

First Zechariah – chapters 1-8
   written contemporary with Haggai – ca. 520 BCE
   eight visions
   seven oracles of restoration
   three oracles of hope

Second Zechariah – chapters 9-14
   written a century later, perhaps 325 BCE
   a mosaic of fragments
   poems, narratives, oracles, and parables
   eschatological restoration
   vision of a golden age of peace


On February 15, 519 BCE Zechariah had eight night visions (dreams?):

1.   An army of angels mounted on horses (1.7-17)
2.   Four animal horns and four blacksmiths (1.18-21)
3.   A man with a tape measure to measure Jerusalem (2.1-5)
4.   An angel gives clean clothes to a high priest (3.1-10)
5.   A golden lampstand, seven smaller lamps fueled by olive oil (4.1-14)
6.   A huge, flying scroll (5.1-4)
7.   A woman sitting inside a grain basket that is carried off (5.5-11)
8.   Four chariots (6.1-8)


Satan
For the third and last time in the Hebrew Scriptures Satan is mentioned (see 1 Chron. 21.1; Job 1.6-12, 2.1-7). Some translations say “the adversary” because that is the meaning of “satan.” Here, like in Job, Satan is part of the heavenly court; he functions as the prosecuting attorney, accusing Jerusalem of offenses. But the Lord has decided to acquit Jerusalem “as a brand plucked from the fire” (Zech. 3.1-2).


HOLY WEEK TEXTS:

Palm Sunday – Zechariah 9.9 

Lo, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  [quoted in Matt. 21.4-5; John 12.14-15]

Wednesday of Holy Week – Zechariah 11.12-13

12 I then said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver. 13 Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it into the treasury”—this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the Lord. [alluded to in regard to Judas; Matt. 26.14-16; 27.5]

Maundy Thursday – Zechariah 13.7

Strike the shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered… [Jesus quotes this verse: Matt. 26.31]

Good Friday – Zechariah 12.10

when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child…[the side of Jesus was pierced; quoted by John in Revelation: John 19.37; Rev. 1.7]

Covenant/Marriage language:

Zechariah 8.8 – They will be my people, and I will be their God, faithful to bring about justice.

Zechariah 13.9 – I will say, “You are my people,” and they will reply, “You, Lord are our God!”

When Doubting Thomas was invited by the Risen Christ to touch his wounds (see John 20), his exclamation, “My Lord and my God,” is not about the divinity of Christ, but Thomas’ marriage vow spoken to God. In raising Jesus from the dead, God had kept the covenant with Israel and with the world. The death of Jesus did not mean that the marriage was off. The resurrection declared that the marriage could not be stopped. God is saying through the Risen Christ, “I will be your God.” And Thomas is responding, “You are my Lord and my God.” The vows are affirmed, and Thomas acknowledged his union with God.


Peace on earth
The last part of Zechariah presents a vision of a golden age of peace. Jerusalem will have fresh water flowing through it. There will be continuous day (darkness is gone). A remnant of the Jews will come through the final crises. There will be perfect peace. And “the Lord will be King over the whole earth” (14.9). Much of this imagery is used by the Book of Revelation, chapters 21 and 22.


“Prisoners of hope”

From chapter 9 according to the NRSV:

As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
    I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
    today I declare that I will restore to you double (9.11-12).

Other translations have, “prisoners with hope.” But the Hebrew is: הַתִּקְוָ֑ה (hat·tiq·wāh; of hope). The text is speaking of those who are now prisoners who will be set free. They are more literally “prisoners who have hope” of their freedom. But the NRSV translation, which is a literal rendering of the Hebrew as far as I can ascertain, gives us an interesting phrase.

Let me be personal. I struggle with my Christian faith. I go through periods of doubt. I wonder if it is all true. Yet, I can’t get away from the Biblical message. It is as if I am a prisoner of Hope. I can’t set myself free of hope. I am bound by a hopeful attitude. As Paul says in Romans eight, we are “saved by hope.” Perhaps hope is a deeper name for faith. At least that’s how I experience it.

This came home to me in a sermon by Sid Burgess at Edgewood Presbyterian Church (Homewood, AL). He helped me see “hope” (tikvah) as a different way of experiencing faith and grace. It is easier for me to say, “I have hope,” than to say, “I believe.” I am a prisoner of hope.


One of the most quoted verses in Zechariah is 4.6:

This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

This verse is part of the Fifth Vision: a lampstand and two olive trees. There had been many obstacles in the way of rebuilding the temple. The people were discouraged. It was as if a mountain stood in their way. Zechariah is telling Zerubbabel that neither the might of the military nor mere human strength were going to be enough to complete the temple. They would need the power of God’s Spirit to accomplish the task. In verse seven the prophet says that “the mountain will be leveled to the ground.” 

God is our bulldozer. Only She can move mountains, or motivate the faith to move mountains. There is a transcendent power that we may call upon. Some people envision this power coming from outside us (upon us); others understand that power to be within each of us. The point is that there is transcendence in the midst of immanence. There are some things we cannot do ourselves. We need God’s help.


Finish this: The mountain in front of me right now is…

Day 37 – Wednesday -- The Book of Haggai

Day 37 – Wednesday

The Book of Haggai

Why did I grow up saying “Haggyai”? I don’t know. The main message is simple:
Stop procrastinating! Build a new temple!

Unlike other prophets’ books, this one is address to an individual. Well, two. God has a message for Zerubbabel and Joshua. (No, not that Joshua.) Zerubbabel is the Governor of Jerusalem after the exile; and Joshua is the High Priest. God tells them to get with it. Build a new temple! Haggai delivers these prophecies during a four month period. To be more exact, from August 29 to December 18 in the year 520 BCE.

About 50,000 Jews had returned from exile in Babylon. A foundation had been built for a new temple, but was halted for 18 years. A whole generation or two had no knowledge of a temple because it was destroyed 66 years before by the Babylonians.

It’s sort of a Stewardship Campaign. “The money will be there,” says God. “There is plenty of money all around you, and I’m going to turn nations upside down and shake all the money out of their pockets.”

Here is the “shaking” passage:

7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. 9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts (2.7-9).

There’s a lot of shakin’ going on:

 Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth… (2.21).

God is shaking things up.



FYI here is a temple time line:

967 BCE – Solomon starts building the first temple

960 BCE – the temple is completed

622 BCE – King Josiah repairs the aging temple

586 BCE – the Babylonians destroy the temple

536 BCE – returned exiles build the foundation for a new temple

520 BCE – Haggai tells the Jews to finish the temple

515 BCE – the Second Temple is completed

20 BCE – King Herod starts expanding the temple

64 CE – Herod’s renovation is completed

70 CE – the Romans destroy the Second Temple

691 CE – Muslims build the Dome of the Rock on the temple mount

Herod expanded the hilltop and shored it up with retaining walls, one of which survives today. It is the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall.


Finish this: Something that has begun in my life that I need to finish is…

Day 36 – Tuesday -- The Book of Zephaniah

Day 36 – Tuesday

The Book of Zephaniah

We don’t hear many sermons from Zephaniah. It’s only 53 verses, but they pack a lot of gloom. The book’s message can be summed up rather quickly. This is from the ERV (Easy-to-Read Version)*:

The Lord says, “I will destroy everything on earth.  I will destroy all the people and all the animals. I will destroy the birds in the air and the fish in the sea. I will destroy the evil people and everything that makes them sin. I will remove all people from the earth.” This is what the Lord said (1.2-3).

The order of destruction in 1.2-3 is: people, animals, birds, fish. Which is the reverse of the creation story in Genesis where God creates: fish, birds, animals, people. So God is going to reverse creation!

The Lord is in a bad mood. It sounds like pre-Noah days. But there is an escape clause. If the Jews repent, their nation will not be destroyed; a new generation will be raised up to carry on.

The devastating picture of God’s judgment may be “prophetic exaggeration.” Jesus did this sort of thing. When he spoke of “the end” (Matt. 24.14), it sounded like the end of the world. But he was most likely speaking of what happened to Jerusalem in 70 CE when General Titus and the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Therefore, Zephaniah’s talk about God destroying everything may be poetic license. Sort of like a revival preacher painting the darkest picture possible in order to get people “down the aisle.”

Zephaniah was writing during the reign of King Josiah (640-609). Israel had already been conquered. Judah would fall in 586. Either Zephaniah supernaturally predicts the return of the exiles (see 3.19), or he simply imagines a hopeful future somewhere down the line, or a later editor adds those verses after the fact. He is writing at the same time as Jeremiah’s early writings.

The sins of Judah are: the worshiping of foreign gods (1.4-9) and having an unjust and abusive leadership (3.1-4). The stock phrase “the day of the Lord” is used by Zephaniah as other prophets had done.

According to Stephen Winward, artists of the medieval era show Zephaniah as a man going through the city carrying a lamp, which reflects chapter one, verse twelve:

I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those people who sit there unworried while thinking, “The Lord won’t do anything, good or bad” (CEV).

But as noted above, the small book ends with a more positive light:

The Lord has promised: Your sorrow has ended, and you can celebrate…I will lead you home (3.18, 20, CEV).

Each of the three chapters of Zephaniah contains a verb in the imperative that has relevance for us at various times: Quiet! Seek! Wait!

Be silent before the Lord God! (1.7)

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land… (2.3).

Therefore wait for me, says the Lord… (3.8).

 

If I were preaching from Zephaniah, the three verses above might be my outline.

 

Finish this: The way I seek the Lord is…

*I’m not kidding. There is a translation called The ERV.

Day 35 – Monday -- The Book of Habakkuk

Day 35 – Monday

The Book of Habakkuk

How long? How long?? Why? Why? Why? Thus begins Habakkuk’s prophecy, not spoken to the people as prophets normally do, but spoken to God. Habakkuk has the same questions we have. And we can be thankful that he questions God on our behalf. He wants to know why there isn’t justice. He questions God’s goodness.

God answers, telling the prophet that God is going to bring justice to Judah by bringing in the Babylonians to punish them.

But that’s not fair, complains Habakkuk, because the Babylonians are even worse sinners than Judah. God answers: Yes, but after they are finished with Judah I will punish them also.

The last chapter is a prayer of praise by Habakkuk.

This little book contains theodicy and theophany. Theodicy is an attempt to reconcile the goodness of God with the evils of the world. The dialogue between Habakkuk and God deals with this conundrum (though theodicies never really find a solution to the problem). The theophany (an appearance of God) takes place in chapter three. It is an imagined appearance of God on earth. Similar visions are found in Psalm 18.7-19 and Psalm 97.1-5.

At the end of Habakkuk’s prayer of praise in chapter three there is an amazing affirmation of faith:

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
    and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails,
    and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold,
    and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will exult in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    and makes me tread upon the heights.
To the leader: with stringed instruments. (3.17-19)

The great “yet” connotes a strong faith. It sounds like Job: “Though God slay me, I will trust in God.” And notice the instruction about music at the end. This is obviously meant to be sung with accompaniment.

One more thing. This little book has one verse that has been revolutionary. It changed the course of history. Look at 2.4:

Look at the proud!
    Their spirit is not right in them,
    but the righteous live by their faith.

That last phrase—the righteous live by their faith—was picked up by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans (1.17). Centuries later, Paul’s verse was picked up by a priest named Martin Luther, and the Church was revolutionized.

By faith, not by works.

However, the Hebrew word translated “faith” in some translations can be translated as “faithfulness,” which would make Luther’s case harder to support from this one verse. Usually these days an English translation will put the alternative in a footnote. Even the ESV has a footnote for “faithfulness.” (The English Standard Version is a favorite translation of very conservative Protestant institutions.


Finish this: When I try to make sense of injustice and evil in the world, I …..

Day 34 – Saturday -- The Book of Nahum

Day 34 – Saturday

The Book of Nahum

Worse than Obadiah when it comes to vengeance. The last two Hebrew words in this short book are רָעָתְךָ תָּמִיד (ra’ateka tamid), translated, “your endless cruelty.” English translations end with words like suffering…pain…cruelty…malice. Nahum is angry at the city of Nineveh (capitol of Assyria) for its cruelty toward other nations. The source of the cruelty must be wiped out! Can we at least join the author in wishing evil to be stamped out?

We need to understand that Assyria had been exploiting and terrorizing its smaller and weaker neighbors for three centuries. It was the bully of the Middle East who knew no mercy and was savage in its invasions.

King Ashurnasirpal bragged, “I captured many troops alive: I cut off of some their arms and hands; I cut off of others their noses, ears, extremities. I gouged out the eyes of many troops.” King Shalmaneser III bragged about building a pyramid of chopped-off heads. King Ashurnasirpal hung the heads on trees around the conquered town. Commanders often made a show of the enemy body count, stacking corpses like firewood at the city gate. King Sennacherib, who destroyed 46 Jewish cities, said after filling a plain with enemy corpses, “I cut off their testicles, and tore out their privates like seeds of a cucumber.” Sometimes captives were fed to the dogs or pigs. A king put a dog chain on one captured leader and imprisoned him “in a kennel at the eastern gate of Nineveh.” Travelers would stop and gawk. Palace art from Nineveh shows Assyrian soldiers peeling skin off captives. King Ashurnasirpal bragged, “I skinned all the nobles who rebelled against me and hung their skins on the walls.”

Nahum says toward the end of his little tract, every nation would stand and cheer when Assyria/Nineveh finally met its match in the Lord of the universe in 612 BCE.

God is pictured as the Holy Warrior. It’s doesn’t sound politically correct to talk about holy war or a Warrior God. But it is politically correct if we have a sanctified imagination. Military language is used metaphorically in the Second (new) Testament to describe our spiritual battles. Paul tells followers of Jesus to put on military garb: the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the belt of truth, and the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6.10-17).

To the Corinthians Paul makes it clear that “our warfare” is not carried out with actual weapons or military force. Followers of Jesus engage the “enemy” with words and thoughts and ideas:

Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Cor. 10.3-5).

We’re mature enough to make the distinction, aren’t we? Can’t we use militaristic language in a metaphorical way to denote the spiritual struggle that is part of reality? I think we can as long as we are clear about the poetic nature of the language; and as long as we continually condemn the unnecessary use of real military violence in our world. There is no way of getting around the fact that life is a battle. We fight cancer. We battle against ignorance. We have the war on poverty. We should be mature enough to make distinctions.

The whole Book of Revelation is about the cosmic war between Good and Evil. The violent apocalyptic language is necessary to paint the picture of a reality too deep for words. Yet, in our explanations and interpretations of any book of apocalyptic images, we need to be clear about the nature of the genre.



Back to the question of vengeance in Nahum:

 J.J.M. Roberts of the Princeton Theological Seminary forcefully rejects the idea that Nahum itself is un-Christian, and turns the argument back on the critics:

One should beware of any bogus morality that dismisses vengeance as both inappropriate to humans and unworthy of God. . . . While the desire to see vengeance done can be twisted and corrupted like any other human desire, it arises out of a sense of justice, and vengeance cannot be discarded without discarding the concern for justice as well. . . . [W]ithout this frightening side . . . , one could misread the portrait of the loving God as that of a passionless, doting, and undemanding dispenser of cheap grace. 

The other point to remember is that both Nahum and Jonah sit near each other in the Hebrew Bible. The dialectic of these two books make for a balanced approach to our hearts and our actions.


Finish this: What I’m battling right now is…..

 

Day 33 – Friday -- The Book of Micah

Day 33 – Friday

The Book of Micah

You’ve noticed that we’ve been going backwards. We had been through the Exile and returned to Jerusalem. But the prophets Hosea, Amos, and now Micah take us back to the 8th century BCE in the northern kingdom (Israel).

Micah has similar indictments against Israel that Amos had. Using the wording of the version known as The Message, here are some summary statements from Micah:

• The people covet and grab fields and homes from others.
• They bully their neighbors.
• Leaders are contemptuous of justice; they kill people.
• Judges sell verdicts to the highest bidder.
• Priest mass-market their teaching.
• Prophets preach for high fees.
• The people cheat and commit fraud and live with obscene wealth.
• They tolerate shady deals.
• The rich are violent and lie.


In chapter six God finally says: I’m fed up. You’re finished. You’ll pay for your sins…You’ll plant grass but never get a lawn. You’ll make jelly but never spread it on your bread (MSG).

Here are four important passages:

Micah 4.1-4

In days to come
    the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains…
   3 He shall judge between many peoples,
    and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war any more;
4 but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
    and no one shall make them afraid;
    for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

This “beat your swords into plowshares” is on a monument at the United Nations. (Though it quotes the same words from Isaiah.)



Micah 5.2-5

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
    who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
    one who is to rule in Israel,
whose origin is from of old,
    from ancient days…

4 And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,
    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God…
5 and he shall be the one of peace.

Christians have looked to this passage as an Advent or Christmas text. Jesus comes from Bethlehem. He is the good shepherd. He is the bringer of peace.


Micah 6.8

God has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

Next to the Great Commandment given by Jesus, this verse sums up Biblical faith. This is the moral imperative for all who put faith in God: Justice, kindness, humility, walk with God. The “kindness” is the central word in the Hebrew Scriptures—hesed—meaning “steadfast love and faithfulness.”


Micah 7.18-19

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
    and passing over the transgression
    of the remnant of your possession?
He does not retain his anger forever,
    because he delights in showing clemency.
19 He will again have compassion upon us;
    he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our sins
    into the depths of the sea.

God does it again. After pronouncing judgment, God ends with mercy. Like a good mafia Don, God ties concrete blocks onto our sins and throws them overboard. They sink out of sight, never to be seen again.


Finish this: When it comes to doing justice, loving mercy, and walking with God in humility, I see myself as….

Day 32 – Thursday -- The Book of Jonah

Day 32 – Thursday

The Book of Jonah

We all know this story. But did you know that this is the only book in the Bible where God commands a fish to vomit? Did you know that Jonah’s prayer while in the belly of the fish is a psalm? Did you know that Jesus quotes from this book? Did you know that the core statement about God is in this book? Did you know that God uses a worm to do God’s will?

This little fictional short story is powerful. We could also call it a parable. First, Jonah tries to run from God. Is this where Francis Thompson got his inspiration for his famous poem, “The Hound of Heaven”? Thompson (1859–1907), a devout Catholic, was a failure in life. He ended up homeless, selling matches on the streets of London. He became a drug addict, having to be taken care of by a prostitute. Yet, out of his heart came this poem. Here are the first lines:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped;

And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat - and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet -

'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me'.

Jonah was hounded by God too. The sailors threw him overboard and he was swallowed by a big fish. (No mention of a whale.) He stayed in the belly of the fish for three days.

Jesus once said, For as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights (Mathew 12.40, NLT). Both Jonah and Jesus were “resurrected” on the third day. Then for 40 days Jonah preached to the people of Nineveh; and Jesus spend 40 days instructing his disciples after his resurrection (Acts 1.3). Jonah learned that God loves all nations; and Jesus told his disciples, Go and make disciples of all nations (Mt. 28.19). So, Jonah is a type for Jesus and the Church’s mission.

The point of the Book of Jonah is that God’s mercy is transnational. No nation or people has a monopoly on God’s love. Jonah knew in his heart that God would be merciful to Nineveh, and he didn’t want any part in it. God’s heart was larger than Jonah’s. So when Nineveh repents and accepts God’s offer of love, Jonah pouts. He doesn’t like it that God is so merciful. He wants an enemy. He wants someone to hate. And he wants to be part of a superior people. But God will not allow it.

There is comfort in being exclusive. It somehow feels good. It gives you a sense of power and control. You can keep people out and feel like you are superior. But when you get close to God, you don’t feel a need for that kind of power any more.

We’ve seen this core statement about God before. Here it is again in Jonah 4.2 from the Common English Bible version:

I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy.

Finish this: If I were a gate keeper for the kingdom of God, I would like to keep out…

Day 31 – Wednesday -- The Book of Obadiah

Day 31 – Wednesday

The Book of Obadiah

Obadiah is a 291 word essay full of bitterness and anger. Vengeance is on Obadiah’s mind. (We don’t know who Obadiah was, but he was writing after the fall of Jerusalem—586—and before the fall of Edom in 553.)

It’s all about Edom—a small nation southeast of Jerusalem. Remember the twins, Jacob and Esau? The Edomites are descendants of Esau.

What is Obadiah so mad about? When the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem in 586, some Jews escaped and headed south—to Edom (about a four day trip). But instead of being hospitable like a good brother should, the people of Edom captured some of the Jews and sent them back, and killed others. And they looted the destroyed cities around Jerusalem.

Refugees of war should be shown hospitality, shouldn’t they?

Some would say this is the most unchristian book in the Bible since it is all about revenge. All Obadiah wants is for God to pay back the Edomites for their cruel behavior towards the war refugees. Is vengeance ever a good thing, or a proper thing? Jesus tells us to love our enemies and bless those who persecute us. But was he speaking of national concerns or just personal relationships?  (Neither the Protestant Revised Common Lectionary nor the Sunday lectionary of the Catholic Church include a reading from Obadiah during the three year cycle.)

Verse 15: As you have done, it shall be done to you. Sort of flips the Golden Rule upside down, doesn’t it?

Verse 21: and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s. This is what we all want, isn’t it? “Thy kingdom come.”

Well, sweet retribution finally came. In 553 BCE King Nabonidus of Babylon sent his army to crush Edom. The Edomites who flee and resettle are later called Idumeans. A Jewish ruler named John Hyrcanus defeats the Idumeans in 120 BCE and forces them to convert to Judaism. Fifty years later, out of a converted family of Idumeans is born Herod the Great, who becomes ruler over Jerusalem, working under the authority of the Roman Empire. During his reign a baby is born, named Jesus.


What do you think? Is vengeance ever the proper course of action?
Doesn’t fairness require that one who does you wrong should have wrong done unto them also?

Day 30 – Tuesday -- The Book of Amos

Day 30 – Tuesday

The Book of Amos

PREPARE TO MEET YOUR GOD!!! (4.12) Amos doesn’t mess around. Judgment is coming, and there is nowhere to hide. The fastest runners will not be able to hide (2.14). It will be like running from a lion, only to meet a bear (5.19). It will be like finding safety in your house only to be bitten by a snake hiding in the corner (5.19). No one will escape (9.1).

Amos was an outside agitator. He was a farmer in the southern kingdom, but God told him to go up to the northern kingdom and be God’s spokesman. (Time period is around 780-750.) He inspired a much later outside agitator named Martin Luther King, Jr. who liked to quote Amos by saying:

But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (5.24).

What Amos condemns is injustice:

They buy and sell upstanding people.
    People for them are only things—ways of making money.
They’d sell a poor man for a pair of shoes.
    They’d sell their own grandmother!
They grind the penniless into the dirt,
    shove the luckless into the ditch.
Everyone and his brother sleeps with the ‘sacred whore’—
    a sacrilege against my Holy Name.
Stuff they’ve extorted from the poor
    is piled up at the shrine of their god,
While they sit around drinking wine
    they’ve conned from their victims (2.6-8, MSG).

Furthermore,

They “run roughshod over the poor, taking bread right out of their mouths.” They “bully good people and take bribes; they kick the poor when they’re down” (5.11-12, MSG, adapted).

They have “turned justice into a poisonous weed” (6.12). They are arrogant (6.8). They “live in luxury” while being unconcerned for the poor (6.1).

Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,
    you who treat poor people as less than nothing,
Who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming
    so I can go out and live it up?
How long till the weekend
    when I can go out and have a good time?”
Who give little and take much,
    and never do an honest day’s work.
You exploit the poor, using them—
    and then, when they’re used up, you discard them (8.5-6, MSG).

Want to know what “prophecy” is all about? Read the verses above again. Biblical prophets are concerned with the here-and-now; with justice; with right treatment of people; with fairness; with how we relate to the poor, the weak, and the powerless. Prophets aren’t fortune tellers; they are the ones who tell us that we are mistreating the unfortunate. They are not concerned with the end of time; they are concerned when we use people as means to an end.

If Amos were here today he would be railing at Congress for not prioritizing legislation to help the poor and needy. He would have harsh words for the “one percent.” He would insist on redistributing wealth in a fair way. And he would warn us that God will not let injustice go on forever. Nations are judged.


In chapter seven Amos has a vision:

God showed me this vision: My Master was standing beside a wall. In his hand he held a plumb line. God said to me, “What do you see, Amos?” I said, “A plumb line.” Then my Master said, “Look what I’ve done. I’ve hung a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I’ve spared them for the last time. This is it! “Isaac’s sex-and-religion shrines will be smashed, Israel’s unholy shrines will be knocked to pieces. I’m raising my sword against the royal family of Jeroboam.” (7.7-9, MSG)

The moral and spiritual life of Israel had gotten out of balanced. The whole structure was crooked. Structural sin must be dealt with as a whole. Systemic injustice is not solved by a few charitable acts. Laws and courts and cultural values must be addressed. It is one thing to say, “Just say no.” It is another thing to establish community mental health centers and insurance coverage for those who need help with addictions. It is one thing to say, “Love your slave.” It is a better thing to knock down the institution of slavery by enacting legislation outlawing slavery. “But you can’t legislate morality,” you say. “Yes,” I say, “but you can legislate behavior and stop unjust practices.”

We cannot stand to live without hope. During the Exile the editors of the books of the Prophets added a supplement to Amos which is now Amos 9.11-15. These last five verses give a sense of hope. The editors couldn’t leave Amos the way it was. Too much gloom. No light.

The brother of Jesus—James—quotes from Amos nine during a debate at the Jerusalem Council where the leaders of the Christian Movement are trying to decide how to relate to non-Jews who are being converted to Christ. Here is how James quotes it:

After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen;
    from its ruins I will rebuild it,
        and I will set it up,
so that all other peoples may seek the Lord—
    even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called (Acts 15.15-17; emphasis added).

   
James quotes Amos to make the point that non-Jews are to be included as part of God’s plan; therefore, the Jerusalem Church ought not be too hard on them when it comes to keeping Jewish laws and traditions. A compromise was reached, and Gentiles were not required to be circumcised.

The message of Amos is always relevant. It needs to be heard around the world:

Here’s what I want: Let justice thunder down like a waterfall;
        let righteousness flow like a mighty river that never runs dry (5.24, NCV).

Finish this: When I stop and think about all that I have, and then think about people who do not have enough,…..

Day 29 – Monday -- The Book of Joel

Day 29 – Monday

The Book of Joel

Farmers never know how their crops will turn out. Some years there is not enough rain; some years there are floods; there is always the possibility of pestilence. When the prophet Joel wrote his little book, the fields had just been devastated by swarms of locusts. He told the people that the loss of crops was punishment from God for their unfaithfulness.

Then he went further. As a prophetic poet he imagines an army of giant locust-like warriors led by God which will destroy all the enemies of God. He calls it “the Day of the Lord.” (John, another poet, and the author of the Book of Revelation, picks up this image of apocalyptic locusts in his symbolic poetry. See Rev. 9.1-9.)

But then he immediately says, But it’s not too late! You can still turn to God and be saved (2.12). God invites the people to get serious about their commitment to God. And God says, Perhaps I will change my mind (2.14). More traditional versions say that God will “repent.” If you repent, God will repent! If you turn back to God, God will turn away from his anger.

In the middle of that section is a core statement about God:

for God is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love (2.13)

This exact statement about God appears in Exodus 34.6, Nehemiah 9.17, Psalm 86.5, and Jonah 4.2. In the midst of oracles about God’s judgment, the prophets usually crack the door open and let the light in to remind the people that even though God is hostile toward those who break the covenant, nevertheless, the essential nature of God is graciousness, mercy, and steadfast love.

In chapter three Joel announces a Holy War. In 3.9 he literally says, Sanctify war! The Common English Bible translates it, Prepare a holy war. The New American Bible renders it, Proclaim a holy war! This is imagined as the final “Day of the Lord” when the nations are gathered in the Valley of Jehoshaphat; also called the Valley of Decision. People who make their living writing about the end-times identity this valley of the site of the final war—Armageddon. But it is a poetic device to encourage the hopeless people, saying that God will win in the end. Good will win over Evil. Life will win over Death. Life is worth living.

Joel does an unusual thing. He takes the words of Isaiah and Micah who talk about beating swords into ploughshares, and reverses them, saying, Beat your ploughshares into swords; turn your pruning knives into spears (4.10). Joel is pretty hawkish.  He will surely vote for Donald Trump.


Let’s shift gears. Peter, in the first Christian sermon, quotes Joel 2.28-32 (in some versions it is 3.1-5):

 …I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    your old men shall dream dreams,
    and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves,
    in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Peter, on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2), interprets Joel’s words as being fulfilled on that day. The Church was baptized with the Spirit. Old barriers were broken down: gender/sex (sons and daughters), age (old men ad young men), class (male and female slaves). The language about the sun and moon, darkness and blood, fire and smoke—is all understand as symbolic by Peter since he includes those verses as being fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. The Bible frequently uses cosmological terminology in poetic ways to talk about changes, especially changes in power positions. Peter is clear. He says, “This [the speaking in other languages, and the wind and fire] is what was spoken through the prophet Joel.” So, the smoke, fire, moon turning to blood, etc, is not something that is going to happen in the future. It happened on the Day of Pentecost in some poetic sense.


Finish this: Right now I feel like I am in the Valley of Decision. I need to choose between…

Day 28 – Saturday -- The Book of Hosea

Day 28 – Saturday

The Book of Hosea

Have you heard of Gomer? No, not Gomer Pyle. I’m talking about Hosea’s wife. Her name was Gomer. God gives an unusual command. God tells Hosea to go and marry a prostitute. He marries Gomer. They have children with funny names. Well, not funny, but unusual names—the ones God gives them: a son named Jezreel; a daughter named No-Mercy; another son named Nobody (I’m using Eugene Peterson’s translation).

As we go through the Scriptures we keep seeing this metaphor of the marriage between God and Israel. Chronologically speaking, Hosea was the first prophet to introduce the marital image. Hosea is writing 75-725 BCE in the northern kingdom. This is before the northern kingdom is taken down by the Assyrians in 722.

In the first three chapters Hosea dramatizes the three parts of the Opera “The Marriage of Israel”: love, separation, reunion. Hosea marries Gomer; she is unfaithful to him; he seeks her out and brings her back. Hosea’s lived-out drama mirrors God’s experience with Israel. (This is the parable of the Prodigal Wife.)

Hosea accuses Israel of three crimes: (1) trusting in its military strength; (2) making treaties with foreign powers; (3) running after the Baals, the gods of fertility. (There actually were temple prostitutes of Baal. It was a religious act to have intercourse with the priestess in order for Baal to bless their crops.)

Hosea’s poetry uses beautiful similes:

• Your loyalty is like the morning mist (6.4)
• Ephraim [Israel] is an unturned cake (7.8)
• Ephraim is like a dove, silly and senseless (7.11)
• They have been like a treacherous bow (7.16)
• When they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind (8.7)
• Israel is like…a useless vessel (8.8)
• Break up a new field…till [God] comes and rains justice upon you (10.12)
• Ephraim shepherds the wind (12.2)
• They will be like a morning cloud…or like smoke out the windows (13.3)
• I [God] am like a verdant cypress tree (14.9)
(all of the above are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition)


A feature of Hosea (that we also see in other prophets) is God’s going back and forth in feelings and intentions.

• I will put an end to all her joy (2.13)
• I will betroth you to me forever (2.21)
• Upon them I will pour out my wrath like water (5.10)
• On the third day he will raise us up (6.2)
• Ruin to them, for they have rebelled against me (7.12)
• They have come, the days of punishment (9.7)
• I will love them no longer (9.15)
• My pity is stirred…I will not come in my wrath (11.8-9)
• I will destroy you, Israel (13.9)
• I will heal their apostasy, I will love them (14.5)
    (all verses from the NAB)

This going-back-and-forth is the dialectical and dialogical nature of God’s relationship with Israel. The good news is that the last word is always mercy.


One of the great chapters in the Bible is Hosea 11. Whereas the book begins with the metaphor of marriage, this chapter offers the metaphor of parenthood. Here we see a God who is deeply emotional.

When Israel was a child, I loved him,
    and out of Egypt I called my son.
…It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
    I took them up in my arms;
    but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
    with bands of love.
I was to them like those
    who lift infants to their cheeks.[d]
    I bent down to them and fed them…
How can I give you up, Ephraim?
    How can I hand you over, O Israel?
…My heart recoils within me;
    my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
    I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
    the Holy One in your midst,
    and I will not come in wrath.
     (11.1-9, selected, NRSV)

Here is a picture of God as parent, who is deeply troubled, ambivalent, struggling to make the right decision about his son. He feels twisted inside. He is anguishing over what to do. Finally, compassion overrules every other feeling and inclination. And he declares that his anger will not win the inner battle because “I am God and no moral, the Holy One.” A marvelous affirmation that one difference between God and people is that God’s compassion always wins out; God not only has love, God is love.

(A minor note: Feminists might want to take note that the literal translation of verse nine is, I am God and not a man/male. Therefore, although the Bible nowhere quotes God as saying, “I am not a woman,” it does say here, “I am not a man.” Instead of using the Hebrew word adam which means “a human,” Hosea uses the word ish which means “a male” rather than ishah “a female.” Let’s not make too much out of this; but when in debate with patriarchal folk who tend to be rather literal, here is a literal statement supportive of feminism.)


St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15 uses Hosea’s words, O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting? (13.14, ESV). But whereas in Hosea God is calling on Death to punish Israel, Paul turns the words around as words of hope:

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christians, the beginning of Hosea six resonates with the Christ Story:

Come, let us return to the Lord…
After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day he will raise us up,
    that we may live before him (6.1-2)

Jesus quotes from Hosea 6.6:

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
    the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Jesus learned from the Book of Hosea that the core message about God is God’s steadfast love, God’s mercy. When we think about “the Old Testament God,” let’s not caricature the Divine nature as essentially wrathful. Rather, let’s acknowledge a God who is shown with a wide range of emotion, including anger, but one who is essentially merciful. Love wins out in the “Old” Testament as much as in the “New” Testament. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures is the loving Spouse and the loving Parent.

Answer this: Do you feel God to be more like your Heavenly Father, your Heavenly Mother, or your Divine Lover?

Day 27 – Friday -- The Book of Daniel

Day 27 – Friday

The Book of Daniel

The writing is on the wall. Because we have reached the Book of Daniel.

This book has two sections: Six hero stories (chs. 1-6); and four visions (chs 8.-12). The six stories are personal. The four visions are cosmic.

The story is written as if the writer is living during the Exile (586-536 BCE). . But scholars say that there are definite signs in the book that it was written later during the reign of the Syrian tyrant, Antiochus IV (also known as Antiochus Epiphanes). This dates the book around 165 BCE. To understand the context of Daniel you would do well to read 1st and 2nd Maccabees from a Bible with the Apocrypha in it. (Some Protestant editions include the Apocrypha; all Catholic Bibles have these books.)

The situation is one of persecution. How do you survive in a hostile environment? If your religion is not accepted in your society, how do you honor God and keep your faith? The author tells six stories about Daniel and his three friends, and how they kept the faith and endured persecution.

Chapter three is about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace because they wouldn’t bow down and worship a golden image. Miraculously, they survive.

Chapter six is the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. Another miraculous deliverance.

These four aren’t exactly presented as Super Heroes, since the deliverance comes from God (or angels); but they are to be imitated as heroes of faith. They trusted God for deliverance. So should you. That’s the message.

The “hand writing on the wall” is in chapter five. It’s sort of like the Twilight Zone. A hand (without a body) writes some strange words on the wall during a banquet with King Belshazzar. Daniel is called in to interpret the weird words—MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN. Fortunately his decoding ring had arrived in the mail, and he was able to discern the meaning. This is where a well-known phrase is used: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting (5.27). Daniel tells the king that his kingdom is about to be taken over by the Medes and the Persians. Daniel is rewarded for telling the truth.


The four visions of Daniel remind us of Ezekiel’s visions. There are four animals that stand for four world powers. There is a lion, a bear, a leopard, and a creature with iron teeth. This creature has ten horns (which represent the kings of the Greek empire). Suddenly a little horn grows and destroys three horns. (The little horn is Antiochus Epiphanes.) Then God holds court and the little horn is killed. And the other beasts/creatures have their power taken away.

Remember how Ezekiel was referred to as “a son of man”? Well, here is another reference. The author of Daniel sees in his vision/dream “one like a son of man” going in the clouds to the throne of God (who has been called “The Ancient of Days”). This “son of man” ascends to God and is given authority over everything. The term “son of man” in Daniel is debated among scholars. Some think it refers to a divine being; others believe it is simply mean a human being. When Jesus refers to himself (always in the third person) as the Son of Man, what does he mean?

Well, even with the strange cartoon-like pictures the author paints in these visions, the meaning is clear. Various human kingdoms come and go. But in the end it is God’s Kingdom that triumphs. Of course Christians interpret the “son of man” to be Christ.

We do not need a decoder ring to read Daniel. We simply have to recognize the historical context, understand what was going on at the time, and read the cryptic language in light of history. In the second century BCE the Jewish people were being persecuted. But they fought a guerilla-type war and won. The Maccabee brothers were the real heroes. The Jewish Festival of Hanukkah (Nov/Dec) commemorates the courage of the Maccabees.

Like the Book of Ezekiel, Daniel is fertile ground for end-time prophecies for a certain branch of Evangelicalism. They especially like chapter nine which talks about the “seventy weeks of years.” From certain Christian outlets you can buy charts that go into great detail explaining how to calculate the end-times that have to do with the “seventy weeks of years.” William Miller was a Bible teacher in the early 1800s. He made a calculation based on Daniel’s “prophecies,” and told people that Jesus would return on October 22, 1843. No show. And many times since, the date has been set by “students of prophecy.” It’s been embarrassing to many leaders and followers. But there will always be those who will latch on to someone who has the secret answer.

Don’t worry yourself over the “seventy weeks of years.” This is apocalyptic language referring to the present time of the author, the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. These things have already happened. Don’t become obsessed with them. Get busy helping the poor and loving your family and your enemies.

One unique thing appears in Daniel—the only specific reference to resurrection in the Hebrew Scriptures. (Yes, you may draw out one in Job and one in Isaiah, etc. But this one is non-debatable.) In Daniel 12 we read:

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (12.2).  

And,

But you, go your way, and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days (12.13).

In case you want to know—about half of Daniel was written in Hebrew and half in Aramaic, the language of the Babylonian and Persian empires. And in some Bibles there are two more chapters. In Protestant Bibles with the Apocrypha, you can find in a separate section “Additions to the Book of Daniel.” This will include three additions: (1) The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews; (2) Susanna; (3) Bel and the Dragon. In a Catholic Bible there will be an Appendix following chapter 12. In includes Chapter 13: Susanna; and Chapter 14: Bel and the Dragon. The other piece, The Prayer of Azariah, is inserted after Daniel 3.23.


My favorite passage in Daniel is in chapter three. Nebuchadnezzar commands the three friends of Daniel to bow down to the golden image. Here is their response:

If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.

But if not…

When Jesus tells disciples to take up their cross and follow him, he is challenging them/us to say, but if not…


Do you find it easy or difficult to live by the values and Spirit of Christ in our culture? Do you feel like you have to swim against the stream? Or not?

Finish this: The time I felt like I was in the lion’s den was…

Day 26 – Thursday -- The Book of Ezekiel

Day 26 – Thursday

The Book of Ezekiel

Ezekiel is a preacher without a church. What I mean is this: He was living in Jerusalem when the Babylonian army torn down the walls, came in and destroyed everything. Including the Temple. Ezekiel, along with several thousands of other Jews, were deported—forced to walk 1000 miles to Babylon—to live as exiles. (The city where they were taken, called Babylon, was about 50 miles south of modern day Baghdad.) Zeke had been a priest in Jerusalem. But since Ezekiel’s job was to offer sacrifices at the Temple, and since the Temple had been destroyed, Ezekiel is now a priest without a Temple.

He was 25 years old when he was deported with his wife (597 BCE). She died a few years after he began his prophetic ministry, which was when he turned thirty. (Hmm. Jesus began at thirty also.) Being a resourceful man, Zeke reinvented himself. Couldn’t be a priest anymore, so he took up prophesying.

His book is long and jagged. Don’t expect to find an orderly narrative. What you get are fragments, and all kinds of genres. The most interesting one is fantasy—much like our modern day cinematic science fiction genre. Approach Ezekiel like you would Star Wars or The Chronicles of Narnia.

He sees flying saucers. Well, something like that. There are actually people in our day who think that he saw a UFO with aliens. But those people don’t understand about literary genres in the Bible. The vision Ezekiel had (or was it a dream?) had flying wheels within wheels, and with it appeared four humanoids, each with four wings and four faces. The faces where human, lion, ox, and eagle. About 700 years later, the Christian writer named Irenaeus, said that the faces were symbols for the four Gospels. Matthew is the human, Mark is the lion, Luke is the ox, and John is the eagle.

A couple of small notes: Ezekiel refers to the Jewish community as “Israel,” although the northern kingdom (called Israel) no longer exists. Israel becomes Ezekiel’s name for all the Jews wherever they are. Second, Zeke is referred to as “a son of man,” which simply means a human being. Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man, which may mean simply “human” or even “humanity” in a sense. But more about this when we get to Daniel.

So much of the symbolic and apocalyptic language used in Ezekiel is later borrowed by the author of the Book of Revelation. For example, God tells Zede to eat a scroll. Someone is Revelation does the same thing. Zede is also told to shave his head and beard, and part his hair in thirds (5.1). He is told to eat bread over a fire fueled by human dung (4.15). [I bet he wished there was a priest job open somewhere.] He is told to tremble while eating (12.18). Lots of strange things in this big book. Some of the early rabbis banned the Book of Ezekiel for anyone under the age of thirty because it is so scary and deep and multileveled.

The most famous strange thing is probably his vision of the valley of dry bones chapter 37. (Sing along: “The ankle bone is connected to the, shin bone; the shin is connected to the, thigh bone,” etc.) It is a vision of the “dead” Jewish people coming to life again by the power of God’s mercy. It comes about by the “breath/wind” of God. (Do you remember the east wind that blew the Red Sea apart so that the Israelites could escape?)

Christians think of Jesus breathing on the apostles so they can forgive sins (John 20). And the wind that blew through the upper room on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2). And Jesus said that no one can be born again except by the Spirit/Breath of God being breathed into her (John 3).

God’s wind/breath seems to be extremely important for anything good to happen. Why, even in Genesis one there is the Spirit/Wind/Breath hoovering over the chaos at creation.

Oh, by the way, in chapters 36 and 37 we find that wedding vow again: You shall be my people, and I will be your God (36.28); and, They shall be my people, and I will be their God (37.23). It’s all about the union.

Now about Gog. No, that’s not a misspelling. Prophecy buffs have a lot of fun with Gog and Magog. See chapters 38 and 39. On second thought, don’t bother. The end-time preachers on TV like to say that Gog and Magog are Russia or Iran or Iraq, though mostly Russia, because Gog and Magog are the enemy “to the north.” However, you can make Gog whoever or whatever you want it to be. There is no such thing. There was no such place. Ezekiel is making up names (like the land of Oz) to make a point. This is symbolic language. It is a fictional story that makes the point that God will prevail over the enemies and Israel will be restored. That’s all. If you google Gog you will find that there is a Gog.com that has to do with computer games. You’ll also find a movie titled “Gog” from 1954 about two robots named Gog and Magog. But if you google “Gog in the bible,” you’ll find the prophecy nuts. Don’t go all agog over Gog.

In the closing chapters Ezekiel envisions a new Temple. Read these chapters (40 and following), then read Revelation 11, 21, and 22; you will see how John has borrowed images from Ezekiel. All of it is poetic and meaningful.

Jesus also picked up language from Ezekiel. Chapter 34 is about the shepherds—the bad ones and the divine one. God will appoint a shepherd (leader) from the dynasty of David, says Zeke. God says, I will make a covenant of peace.

Ezekiel is a book of hope. God will prevail. Dry bones resurrected. A new spirit and a new heart. God’s people will return to their land. Home again. Temple again. Peace again.


Can you pray this: O God, you are my true home. In you I belong. Yet, you dwell in me. I find my home within. Even when I die, I shall return home.

Day 25 – Wednesday -- The Book of Lamentations

Day 25 – Wednesday

The Book of Lamentations

If Jeremiah was the Weeping Prophet, Lamentations is the Weeping Book. This is a sad book. A wailing book. You hear bag pipes as you read it. Tradition says that Jeremiah wrote this book (that’s why is has been put right after Jeremiah). We are told in 2 Chronicles 35 that Jeremiah wrote a book of laments—funeral songs for King Josiah. But some scholars think that Lamentations was written by someone else sense Jeremiah’s later writings were filled with hope and the author is not named.

It was written between 586 and 538. Jerusalem has been destroyed. These five poems express the grief of the people. The two and a half year siege had been horrible. People starved, though some killed their own children for food.

Look, O Lord, and consider!
    To whom have you done this?
Should women eat their offspring,
    the children they have borne? (2.20)
Happier were those pierced by the sword
    than those pierced by hunger,
whose life drains away, deprived
    of the produce of the field.
The hands of compassionate women
    have boiled their own children;
they became their food
    in the destruction of my people. (4.9-10)

No wonder the author of Psalm 137 prays a vengeful prayer:

Lord, remember what the Edomites did
        on Jerusalem’s dark day:
    “Rip it down, rip it down!
    All the way to its foundations!” they yelled.
Daughter Babylon, you destroyer,
    a blessing on the one who pays you back
    the very deed you did to us!
    A blessing on the one who seizes your children
    and smashes them against the rock!              (Common English Bible)

In situations of devastation people need to re-establish some kind of order. The author of these Post Traumatic Stress poems tries to provide a sense of order by beginning each verse with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in their normal order. From aleph to taw (our “a to z”) the poet gives a feeling of completeness to contrast with the emotional brokenness being felt throughout the Jewish community.

Once a year (August or September) the Jewish community of faith reads the Book of Lamentations aloud to commemorate the destruction of both the first Temple in 587 BCE and the second Temple in 70 CE. Verses from chapter three are often incorporated into Christian worship on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday.

We Christians need to use the literature of lament in our Scriptures more often in worship and private prayer. In doing so, we give voice to not only our sadness, but to the realities experienced by so many people all around the world every day.

One of my favorite verses from Lamentations is a suggested opening verse for Morning Prayer in the Presbyterian (USA) Daily Prayer Book. The verse is:

The Lord’s unfailing love and mercy never cease,
fresh as the morning and sure as the sunrise. (3.22-23) 

Finish this: O Lord, what makes me want to cry right now is….

Day 24 – Tuesday -- The Book of Jeremiah

Day 24 – Tuesday

The Book of Jeremiah

Jeremiah didn’t want to be a prophet. (Nor a bull frog.) He tried to wiggle out of it. But God won the argument. So, about 75 years after Isaiah the prophet, Jeremiah begins to speak on God’s behalf, warning the people of Judah (southern kingdom) to shape up or God will send an army to smash them to bits.

God says through Jerry that the people had done two evil things:
for my people have committed two evils:
    they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
    and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
    that can hold no water. (2.13)

Jeremiah is known as “the Weeping Prophet.” That’s because he cried a lot. He felt anguished over the way his people were forsaking God. The northern kingdom (Israel) had already been destroyed. Jeremiah is speaking from the capitol of the southern kingdom (Judah)—Jerusalem. He knows his own country is in danger of coming under the judgment of God. But his task as a spokesman for God is a heavy burden. He is accused of treason. His friends don’t like him. At one point Jeremiah has had all he can take. “I just want to die!” he says. “I wish I hadn’t been born” (see Jer. 20).

There is the parable of the potter in chapter 18. God is like a potter. He can shape his people any way he wishes. He warns them that he is pounding and twisting the clay to be destroyed. But—they still have a chance. If they turn back to him, he can still shape them into a beautiful vessel.

My professor in seminary pointed out to us that what we find in Jeremiah 18 is “conditional prophecy.” God says, “IF…THEN.” It all depends upon the people’s response. God says, “I will change my mind” (18.10).

We preachers like to refer to Jeremiah 20.7-9 where Jerry says,

If I say, “I will not mention him,
    or speak any more in his name,”
then within me there is something like a burning fire
    shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
    and I cannot.

If the preacher ever loses that fire in her bones (something like a fire in the belly), she will experience burnout. Preaching is both a privilege and a burden. There have been some Sunday in my experience when I was barely smoldering. But others when I was so hot I thought I would burn the church down.

Jeremiah had a secretary named Baruch. He took down Jerry’s dictation. It was a common practice. St. Paul also dictated his letters in the New Testament.

Leland Ryken points out how the Book of Jeremiah is similar to Dante’s Inferno in that both books give a detailed anatomy of human sinfulness and picture how depraved people can become. “Like the tragic heroes of Greek tragedy, in the book of Jeremiah we watch the tragic victims march grimly to their own ruin.”

Jeremiah is so full of laments and harangues and accusations against the people of Jerusalem that it spawned a word in English: jeremiad. We now use this word to describe a genre of literature which goes on and on about the sins of one’s society.

Jeremiah carries out several symbolic acts. He smashes a jar to show what will happen to Jerusalem if the people do not turn to God. He refused to marry to show how hopeless the situation was. But later he buys a plot of land to show that it wasn’t hopeless in the long run, that people will return here to live.

A great passage is found in chapter 31. Jeremiah says that God will make a new covenant with the Jews.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more (31.31-34).

Notice the marital language. God describes himself as their husband. They will “remarry”—enter into a new covenant. The vows are there: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

The Church, of course, understands the Jew, Jesus, to be the stand-in for God as the Groom. At Holy Communion we lift the cup and say: This cup is the new covenant, sealed in my blood, for the forgiveness of sins. We are repeating the words of Jesus, who is quoting Jeremiah.

On January 15, 588 BCE Nebuchadnezzar arrives at Jerusalem. His army surrounds the city. After a two and a half year siege, on July 18, 586, the army breaches the wall. King Zedekiah and part of his army flee. But he is caught. His eyes are gouged out. He spends the rest of his life in a Babylonian prison.

Jeremiah has no plan to leave Jerusalem. But he along with Baruch is forced to leave with a small group of people. They flee to Egypt. As far as we know that is where Jeremiah dies.


Can you say this: Holy Potter, I am in your hands. Mold me as you will. Use me as you wish. Shape my life according to your wisdom.

Day 23 – Monday -- The Book of Isaiah

Day 23 – Monday

The Book of Isaiah

Isaiah spoke for God from 742 to 701 BCE (or perhaps a few years more). He was married and had children.

Legend has it (in the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah) that Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, killed Isaiah by having him sawed in half (see Heb. 11.37).

KEY DATES:
742-690 BCE – Isaiah prophecies (speaks for God) from Jerusalem/Judah.
722 BCE – Israel (northern kingdom) disappears. (Conquered by the Assyrians.)
586 BCE – Judah (southern kingdom) is conquered by the Babylonians, and the Jews are taken into exile in Babylon.


The Book of Isaiah is actually three books, only the first written by Isaiah:
• First Isaiah – Chapters 1-39 written by the prophet Isaiah during the 700s BCE.
• Second Isaiah (also called Deutero-Isaiah) – Chapters 40-55 – written toward the end of the Babylonian exile, perhaps around 540.
• Third Isaiah (also called Trito-Isaiah) – Chapters 56-66 – written after the exile, i.e., after 538.

ISAIAH 1.17 – seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. This is the meaning of “justice” in the Bible. It has nothing to do with seeking vengeance, or tit-for-tat. It is about helping the poor and powerless—orphans, widows, anyone who is oppressed or downtrodden.

ISAIAH 2.4 – God shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. God says, “I have a dream…” This is the vision of future peace.

ISAIAH 6.1-10 – The call of Isaiah. It gives us the shape of the Sunday Liturgy of the Word:

• The Call to Worship: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts (6.3).
• Prayer of Confession: I said, “Woe is me, I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips” (6.5).
• Declaration of Pardon: Now that this (fire) has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out (6.7).
• Sermon: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (6.8).
• Response: And I said, “Here am I; send me!” (6.8)
• The Charge: And he said, “Go and say to this people: Keep listening, but do not comprehend….” (6.9).



Many familiar texts are from First Isaiah, particularly those the Church uses during Christmas:

• Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow (1.18, KJV).

• Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (7.14, KJV).

• For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

• Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this (9.6-7, KJV).

• The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them (11.6, KJV). [Notice that it is not the lion and the lamb; that is nowhere in the Bible.]

First Isaiah is full of warnings against unethical behavior, alliances with foreign powers, the neglect of the poor, and the hypocrisy of worship when actions don’t follow. Isaiah was alive when the northern kingdom (Israel) was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BCE.



SECOND ISAIAH may be the pinnacle of theology in the Hebrew Scriptures. Of course you will find the source of some of Handel’s lyrics for The Messiah. A key feature of 2nd Isaiah is the Four Suffering Servant Songs:

• 42.1-4
• 49.1-6
• 50.4-9
• 52.13-53.12

The Suffering Servant described in these four songs is both the Jews and Christ. The Jewish people have suffered throughout history because of being God’s chosen people. The 20th century Holocaust was just the last in a long series of pogroms. Yet, the Jews continue to exist and bear witness to the ethical claims of the Creator on humanity. The Church has also identified the Suffering Servant as Jesus. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. After all, Jesus was a Jew. Christians see him as the embodiment and fulfillment of Israel. He suffering and died to bear witness to Israel’s God who is full of compassion and mercy.

He was despised and rejected by others;
    a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him of no account.
Surely he has borne our infirmities
    and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
    struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
    crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
    and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
    and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.(Isa. 53.3-7)

A favorite name for God in 2nd Isaiah is the Holy One of Israel. The author tells the people who are still in exile that God is preparing a highway; that the Persian King Cyrus has been chosen by God to set them free; that the Lord is the only real God; that they are to be his witnesses; that God is doing a new thing; that they shall renew their strength and mount up with wings like eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint; God is like a woman in labor—in agony—until they are free; that God is their Mother who gave them birth as a people; that they are to be a light to the nations; that God can no more forget them than a mother can forget her nursing child; that God’s Word shall not return void.


THIRD ISAIAH is written after the people have returned to their homeland. This section of Isaiah has visions of a new heaven and a new earth; people will be happy; they will live long lives; they shall have their houses and gardens; (and again) the wolf and the lamb will feed together; God says, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you”; those who were once excluded because of sexual aberrations will not be included; “my house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples.”

The whole Book of Isaiah contains many warnings and poetic descriptions of God’s judgment. But it is also a call to trust in God and indwell the vision of hope and peace. Indeed, Isaiah has been called the Fifth Gospel.

Finish this sentence: When I think of God being a comforting Mother to me,…