Isaiah — Chapter 6
"Whom shall I send?
Who will go for us?"
I spoke up,
"I'll go.
Send me!" Isaiah 6: 8
Isaiah saw the Lord, whose glory lit up the earth and whose clothes were so huge they filled up the temple.
Isaiah had an angel fly over to him and burn his mouth with a coal that had just been pulled from the fire.
Isaiah heard the Lord speak.
All of these things are insanely fascinating, whether or not you think of them as literal events or an awe-inspiring vision. But I've sung songs that borrowed illustrations from this passage since I was a kid, and I've read or heard the passage dozens of times, so the oddity of it all has kinda worn off. Still, it's amazing how a little four letter word can really hit you sometimes.
Send.
In the midst of all this madness, Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord. God was asking (someone?) who He should send as His emissary, and rather than simply volunteer to go, Isaiah volunteered to be sent.
Personally, I think it's dangerous when people put so much emphasis on such an incredibly small detail. I think a lot of the division in the Church comes from arguing the placement of commas, so, please don't read too much into this statement. But, when you think about it, there is a pretty big difference between going and being sent, isn't there? Say I headed over to Beijing in a few months to catch some crazy olympic water polo match and then tried to commandeer a visit with President Jintao, claiming I was an ambassador of Canada simply because I had a maple leaf sewn onto the back of my jeans...something tells me that wouldn't play out in my favor. However, if I was given orders and authorization from Mr Harper himself, I'd have a much better shot at chatting with the Big Man in red (I still probably couldn't get a meeting with him, but, I might not get shot).
What I'm trying to say is that we're all called to something. Many biblical commands are generic. But some are very specific. The call that Isaiah ended up with was pretty harsh, actually: he had to preach and preach and preach until Israel completely blocked him out. Then, God was gonna mow them down so that there was "not a soul left in the cities" and the country would "look like pine and oak forest with every tree cut down". As always, there's a happy ending ("...there's a holy seed in those stumps"), but this is still not the type of work one does on a whim. Isaiah was not only willing and able, but he was also called. He was stamped with approval and given credentials. The man was sent.
When it comes to the Golden Rule and the Great Commission, your badge is your salvation. You don't need any diploma to say you should feed and clothe the poor. But before we start taking specialized positions that God offers, maybe we should consider whether or not we're sent to do those things. If we are, then we should pour ourselves into those tasks. If we're not, and we want to be, we should ask. Isaiah asked to be sent, and then he was...so that seems easy. But we have not because we ask not, right? If we're not careful, we might end up like the sons of Sceva, injured by our own neglect (Acts 19).
Isaiah — Chapter 5
"Doom to you who call evil good
and good evil,
Who put darkness in place of light
and light in place of darkness,
Who substitute bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5: 20
This chapter starts out with an allegory of a vineyard that was planted, tended to, and cared for in every way but still kicked out nothing but bitter "junk grapes". The vineyard is Israel and the gardener is the Lord. It seems He enjoys justice like a fine wine, and He's quite a connoisseur, but for all His efforts, He got nothing of the sort from the Israel of the day.
May our taste-buds be so attuned.
After this revelation, Isaiah goes on to relay what happens to bad vineyards (which you could either read about or guess, 'cause it's kinda obvious). Then, he lists 5 groups of people for whom this judgment is especially waiting. Among them are:
-People who soak up all the real estate
-Alcoholics who get started on beer before breakfast
-Folks who peddle evil by lies
-Know-it-alls
These are already an interesting spread, and I must admit that the one about real estate sorta took me by surprise, but the one that grabbed me most is the fourth in the list. It's the one quoted at the top of the page, and the one with the least amount of description surrounding it. For some reason, it just rings inside me.
Doom to you who call evil good and good evil...
Doesn't it seem like that's what we do these days? I'm sure it's been going on for thousands of years...in fact, the text more than suggests it, but it seems like it's a universal language these days. I'm not talking about the obvious Michael-Jacksonian "bad = good", and I don't wanna get into the deep end discussion of Harry Potter being a "good witch", but these are small examples of a very large theme. It's "good" to heedlessly explore your sexuality. It's "good" to put yourself first. It's "good" to sample at the pantheistic buffet, but it's "bad" to say out loud that you believe in One God.
On account of this blatant mislabeling, people are walking out of the store with asbestos instead of asparagus, and there's a strict No Return Policy.
What can I say? It's happening. It's been happening, and will continue to happen. I guess the caution here is for us to not do it ourselves. We should probably avoid knowingly placing ourselves into the category of the doomed. Trouble is, our foul-ups in nomenclature aren't always so obvious. I'm often caught saying things like "Yeah, it was a good movie," as though I filtered the content in it that ought to have made me wretch. And what if I didn't even tell anyone else about the film? What if I only placed it in a mental subcategory of "Good", where it didn't belong? Our minds are a sort of democracy, and as we make these little votes for what we consider good and evil, the balance of power can shift quite dramatically, shaping our future policies by our present decisions.
So let's call a spade a spade. Let's cast light where light belongs. Sweet is sweet and bitter isn't better...just bitter. It is what it is.
Isaiah — Chapter 4
"And that's when God's Branch will sprout green and lush. The produce of the country will give Israel's survivors something to be proud of again." Isaiah 4: 2
In the gospel of John, Jesus is quoted as saying that He is the vine. He says that He's the vine, we're the branches, and the Father is the gardener, so to speak. This passage is similar, but with one main difference: the branch.
In this example, the God of Israel is the vine/tree. Now, not being overly versed in prophecy and the like, I'm just gonna go with my gut here, but it seems like the Branch (singular, notice) that's both green and lush is probably supposed to represent Jesus...right?
I like the image that Christ was the "produce" of Israel and that He was something to take pride in, like Floridians and their oranges. The trouble is, I wouldn't say every citizen of the country warmed up to Him quite like that, did they? I mean, we know what happened to God's Branch after it budded the first time. That's not all:
"He'll scrub the bloodstained city of its violence and brutality." Isaiah 4: 4
Israel's gotta be one of the most dangerous and violent places in the world, if not at the moment, at least it averages that way.
Already and not yet.
God's Branch has already arrived, then. The Branch, like a seed, died and fell to the ground. Now It's as thick as a forest, both already and not yet. What was the fruit of that Branch?
"Then God will bring back the ancient pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and mark Mount Zion and everyone in it with his glorious presence, his immense, protective presence, shade from the burning sun and shelter from the driving rain." Isaiah 4: 5-6
The fire and cloud of the Exodus were definitely the clearest examples of the presence of the Holy Spirit with Israel. God's saying that those things are coming back. The Holy Spirit is the fruit that grows from the Branch that stems from the Father.
How anyone could take pride in this Produce, I'm not sure. Had they half a brain they'd know they had nothing to do with it. Plus, isn't pride a bad thing? It goes before the Fall...the fall of man...autumn leaves dripping fire and cloud from the Branch that is our Pride.
The Shelf Life of Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll
How many dreams actually mean something?
For some reason (possibly due to the stress of working with 20 seven-year-olds on a daily basis), Esther had a headache. I quickly offered to head across town in the middle of the night and hit a pharmacy for some medication to ease her pain, being the good husband I am.
Yep, this must be a dream.
When I walked into the white-walled building, I was greeted by an apparent New Yorker; he had a good 3 day beard and talked like a Soprano. Nonetheless, he was the pharmacist, so I asked "Which way to the headache pills?". For some strange reason, the pills were in a whole other compartment, locked down behind a gate.
Why do they alarm/lock the razor section of stores nowadays? Are people more likely to steal some Mach 3 blades than drugs?
After the gate was unlocked, our gangster-pharmacist started looking through the rows and rows of little bottles to find, I assumed, just the right dope. After a single REM blink and about 5 dreaminutes, he looked up and said, "Nope. Sorry." This confused me, because I clearly recognized brand names: Tylenol and Aspirin, at least. When I queried him, he pointed out a label on one of the bottles.
exp Apr 8, 2009
In my dreams (and often when I'm awake) I make vastly unwarranted assumptions, so I guessed that all of the drugs expired in less than year. Apparently I was correct. However, even in my disconnected state, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't use them now. "I can't sell them once they're within a year of expiring. I guess the companies don't want people to know these things can be out of date."
Then, inexplicably, I was at a music store, holding a disc of a band that will remain unnamed. I looked at the generic "We're a band...and that's important" picture on the front and felt the cellophane squeak between my fingers. I miss opening CDs. Stupid internet. Anyway, I was kinda startled when I looked at the back of the disc and noticed something I hadn't seen before.
exp Jul 13, 2008
Isaiah — Chapter 3
"The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, is emptying Jerusalem and Judah
Of all the basic necessities,
plain bread and water to begin with.
He's withdrawing police and protection,
judges and courts,
pastors and teachers,
captains and generals,
doctors and nurses,
and, yes, even the repairmen and jacks-of-all-trades." Isaiah 1: 1-3
Why?
People may be dumb, but we ain't stupid. Humanity can be incredibly resourceful. Resourceful, prideful, and stubborn. North Americans caricaturize all three quite well. As long as we can eat well and have some sort of roof over our heads, and there's someone on the TV telling us what's gonna happen tomorrow, we're generally quite able to ignore God. We tend to seek when we lack.
This is definitely part of the reason why Marx called religion "the opium of the people". There's no question that people in what we would call "reduced circumstances" (local poor, Third-World countries, terminally ill) are more likely to "find God", which makes it seem quite suspicious, at the very least. But if you built your mansion over a diamond reserve, whether that house burns to the ground and you start digging at the earth with your bare hands out of sheer desperation or you just stumble upon them while you're putting in your 2nd pool, a fortune's a fortune. The ends justify the means.
Maybe God was systematically stripping Israel of the things that would keep them from Him. Or, maybe God was doing all these things to punish Israel. I'm not sure. Slap me if I say I'm "sure" about the reason God does anything. Maybe it's both. Punishment isn't just something to do when you're angry, right? You don't send your kid to his room simply because he mouthed off to you, but because you want him to learn respect.
"My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline,
but don't be crushed by it either.
It's the child he loves that he disciplines;
the child he embraces, he also corrects." Hebrews 12: 6
If I had to bet, I'd say that's what was going on at this point in time. But I don't have to bet. Which is good. 'Cause I'm broke.