Are you reading this on a phone? On a friend’s Facebook wall? In an email? Is it starting your day or ending it, or just a chance encounter?
Isaiah seeks out Ahaz as he inspects the aqueduct (v 3), worried about the siege by Jerusalem’s enemies. He has a message to give him, from God.
Is he seeking you out today?
Read More trust, fear, God with usTake your shoes off. This is holy ground. This is the first mention of that name, Immanuel – God with us. This is an impossible, irreligious notion, God with us, not on high, not the great unknown, not an impersonal empty void. God with us, face to face. Job glimpsed it: “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” (Job 42:5) It is the great scandal, scoffed by atheists and religious alike: God, a child, a man, one of us.
Read More sign, Immanuel, trust“When that time comes, . . .” (v 1). Most translations use the phrase “In that day. . .” We are right to fear That Day: the day God comes. We didn’t see him coming.
Yet in the in-between, he is with us. He walks with us, if we listen carefully, like Adam in the cool of the afternoon. And we need not hide. We have plenty to shame us, but with God with us, we are clothed, not in fig-leaves of our own making, but of his making: his Son.
Read More cross, that day, God savesIt is easy to say God is with us: in the huddle before the match, before the battle, when we send each other to war.
Ahaz is sure “God is with us.” Isaiah is not. Ahaz sheltered under the wings of Assyria, but its talons would pierce him. He is caught in the same snare he laid for his enemies.
Read More our influenceWhat’s your name? Say it, in your mind. Say it in a whisper. Say it. How many times has it passed your lips? How many times have you answered the question: What is your name? How many times have you heard it spoken, have you turned to look? Was it said with anger, with love, as command, as demand, as question, as plea?
Read More names, courtroom, wordsGod exists whether we believe it or not. He has something to say about us, whether we ask him or not.
Amos has set a stage. The Judge has entered. Court is in session. Amos reads out the charges against Israel’s enemies, their “countless crimes.” They have mercilessly plundered, killed and sold “my people” into slavery.
Read More justice, honesty, everybodyNot all that glitters is gold. We may have noble origins, steeped faith, renown and reputation. We may have a name, but does it mean anything?
Ignorance is no excuse in law. Yet greater knowledge demands greater responsibility, higher standards. “They should know better.” Judah was the largest tribe, home to the Temple and guardian of the Law of Moses.
Read More judgment, hypocrisy, wickednessWhy did he not warn us the banks would fail and the stock market crash? Why did he not warn us that we would not be able to finish the war we started?
Which crash, which war? That’s the point: there is nothing new under the sun. Greed begets poverty and violence begets violence.
If God does not do anything without telling us first, why do disasters engulf us?
Read More warning, roaring lion, justiceThe CEV’s “fat cows” may be in step with modern idiom, but it lacks the class of “The cows of Bashan” (4:1 NIV) The poetry of the putdown. The lush plains of Bashan yield the fatted calf. The imagery of waddling udders and cow bells satirizes the wives of the wealthy, indulgent, drunken, selfish, servant-beating women of Israel.
Read More sin, trouble, repentance