Today’s Scripture Reading (January
22, 2017): Isaiah 31
I think we have an unhealthy view of our medical
professionals. It is not that we do not need doctors, or that we should not be
thankful for the doctors and nurses in our lives. But throughout the length of
my life, I have met people that somehow
have almost a supernatural belief in medical practitioners. We expect them to
have the solution to all our ills. In fact, I recently heard one person express
the opinion that if the doctors can’t fix you, then you must not be sick. (I
recently had the same reaction with a computer that has now been replaced. I took it to a national chain
store to have them diagnose the problem and was
told that I was running too many programs on my computer. I computer
friend then informed me that in computer lingo what I was being told was that my ‘computer wasn’t running
properly, but no one could figure out why.’) With doctors, an expectation of
omnipotence is dangerous. Other people have even carried the view that if I
have a health problem and a doctor does something to fix me, but my symptoms continue; then there must be malpractice
involved.
All of our attitudes toward the medical profession carry one
thing in common – they expect the doctor to possess all the characteristics of
God. We want our physicians to be
omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and infallible (never
failing.) But that is an unreasonable expectation of anyone who is flesh and
blood. And it is not just medical professionals that carry this expectation. Many of the prominent people of
our culture (including pastors, although the misconduct of prominent pastors
and priests in recent years has severely tarnished the reputation of the
clergy) are expected to be perfect in the execution of their duty. It is not
that we hold them in high regard because
our actions and attitudes betray us. We don’t necessarily like these people –
but we expect them to be perfect in their decision making.
Isaiah continues his lament about
the Egyptians, and he accuses Israel of
this same attitude with regard to their
Southern neighbors. They do not necessarily like the Egyptians, but they do
seem to believe that their former slave lords are infallible. It might even be
that this belief is dependent on the collective memory of the nation of that
day when Egypt, at least when compared with the Israelite slaves, seemed to be
omnipotent. In the midst of all of the evidence building up against the belief,
Israel still appeared to believe that
Egypt was the dominant power in the region. And so any hope that Israel had of
survival was supposed to be dependent on
their alliance with this southern power.
The warning from Isaiah was that only God was omnipotent.
Ultimately, both the rise and fall of nations were dependent on him. Any belief
in the omnipotence of any created being or collections of created being was
doomed to failure. In reality, only the Uncreated One could be all knowing, all
powerful, ever present and never failing. Any others were only pretenders, and faith in them could only result in our
destruction and leave us in sorrow.
Originally Published on December 4, 2013
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah
32
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