A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. - Isaiah 40:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 12, 2013): Isaiah 40

No one ever gave us a guarantee as to numbers. There was never really a promise spoken over us regarding tomorrow. As the days pass, we are given the illusion of immortality – but we know it is only an illusion, a dream that has been fabricated from somewhere deep inside of us. And one day will be our last day. It might be that the most frustrating fact of this life is that we know that we are not the only ones who will enter that last day. Every one that we cherish and want to hold onto will also have their own last day. And there is absolutely nothing that any of us can do to stop that day from coming.

Some Bible Scholars have postulated that as we move from Isaiah 39 to Isaiah 40, that we are actually passing from the first Isaiah to a second. The idea behind the theory is that while Isaiah 1 - 39 speak harshly of Israel trying desperately to get the people to change their behavior before God brings disaster on the nation, starting with Isaiah 40 there is a change of tone in what Isaiah is saying – Isaiah started to desire to be more of a comfort. It is as if from Isaiah 1 – 39 the prophet carries warnings of the coming of the last day, but starting with Isaiah 40 the last day has arrived. Looking back in history, that last day would have been the exile of Judah into Babylon. But we suspect that the prophet Isaiah died during the evil reign of Manasseh of Judah, we know he would have never survived to see the exile. The exile was still decades after the prophet’s death. Yet the imagery starting in Isaiah 40 is so startlingly real we have to wonder.

The theory is hotly debated. Both sides claiming ground that they really have no right to claim. The truth is that we do not know. But for the rest of the book of Isaiah, we will have to examine life in a very different way. Where the first Isaiah cried out about the power and woes of God, this Isaiah, whether a different man or just an older version of the first, now questions the very things that he has to say. Like Marley in “A Christmas Carol,” the prophet hears the world asking for him for comfort and the prophet is not sure that he has any to give.

But this he knows. This life is fragile. It carries no guarantees. But as fragile as this life is, God is sturdy. As short as our days are, God’s are unending. Isaiah imagery is of the hills of Judah after the winter rains - he marvels at how lush and green and filled with flowers they are. But it does not take long for the grass to brown and the flowers to die under the hot Middle Eastern Sun. And his realization is that this scene that he has watched over and over again during the length of his life is also a description of life itself. The only thing permanent were the things that emanated from his God. And so the prophet responds to the voice – what is it that I should cry? Because I do not want to waste my voice on things that do not come from you.

The prophet’s question needs to be our own. Why would we waste our breath on anything that does not come from God? What we need to say, we want to be stamped with the character of the one whose days are truly unending. They are now – and they always have been.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 41