Today’s Scripture Reading (February 29, 2020): Isaiah 33
Have you ever noticed that the question that sometimes seems to
loom large in our imaginations is ‘if I do this, then what will everyone
think?” I once knew a pastor who refused to go to coffee with anyone because if
he went for coffee with you, then he would have to go to coffee with everyone,
and he just didn’t have the time or energy to do that. Early on in my ministry,
I found out that my friend’s behavior was based on a lie. Not everyone wants to
go for coffee with the pastor, so go and enjoy the ones who do and don’t worry
about what everyone else might think. I also learned that some people needed
contact more than others. And so it became imperative to try to meet with those
who needed it. But sometimes, we need to understand that even though we can’t
help everyone, we can try to help one.
But sometimes we do want to send a message. We want the world to
know something. Often it is in a “don’t mess with me” sort of way. In ancient
times, this concept was found in the horror stories about certain militaries
that were on the march, and these armies struck fear into the hearts of the
people, not because the nations had ever met them in battle, but rather because
they had heard the tales. And often,
these stories were a mixture of truth and fiction. Military leaders knew that
often the legend about an army was more important than the prowess of the military.
And every age seems to have had a boogeyman hiding in its story. Once it was
Egypt, during the days of Isaiah, it was the Assyrians. Later, and Isaiah
seemed to recognize this, it would be the Babylonians, then the Medes and the
Persians, followed by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, the Romans, and then,
a little later, the nomadic Huns. All that was needed was for someone to
mention that the Huns were coming, or that Attila the Hun was on the march, and
fear would be driven deep inside the people waiting for their arrival. The
modern boogeyman is the United States. (I know, you were thinking Russia, but
the United States follows the pattern closer than the Russians do, although
both Russia and China are fighting it out for second place.) The world’s
population had heard the stories, and these military powers knew that the “what
everyone thought” was a great weapon. Fear would immobilize the people long
before the army actually showed up at the door.
Isaiah is writing about the Assyrian defeat at the hands of the Judeans.
(By the way, it is a defeat that the Assyrians denied ever happened. It just
didn’t fit into the story that they were trying to tell.) And Isaiah believed that
when the time came, this was a story that needed to be told. But the story was not
to be communicated about the mighty Judean warriors who stood up against, what
was then, a superpower of the world. The tale that had to be shared was about
what God had done. And so, those who were near, those who saw the events take
place, needed to acknowledge the power of the God of Judah. And those who were
far needed to be willing to hear the story of what God had done.
It is still the dividing line upon which we find ourselves. Those
who are near, those who see what God still does in this world need to be willing
to acknowledge the power of God. And those who are far need to be prepared to
hear the story. But there were those in the days of Isaiah who watched
everything play out and yet refused to acknowledge the power of God. And some who
were far away, like the Assyrians, refused to listen to the story. And that
was, and still is, up to them.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah
34
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