Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands, and all who live in them. – Isaiah 42:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 14, 2013): Isaiah 42

The church seems to be stuck in its ways. I am not speaking of certain doctrines that we have seemed to allow to creep into the church that are more traditional than biblical – but we do have some sacred cows inside the Christian Church that are crying out to be made into Holy Hamburgers. But even in our non-biblical traditions we are in a rut. I recently attended an Advent Chapel at an educational institution and left with the firm idea that they thought that the traditional Christmas Carols, most of which were written within the last 500 years, were way too contemporary, and so they searched and found carols that were older – or were newer and written in a style that made them appear like they were straight out of the 12^th Century. It is an old argument that I have spoken to a few times in this blog.

With this in mind, and a sermon to be preached on “Joy to the World” tomorrow (Isaac Watts who wrote “Joy to the World” and many other hymns in our current hymnbooks was criticized all throughout his life for his hymns which were categorized as being too secular and spent way too much time and effort on presenting a “pretty tune” rather than “theological lyrical content”), it seemed appropriate to drag out the issue one more time. We need both the old and the new in our lives.

Maybe we need to be reminded that in 1952 a mainline Christian denomination took steps to ban a song that they considered to be both “artistically and morally bankrupt.” The song was starting to be sung in the denominational churches and leadership decided that they needed to nip this practice in the bud and publically ban the song from being sung; thereby protecting the people sitting in the pews from being influenced by this ungodly song. The song in question was “How Great Thou Art” which had been released to English congregations in 1949. Today, most of us are glad that the protectors of the music lost the battle and that “How Great Thou Art” won.

But part of the problem is that the new and the old seem to approach God differently. I often hear about the good theology of the hymns versus the non-existent theology in today’s Contemporary Christian music. But the argument is wrong. First, not all old hymns are examples of great theology. Often what attracts us to them is that they are familiar, not great theological content. But secondly, it is also not that the contemporary music lacks in good theology (although I readily admit that there are contemporary songs being sung in our churches with really bad theology), it is just that contemporary music attacks theology in a different way. What made sense and was part of the experience three hundred years ago (or even forty years ago for my Gaither fans) is not how the writers view their experience today. The songs are written out of the writers personal experience with God – and that is what makes the song a praise worthy of God. They are simply an expression of what God has done in me

And that is the point that Isaiah (as well as a number of Psalms) are trying to make. How is it that you can have an experience with the living God and not have the experience shape what you are singing? For some, that means writing the new song that comes from the heart and is an expression of the way that you are experiencing God in your life. For others, it is finding the song that most clearly expresses your experience with God – and when you find it, it shouldn’t matter whether the song is old or new.    

But Isaiah would issue this imperative – find the song. If God is impacting your life, sing the song with every fibre that God has placed inside of you. It has never been about the tune – the song you sing is simply your expression of the life God has placed inside of you. And that will always be what truly makes the song special.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 43

Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be as nothing at all. – Isaiah 41:12

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 13, 2013): Isaiah 41

Potential often has an elusive quality. When we are young, potential is something that we want to have. Potential speaks to our future – but only of a possible future. Potential at some point has to be realized, but potential is not always realized. Potential may lie inside of us, but we still require a strength of character to make the potential a reality.

The Babylonian empire has a long history, but in many ways it is a story of what might have been. Babylon seems to be marked with great potential, but that potential was never really achieved. The empire has risen and fallen throughout its long history, but often seems to fall just short of all that it might have been. As these words were being written by Isaiah, Babylon was once again on the rise. Judah would end up becoming a victim of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (New Babylonian Empire) under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. But the reign of the Neo-Babylonian Empire would really only reach it zenith during the life of Nebuchadnezzar – and then once again it would fall with its potential still unrealized.

The words of Isaiah seem to point to the end of the Babylonian Captivity. No nation up until this time had ever returned from captivity, but Isaiah’s words of encouragement seem to indicate that this would not be Judah’s fate. One day, Judah would wake up in their captivity, but their enemy, the nation that was responsible for their presence in Babylon in the first place, would have simply disappeared. The reality of the Neo-Babylonian Empire was that Nebuchadnezzar II had the strength of character that was necessary to reveal Babylon’s potential, but the two kings that would follow Nebuchadnezzar would lack that character. And the result would be that Babylon’s strength would one day simply vanish – along with all of their potential.

And Judah would return home with potential of their own. Isaiah needed to Judah to understand that God still saw potential inside of them, and they were going to receive a second chance to follow that potential. But to realize the potential they would need the strength of character to follow God (interestingly enough, it was a strength to follow God that Nebuchadnezzar displayed as he chased his own potential.)

Our potential still lies in our strength of character and our willingness to follow God. And it is never too late to realize that potential.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 42

Note: The VantagePoint Community Church (Edmonton) message "The Centurion's Vision" from the Series "Christ and Culture" is now available on the VantagePoint Website. You can find it here. 

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

Isaiah had said, “Prepare a poultice of figs and apply it to the boil, and he will recover.” – Isaiah 38:21

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 11, 2013): Isaiah 38 & 39

I recently read an article on the benefits of quitting smoking. Our bodies are made in such a way that we actually start the healing process about twenty minutes after our last puff. So the idea is that it is never really too late to reap some of the benefits of quitting. And the benefits are amazing. Among others, the article listed better sex, a healthier stomach process, a decrease in the chances that you will develop arthritis, better and more restful sleep, a stronger heart and even the food you eat will taste better - all as a result of quitting smoking. And beyond that, we get a chance to be one of those annoying ex-smokers that are telling everyone else to quit smoking (Okay that might not be a benefit.) And yet, with all of the positives many of us still don’t quit. And that speaks volumes about the addictive qualities of cigarettes. We are hooked and quitting is hard.

So we often need to ask for help. And there are many aids out there to help us on our new journey. Some have a better track record than others, and yet some of us do not even try these avenues. The excuse that I hear the most is that “right now I am experiencing too much stress to even think about quitting.” But that excuse assumes that there are times when we are not experiencing stress, and I just haven’t noticed very many of those moments around recently. The bottom line is that to quit smoking, first we have to do something. Stopping the practice of buying cigarettes is one of the first recommended actions. But beyond that step, often we need to change our lifestyle, we have to avoid certain triggers if our new non-smoking behavior is going to take root. We need to avoid the things and the places where we liked to smoke. But something has to happen. The change in behavior needs to married to some specific action. We need it – it is just the way that we are designed.

Hezekiah moves from an illness that is going to end in death to an illness that can be cured with traditional medicine (a poultice made of figs was the approved way of handling a boil in the ancient world) very quickly. But the reality was that Hezekiah needed to do something if he was going to recover. Sitting back and just letting God heal him probably was not going to work. But too often we seem to read instructions like the ones found in this passage and think that we have discovered an ancient super cure. I can see the book now instructing us that a poultice of figs will cure everything from acne to cancer. But to make that suggestion misses the point. It was God that was going to cure Hezekiah, but God who created us knows that for lasting change to take root in our lives we need to be involved in the process. And so a poultice was developed as part of Hezekiah’s buy-in into the process.

So the instructions for Hezekiah were that he was to follow the standard medical process of the day. He was to use conventional medical wisdom to cure the illness – and let God move through that wisdom. Healing often seems to work this way. We do what we can – we act in support of the healing – and let God do the rest. Cults that believe that healing is an “only God” enterprise have missed some important biblical instructions. We need to do what we can do – and then allow God to move through the rest. And for smokers, that might be the secret to real healing in the process quitting smoking.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 40

This will be the sign for you, Hezekiah: “This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.” – Isaiah 37:30

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 10, 2013): Isaiah 37

Near the end of the American Civil War, General William Tecumseh Sherman fought a battle we simply remember as his “March to the Sea.” The idea behind the March was that Sherman would take his 62,000 men and March through Georgia. What is amazing about the March is that from November 15, 1864 when the March began until December 21, 1864 when Sherman took control of the port of Savannah, Georgia, Sherman was without any way of gaining supplies for his troops. It is thought that an army might be able to carry a week’s supplies on it backs and maybe another week’s supplies with large carts (or in current day equipment - trucks) to carry the supplies, but to supply an army of this size for just over a month was impossible without an adequate supply line – something that General Sherman did not have.

But then again, that was never Sherman’s idea. Sherman’s idea was to take 62,000 men and live off of the land, while creating as much damage (a scorched earth policy) as possible to the land that they were travelling through. Sherman called this harsh tactic “Hard War” or “Total War” and many of his contemporaries did not think that this kind of war was possible. But when Sherman appeared in Savannah just over a month later, he had proved his critics wrong. The message that Sherman sent to President Lincoln after the fall of Savannah offering the President the city as a Christmas Present has become legendary. Sherman estimated that he and his troops had caused $100 million dollars’ worth of property damage during their month long walk through the Georgian countryside.

Isaiah’s prophecy about what the Hezekiah will eat over the next three years has been confusing for some. The question that is raised is why Judah could not live off of what they had planted during the second year. But the simple matter might be that the Assyrians had fought a “Hard War” as they moved through Judah. Living off the land and creating damage as the Assyrians moved through Judah, there would have been nothing left after the defeated Assyrian army returned for home. The people would have been forced to live off of what the land would give to them. But it is quite possible that the entire infrastructure of the nation would have been destroyed by the Assyrian army and in the second year, as well as needing to secure Judah’s borders, the nation would need to be rebuilt – and once again Judah would need to live off of the land. But according to the promise of God through Isaiah, during the third year life would once again return to normal. The people of Judah would return to the cycle of planting and harvesting. But until then, God would provide.

It is the promise of God that we all need to hang on to. Sometimes we can plant and harvest, sometimes we can provide for ourselves, sometimes our relationships work, but there are times when they we know that they just don’t. And it is in those moments that we need to cling to the promise of God that he will do the impossible - and provide what it is that we need.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 38 & 39

Come now, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them! – Isaiah 36:8

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 9, 2013): Isaiah 36

I recently watched a documentary on the RMS Titanic disaster. There was really nothing new that the documentary had to offer about the disaster, but there were some interesting pictures of the Titanic and her sister ship, the Olympic. But once again I was reminded about the senselessness of the tragedy. The Titanic suffered from the same weaknesses that seem to have plagued humanity from the beginning of time. First it sacrificed safety for opulence. And the Titanic also sacrificed safety for economic savings, and both of these sacrifices were made possible because of the supreme arrogance of the ship designers. The idea that the Titanic was unsinkable was never something that the designers of the ship had ever put forward in their advertising for the new ship. The myth of “the unsinkable Titanic” was really placed into the mind of the public by a newspaper article that called the new line of ships “virtually unsinkable,” but the owners of the Titanic never denied the rumor. And on the fateful night that the Titanic was lost, the crew consistently ignored warnings of the ices field that lay ahead. It was as if such warnings only pertained to lesser ships, not the mighty Titanic. Arrogance in every theatre of life seems to always end up ushering us into disaster, and that was exactly what happened to the Titanic – they sped full speed ahead into an ice field that they knew was there, and as a result the ship would also quickly sink to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

The Assyrian army almost 2800 years ago suffered from the same disease. The Assyrians conquered only to find the things that they could take from other civilizations (come and make a bargain with my master), and the success that they had enjoyed at precisely that task had created a great arrogance within them. No one had said that the Assyrian Empire was unsinkable, but the leaders of the empire were starting to believe that they really were.

And so the General of the Army surrounding the city of Jerusalem makes an incredible offer. I will give you two thousand horses if you have soldiers to put on them for the final battle. The idea behind the offer is that he believed that the armies of Judah were so pitiful that even if he was to take two thousand of his own horses (weakening his own forces in the process) and gives them to Judah, they are still vastly out matched. It was a message that Assyria hoped that Hezekiah would hear and understand. The war had already been decided before the first arrow was shot in the battle for Jerusalem. Assyria had won and Hezekiah had lost – and nothing was going to change that truth.

Except that it was not a truth that God understood. Assyria’s language of arrogance was a language that was foreign to One that Israel served. God hears the voice of humility, and that was a language that Assyria seemed unable to speak. But humility was a language that Hezekiah had mastered. And the result was that God was about to move in a very real and unexpected way. The unsinkable Assyrian Empire was about to sink, and like the unsinkable Titanic, arrogance was the reason that they were going to go down.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 37

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it. – Isaiah 35:8

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 8, 2013): Isaiah 35

We take good roads for granted. In fact, we expect our roads to be good. I live in a colder part of the world – at least in the winter months – and the cycle of hot and cold has some very real effects on the roads that I travel. Cracks are produced in the hard asphalt covering of the road, and then moisture gets down into the cracks and the repeated process every winter of heat from the sun and yet cold, cold days and nights works that moisture (essentially an ice – water – ice – water cycle) and breaks apart the hard surface even further. And in the spring, often what is left is huge holes in the road – sometimes leaving the road impassable. And then the complaints start hitting the city offices. We want the road to be fixed, but more than that, we expect the road to be fixed.

In the ancient world there was no such expectation. To have a road, any kind of a road, was gift and a blessing. A good road made travel between two places much easier than it would have been normally. Part of what the Roman Empire at the time of Christ had done so well was to build a system of roads. The Roman roads were used by business men throughout the empire, and because of them business and economic conditions flourished. It was really this system of roads that allowed early Christian missionaries to be so successful in the spreading of the Gospel. Because if the roads, these men (and women) were able to travel from place to place with relative ease. But the main effect of the Roman roads was to make the Roman borders secure. The Roads allowed the military to quickly move from one place to another. But the roads were far from an expectation, they were a privilege for those who needed to travel on them.

Isaiah speaks of a road he calls the “Highway of Holiness.” Essentially it is a promise of a path to God. The road Isaiah describes is very literally a high way – it is a raised road. And like some of the other roads of the day, it is a restricted road. People who want to travel on the “Highway of Holiness” will travel it very purposefully. The road has a toll booth – and only some will agree to pay to toll. But for those who pay the toll, the road will take them right into the presence of God.

It is with this thought in mind that Jesus declared that he was “The Way.” In essence, Jesus was really declaring that he was the toll booth. The only ones who would be allowed on the Highway of Holiness would have to go through him.

Not surprisingly, the early Christian church picked up on the same imagery. They characterized themselves as “People of the Way.” They were the ones that Isaiah spoke of that had decided to travel the “Highway of Holiness.” It was never an expectation of the early church to travel that Highway. But it was a privilege that they had received only because they had heard and believed the message of Jesus Christ. And Jesus said that that belief was the price of admission to begin a journey toward God.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 36