advent week two

when comfort for one means destruction for another
advent week two
isaiah 40:1-11

the book of isaiah within the Hebrew scriptures is nothing short of a masterpiece. say what you will about the content and the millennia of interpretation that is heaped upon it, but the text itself weaves together multiple genres of poetry and prose to tell an agonizing story of a people separated from their god, their sense of meaning in the world.

first things first, isaiah is a prophet. no, a prophet is not a fortune teller, they do not predict the future. a prophet, particularly in the time(s) isaiah was written, is someone who speaks on behalf of god, someone who speaks the truth to the people. truth, in scripture, is something that equally and always challenges those in power and comforts those who are oppressed.

second, it is widely held that isaiah is written by at least three people, living at three different times, and was later compiled into one volume. during the course of the timelines of the writers, the Israelite people saw jerusalem (their home, and the city where the temple housing the presence of god was built) utterly destroyed. they were forced into exile (separated from what they understood as the presence of god) in the city of babylon. and finally, they returned to jerusalem after their exile to rebuild.

isaiah 40:1-11 is written during this exile. it is written to a people that has felt separated from their god, who long to return home, and who feel they have been punished more than enough. this passage is a commissioning for this second prophet (writer) of isaiah, god is calling this isaiah to comfort the people in this time, to let them know that what they desire will come to pass.

this bit of the story is also filled with the same apocalyptic imagery that we saw last week in mark. this is the kind of imagery that mark was echoing from the old stories. the prophets set the precedent for the movement of god to be heralded by events that change the landscape of the world as we know it.

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during the exile, Israel believed that god was not with them. and yet there are prophets who continue to share the word of god during this time. there is the story of shadrach, meshach, and abednego, who are visited by a mysterious figure when they are thrown into fire. god has not left them alone in babylon, god is simply doing something different.

what strikes me about the exile, and the arc of Israel’s story in general, is the way meaning is made. these stories were written down by men, and i believe they are inherently limited. i simply cannot believe that any of what we call scripture was divinely dictated. i do, however, believe that there is something about these stories that have been given life, the freedom to grow and change and interact with our world still. and i by no means believe that this is the only set of stories that have this power.

despite their limitations, the story of Israel is a story of a group of people trying to understand what it means to exist in this world, in all of its beauty and pain. it is an acknowledgement that there is something special about humanity, and still something so much bigger that seems to be at work. this set of stories is this community’s attempt to reckon with this.

they way they make meaning of the stories, of the way they understand god to be interacting with them along the way is fascinating. they keep changing the terms on god, and god continues to oblige.

the Israelites in exile are a conquered people. their existence has been laid low, and they were marched to a foreign land. the book(s) of isaiah are filled with images of terror that the israelites experienced. and in the midst of all this pain, the prophets implore Israel to pursue justice and mercy.

and yet, in isaiah 40, what seems to be comforting to the Israelites is release and freedom at the cost of the babylonian empire. the conquered people await the conquering of others. there is no mercy in this, it is perpetuating a cycle of violence based on the promise of redemption.

despite it being the voice of the prophets “on behalf of god,” i don’t think the cycle of redemptive violence that is portrayed here is what the god of Israel had in mind. i think Israel is taking some liberties with the concept of god to suit their own needs.

the story that scripture presents to us is that of a relationship between human and divine. it is a dance, a series of movements back and forth, of negotiation.

let me be clear in what I am claiming here: we are made in god’s image, and we make god in our own image.

and that’s okay.