Christmastide
January 2, 2023
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 42:1-9
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching. –Isaiah 42:1-4
The word translated as justice in this scripture is the Hebrew word for judgment*. Justice is also used in English translations for doing the right thing or what is fair. Here we have this Servant, the One who is to come, being charged with the responsibility of rendering judgment, measuring whether God’s people, that is all of us, are doing the right thing and being fair. John 5:22 tell us that Jesus Christ understood that rendering of ultimate judgment was one of his duties, not ours; The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son. I fear we devote more time to the role of judging rather than fulfilling the roles of doing the right thing or being fair. We are sometimes murky about understanding what is right and what is fair.
On November 13, 2022, the bodies of four white college students were found in Idaho. National news has followed the story since that time. On November 20, 2022, four Chinese nationals’ bodies were found on a marijuana farm in Oklahoma. I have never heard any reports regarding these murders on national news. I wondered what the difference was between these two stories. The police in both cases have pursued and captured suspects. Here, I want to focus on how We, the People, make justice judgments regularly that eventually impact how we pursue the Common Good in a democracy. Are white college students worth more than Chinese nationals, who were probably undocumented, perhaps here against their own will to do hard labor to produce marijuana on the ever expanding Chinese-owned and operated farms in Oklahoma? Do We, the People, drive the content of the news, or does the news define our civic understanding? How much does greed drive our judgments and, thus, our public policies? What is fair, what is right?
Prayer: Lord, guide us as you send us out like sheep into the midst of wolves; [to] be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16). Amen.
*https://biblehub.com/interlinear/isaiah/42-1.htm
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.