Lent

April 4, 2022

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 50:4-9a

The Lord God helps me;
   therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
   and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
   he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
   Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
   Let them confront me.
It is the Lord God who helps me;
   who will declare me guilty?
All of them will wear out like a garment;
   the moth will eat them up. –Isaiah 50:7-9

How do followers of Christ see the world so differently? How do we speak truth to righteousness when we cannot agree on what is just, what is of God? The prophets whose messages are recorded in the Hebrew Bible faced those same questions, about different issues but they dealt with the same blindness to the reality that was so clear to those prophets but not to the people.  History tells us that the prophets were right. How do we free ourselves from seeing what we want to see and hearing what we want to hear?

Isaiah’s message in the above scripture is that in the face of such diversity, being in sync with God becomes of even greater importance. The problem was that the people Isaiah was trying to reach thought they were following God and Isaiah was the one off-course. He concludes that only time will tell. That was too late for the Israelites, and they landed in exile. Is that our future?

Prayer: Lord, create in us clean hearts so that we might commune meaningfully with you. Amen.

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.