Wednesday, December 3 - Isaiah 2:1-11
The poetry of today's reading from the prophet Isaiah is filled with stunning visual images. Notice what it says in verse 1: The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. As you read - preferably out loud - today's segment from Isaiah, can you see the word, the vision, that Isaiah is trying to convey to you?
There are pictures of nations streaming to Zion so they might be taught how to live in justice and peace with their neighbours, and of nations transforming their weapons of destruction into agricultural tools.
These pictures are offered as an antidote, a transformational corrective, to what Isaiah saw around him. The first chapter of Isaiah is filled with pictures of war, destruction, terror, oppression, and corruption. They could be lifted right off the daily television, newspaper, or internet news service. Countries are being laid waste, cities are burning, and the land is being destroyed by outsiders. Furthermore, the people are engaging in all kinds of religious observances but God is tired of all that; instead, what God desires is for the people to "cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."
The readings of the season of Advent, including today's, are a kind of counter-cultural antidote to the sentimentalism and consumerism that can dominate the span of time leading up to Christmas; they are part of the reason I look forward to, and am mightily challenged by, Advent.
Marilyn Malton
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| "Isaiah Wall" on the way to the United Nations |
The poetry of today's reading from the prophet Isaiah is filled with stunning visual images. Notice what it says in verse 1: The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. As you read - preferably out loud - today's segment from Isaiah, can you see the word, the vision, that Isaiah is trying to convey to you?
There are pictures of nations streaming to Zion so they might be taught how to live in justice and peace with their neighbours, and of nations transforming their weapons of destruction into agricultural tools.
These pictures are offered as an antidote, a transformational corrective, to what Isaiah saw around him. The first chapter of Isaiah is filled with pictures of war, destruction, terror, oppression, and corruption. They could be lifted right off the daily television, newspaper, or internet news service. Countries are being laid waste, cities are burning, and the land is being destroyed by outsiders. Furthermore, the people are engaging in all kinds of religious observances but God is tired of all that; instead, what God desires is for the people to "cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."
The readings of the season of Advent, including today's, are a kind of counter-cultural antidote to the sentimentalism and consumerism that can dominate the span of time leading up to Christmas; they are part of the reason I look forward to, and am mightily challenged by, Advent.
Marilyn Malton
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