Category Archives: Isaiah

Lent Reflections: The Servant of Gethsemane

Posted on March 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

Last week my friend Joshua Toepper (www.trinitarianmission.com) and I spent the day hiking, praying, and listening to God at the Abbey of Gethsemane. The following video is a reflection from one of the statues in the woods:

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Posted in Christianity, Christology, Church Calendar, Isaiah, Jesus Christ, Lent

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Epiphany In Worship

Posted on February 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

The season of Epiphany, when the Church explicitly remembers how Jesus is revealed as God in the Gospels is now coming to a end.  In this season we have followed the Magi, remembered Christ’s baptism, and  witnessed the Kingdom of God. Yet before we look too far down the path of Epiphany, to the palms of Sunday and the ashes of Wednesday, let us consider Jesus’ revelation as God in Worship.

The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) all mention the account of Jesus teaching at the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. In the Luke account we find that  during this Sabbath worship service it was Jesus’ turn to read the scroll, which happened to have been from  the Prophet Isaiah. SO as was the custom, Jesus takes the scroll of Isaiah, stands up and gives the reading:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

This verse is drawn from Isaiah 61:1-2 and 58:6. What was Jesus’ interpretation of these verses from the Prophet for those in attendance?  ”Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk4:21). There was amazement at the grace of his words and then the questions and challenges came, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Jesus then begins to unpack his amplified interpretation of these verses from Isaiah in Luke 4:24-30 as the hearers with rage try to lay hands on him. To think that God would extend his grace and blessing outside of “clean & chosen” Israel to lepers, widows, the poor, and Gentiles!

The people of Nazareth missed Jesus as God in the reading and failed to glorify God, acknowledging him for who he is. Today I sometimes wonder if the church fails in this respect to acknowledge God for who he is in worship. Three benchmarks for worship as a response to God’s glory (that I have adapted from Simon Chan’s Liturgical Theology) are:

  1. Worship is not something we do for God - “Praise” does not bring down the glory of God. “Waiting” does not bring down the glory of God. “Playing Louder Music” does not bring down the glory of God. The glory of God is a self-giving gift and thus, everything we are and have to offer is a gift from God.
  2. Worship is its own end. In the pragmatic context in which we find ourselves in history, everything including worship has to have and end or purpose (mostly for us). What do you mean Jesus this reading is fulfilled in our hearing? Aren’t you Joseph’s boy? What’s in it for us? As William Willimon writes, “Worship loses is integrity when it is regarded instrumentally as a means of something else-even as a means of achieving the most noble of human purposes”
  3. Worship is a response to God’s total character. True worship must reflect the reality of who the triune God is. I agree with John Wesley’s observation of the verse that Jesus reads above, “The Spirit of Lord is upon me” as a reference to the Holy Trinity. Do we worship a triune God today in American Christianity?

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Posted in Epiphany, Holy Spirit, Isaiah, Kingdom of God, Luke, Mark, Matthew, Theology, Trinity, Worship

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The Epiphany of Suffering

Posted on February 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

During this past week suffering and death have been ever before me: From a philosophy class I am taking on Suffering, Tragedy and the Christian Faith, to a Time article written by Rob Bell concerning him getting his call to be a pastor in the midst of severe headaches, to a guest lecturer in Chapel talking about growing up in the persecuted Church of Columbia, to filling out ACPE (Association of Clinical Pastoral Education) applications about my views of spiritual care and suffering, and last night hearing a friend’s testimony about God’s presence with him in the midst of his young wife’s death. These events bring me to today:  the Lord’s Day, Sunday, the First day, and the eschatological eighth day… and then I’m reminded of the “reason for the season”, Epiphany – Christ being revealed as God in the Gospels… in the midst of suffering.

Before the Passion of Lent and the Resurrection of Easter comes the Epiphany of the B.C. proclamation in Isaiah 53, “Surely he has borne our infirmities   and carried our diseases;  yet we accounted him stricken,  struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,  crushed for our iniquities;  upon him was the punishment that made us whole,  and by his bruises we are healed.”

The picture  and the Isaiah 53 passage above are an attempt to articulate the reality of suffering, tragedy, sin and death in light of the reality of Jesus as LORD. It attempts to show that the cross is not only a historical event, but it is also a reality of God’s cruciform love for the world. I remember Robert Mulholland saying in class, “The Cross is not just something Jesus DID, it is a revelation of  WHO God is.” During the season of Epiphany we see Jesus transfigured before us as God: Healing diseases, exorcising demons, and raising the dead. We follow the reality of Jesus as God in Epiphany into the reality of Christ’s cruciform love revealed in the Passion of Lent.

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Posted in Christianity, Christology, Church Calendar, Epiphany, Incarnation, Isaiah, The Cross

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Epiphany B.C.

Posted on January 31, 2011 | Leave a comment

On Sundays I reflect on the Church calendar as a way to abide in a different time line; to offer my inner most being to the triune God be formed and renewed  into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Last week I wrote about the Kingdom of God and how Jesus Christ is revealed in the poor. This week’s post focuses around the idea that Epiphany is first imagined in human history not in the Gospels, but in the Prophets of the Old Testament.

I am about a month behind on my yearly Bible reading plan for 2010. Since I have had more ‘free time’ between semesters, I have been reading big chunks from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Revelation, and the Gospels. I have found that the Prophets (particularly Isaiah) can give us ‘glimpses’ or a ‘preview’ of the Epiphany events recorded in the Gospels. Jesus and the early church drew upon the imagery, language, and actualized the motifs, promises, and prophetic declarations of some of these OT Prophets.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. In the Gospel according to Luke (ch. 4) we find Jesus returning from his desert temptation with the Devil, filled with the Holy Spirit he began to teach in the synagogues. This is the  account of one of his ‘teachings’ in Luke 4:16-19:

When he [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of the sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim they year of the Lord’s favor.”

The portion of the Isaiah scroll that Jesus read is form Isaiah 61 verses 1-2. If you read the scroll a little further you will find the writer of Isaiah 61 making prophetic declarations and promises from the Lord. If these promises sound too great to us on this side of Easter, then imagine if you both heard and saw the promises of Isiah 61 fulfilled in your neighbor’s son:

“And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In order for us to more deeply understand how Jesus Christ is revealed as God in the Gospels during this season of Epiphany, we need to the 20/20 vision of Pentecost (the Holy Spirit) to see Jesus as the fulfillment of what the prophets longed for. Without God’s grace to see and hear we are like those Jesus spoke to in parables, ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’ Or we respond to the Epiphany of Christ with skepticism:

“All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “is not this Joseph’s son?” … And Jesus said, “truly i tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

How do we respond to Jesus fulfilling Isaiah?

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Posted in Church Calendar, Epiphany, Isaiah