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Isaiah is winding down his great treatise on the state of his people and the prophecies that are in store for them. Speaking of Israel’s rebelliousness and turning away from the Lord, Isaiah says:
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
In the most vulnerable way, he pleads his own cause and the cause of his people in these verses. They are timeless in their quality of contriteness and utter humility:
8 Yet you, LORD, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, LORD;
do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
for we are all your people.
Next, there is a great prophecy for Jerusalem in the coming of a new heaven and a new earth. This is what the Lord says:
17 “See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy. 19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.
And what a utopian place this new Jerusalem shall be. Listen to what the Lord has promised:
20 “Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
the one who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere child;
the one who fails to reach a hundred
will be considered accursed.
And the best promise of all is saved to the last:
24 Before they call I will answer;
while they are still speaking I will hear. 25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
and dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,”
says the LORD.
Turning now to our reading of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we find Paul mentioning his fellow-workers Timothy and Epaphroditus with the greatest affection. We will learn more about Timothy by way of the letters that he himself wrote much later, but we know little about Ephphroditus, save what Paul says of him: 29 So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him.
And speaking of all the legalistic new Christians in the church, many of them converts from the Jewish tradition who insist on circumcision as a prerequisite to adopt this new faith, Paul says of them, 2 “Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.”
Next, we turn to our psalm of the day, and we find David at perhaps not the best hour of his life, but certainly at his very best in articulating his utter dependence on God. Like David, may it be that we also might say with the same confidence:
21 When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered, 22 I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory. 25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
Finally, another “saying” from Solomon, the wise king of Israel:
13 Eat honey, my son, for it is good;
honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. 14 Know also that wisdom is like honey for you:
If you find it, there is a future hope for you,
and your hope will not be cut off.
May God bless the reading and reflection of His Word.
