Begin with one of the major prophets—Isaiah
· Called that because of the volume of material, not because of their
importance, necessarily. Some of the minor, less voluminous prophets
are just as important in their day—they just didn’t leave us much of a
record.
· Prophets were speakers more than they were writers, so that the
writers of Isaiah left such a record is amazing
· But this is an important book, so important we are that unlike any
other book in this series, we’re going to look at it for 2 sessions
· Two main reasons why Isaiah is important
o Because it covers so much of Israel’s experience, some 300 years
if modern scholarship is right.
o Because it contains, by far, most of the Messianic passages that
so much of our faith as Christians rest upon.
Point 1: The amount of experience it covers in its pages and the themes
of unity it embraces.
1) Traditionally, this book was understood as one book written by
one author, written sometime between 740-732 BCE
2) Most recent scholarship states that the book is actually the work
of at least three different authors and that editors continued to shape the
materials and writers continued to write in Isaiah’s name, speaking to
their own specific historical situation.
Two reasons:
a. Different styles of writing styles and very different ways of putting
words together from one major section to another.
b. The other thing: they noticed that different sections of the book
covered very different events, sometimes marked by hundreds of years
ago.
i. Author would be talking as if an event had already happened and
the prophet was explaining it or seeking to bring meaning out of it.
ii. Some scholars have tried to argue that the prophet foresaw future
events, and talked as if they had already happened.
iii. The problem with this: it really makes the role of the prophet
meaningless IN HIS OWN TIME.
iv. Remember about how the prophet doesn’t just forecast the future
just to be a divine fortune teller? The prophet tells what will happen if
the people go in a bad direction—but the whole point is to get the people
change their ways, to change the inevitable by repenting and doing right
by God and the poor. Not a show-off—not Jeane Dixon.
v. If the events happens literally hundreds years in the future, and
he speaks as if it is really inevitable, then it becomes meaningless to the
people he is speaking to. It makes what the prophet says meaningless.
vi. Prophets can help change the future, because they show the
people must be done to avoid disaster.
This seems odd to us—that there was this original prophet, Isaiah, who
lived in the 8th century, and whose subsequent words were edited and
then added onto. It feels like you were doing identity theft—but the
ancient world didn’t see it that away.
Scripture was not owned by a person, it was property of the community,
and if ancient editors of the text felt that a new prophetic words were
coming from God in the spirit of Isaiah, saying the same words of both
rebuke and hope, then they didn’t have a problem with adding it on—
first, it fit into the spirit of Isaiah, with his hopeful but chastising
approach. Secondly, it helped add authority to text, to the new words
being spoken by God, and they wanted people to hear these new
words. We just treat our ownership of words differently than the ancients
did. Most scholars think it was done many times in the New Testament
as well.
c. Chapters 1-4—4th century BCE—the people are back in
Jerusalem after Babylonian Exile
d. Chapter 5-12—from 740-732 BCE, oldest part of the book where
warnings about the coming Assyrians abound—also some Messianic stuff
e. Chapters 13-27—The threat of Assyria invading Judah until about
538 BCE, when Babylon falls to Assyria, written over 200 years and
focuses on the defeat of ALL of the Jewish’s people enemies—everyone
who Israel has ever had a beef with gets mentioned here
f. Chapter 28-39—dealing with the situation of Hezekiah’s revolt
against Assyrians in 705-701 BCE
g. Chapters 40-55—written a decade before the fall of Babylon in
538 BCE—presumes that the people are in captivity.
h. Chapters 56-66—probably written after Jews return back from
Babylonian Exile—lots of Messianic passages. The fate of the royal
house of David is emphasized
This seems odd to us—that there was this original prophet, Isaiah, who
lived in the 8th century, and whose subsequent words were edited and
then added onto. It feels like you were doing identity theft—but the
ancient world didn’t see it that away.
Scripture was not owned by a person, it was property of the community,
and if ancient editors of the text felt that a new prophetic words were
coming from God in the spirit of Isaiah, saying the same words of both
rebuke and hope, then they didn’t have a problem with adding it on—
first, it fit into the spirit of Isaiah, with his hopeful but chastising
approach. Secondly, it helped add authority to text, to the new words
being spoken by God, and they wanted people to hear these new
words. We just treat our ownership of words differently than the ancients
did. Most scholars think it was done many times in the New Testament
as well.
The whole point of this Isaiah is to bring unity:
1) wanted point to the unity and destiny of Israel as the people of
God as they face constant threat by the powers in the region. No matter
what happens, at whomever’s hands, you are God’s people, you are my
own.
2) And one of the ways the author of Isaiah does this to point to the
importance of a city—Jerusalem.
a. Becomes the symbol, the way to talk about our hopes and
dreams. The center of Israel’s spiritual, political universe.
b. The way to talk about hope is to talk about how God is going to
restore Jerusalem to its previous glory.
Point 2—Isaiah contains most of the Messianic passages that are so
important to us Christians.
Isaiah is quoted by the New Testament more than any other book of the
Hebrew Scriptures.
The ancient church fathers called it the fifth Gospel, they felt it was so
important to the life of the church.
Our faith is rooted in the Messiah that Isaiah speaks of—this idea that
there will be this Messiah who will save the people of Israel.
This Messiah will restore the royal household/throne of Israel in
Jerusalem, and bring back honor to the people of Israel.
Isaiah 64:1-9
1 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
2£ as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3 When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
4 From ages past no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who works for those who wait for him.
5 You meet those who gladly do right,
those who remember you in your ways.
But you were angry, and we sinned;
because you hid yourself we transgressed.£
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7 There is no one who calls on your name,
or attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have delivered£ us into the hand of our iniquity.
8 Yet, O LORD, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O LORD,
and do not remember iniquity forever.
Now consider, we are all your people.
Find a lot of these types of text in Advent season.
Isaiah calls for raw power, but God responds with a child.
Tear open the sky, answer with naked power.
The writer flatters God.
And yet, and yet…the manger, the stable, Mary and Joseph, the silent,
still night, the angels with only a small audience of working shepherds to
sing to, the crying child—that is God’s answer to Isaiah’s call for
violence. That is the answer to this prophet who pleads for justice, for
God’s presence. The sky is opened, yes, that comes true, but Isaiah is
not given the God who makes mountains tremble, the God who lays
waste with fire all that needs razing. No, the God of Israel enters the
world by meeting our vulnerability, our helplessness, by becoming
helpless too, by becoming vulnerable too, in this Jesus of Nazareth, in
this flesh and blood answer to Isaiah’s cries for help. It’s not an answer
that I would instinctively go for—really, fire and thunder have their lure,
they have their charm. But instead, God answers Isaiah, the world,
answers us, with this helpless child, crying in a manger. God’s answer to
our sin, to our separation is to become vulnerable in death, just as God
has become vulnerable in life, in the form of this helpless child in a
manger, something we will witness during this Advent and Christmas
season. The cross is simply the end of a story that began in Advent, the
story of God’s presence with us, God’s presence with us in our joy and
God’s presence us with in our pain. Advent and Easter, tell the story of
God’s answer to our cries for justice, to our cries for help, by staying by
us, by attending to us, by crying with us, by laughing with us, by being
vulnerable to us and to the world. The story of God’s vulnerability
begins here, at this moment, when God comes among us as one of us, in
this child, in this Jesus of Nazareth.
