Isaiah of
The Fifth in the Series of Old
Testament Heroes
By Ed Winkler
Text: Isaiah 11:1-9
[1] There shall come forth a shoot from
the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. [2] And the Spirit of the LORD shall
rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel
and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. [3] And his delight shall be in the
fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what
his ears hear; [4] but with
righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of
the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the
breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. [5] Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and
faithfulness the girdle of his loins. [6]
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the
kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child
shall lead them. [7] The cow and
the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall
eat straw like the ox. [8] The
sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall
put his hand on the adder's den. [9]
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy
mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the
waters cover the sea. (Revised Standard Version)
This is the fifth in our series on Old Testament heroes.
Unlike the previous heroes of the faith, we don’t know much about Isaiah. There
is very little that we can say for certain about the life of Isaiah of
Jerusalem. While there is a Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament with 66
chapters, there is very little autobiographical information. In fact, most
scholars think that there isn’t just one Isaiah. Most scholars believe that
there are three Isaiah’s in the Book of Isaiah. Some scholars even think that
there are four Isaiah’s. The Isaiah we’re going to talk about today is the
preacher whose words are recorded in the first 39 chapters of the Book of
Isaiah. All of this may be confusing, but Isaiah is a powerful book. It spoke
powerfully to the people of its time, it spoke powerfully to Jesus, and if we
take the time to read it and understand it, it will speak powerfully to us
today.
Often when we are materially wealthy, we are spiritually
impoverished. That was true in Isaiah’s time and it is true now. Isaiah of
Jerusalem lived in the 8th century B.C. That was a time of
prosperity in
Isaiah was a prophet. We have some funny ideas about
prophets. We only think of prophets as people who predict the future. We often
think that Old Testament prophets only predicted the coming of Jesus.
Predicting the future is a tiny part of a prophet’s job. The main things that
the Old Testament prophets did were to speak for God and to call the people
back to faithfulness. That’s what Isaiah did.
Isaiah of Jerusalem had two main issues with the people of
his time. 2,700 years later, Isaiah’s issues seem very contemporary. Tweak a
few things and Isaiah could be speaking to us today.
Isaiah’s first issue with his people was false worship. The
people of his time worshiped God with their lips, but their actions said
something else about them. The people went through the motions of worshiping
God, but their hearts weren’t in it. People made their sacrifices and attended
the religious festivals, but little in their behavior said that they did want
the Lord wanted.
Isaiah’s second issue was justice—or maybe more specifically,
the lack of justice in his society. Here’s a real simple definition of justice.
Justice is everyone getting a fair shake. Let me expand that a little bit.
Justice means that everyone gets an opportunity. Justice means that everyone’s
basic needs are met. Justice means that everyone is treated with dignity and
respect. Justice means that everyone has the chance to be the best person that
they can be.
In Isaiah’s time, injustice often related to land. A few
people owned a lot of land, and a lot of people owned little or no land. Since
that was a time where most people made their living as farmers, the unequal
distribution of land meant that the rich became richer and the poor became
poorer. Beyond issues of land, Isaiah scolded the people about their lack of
concern for those in need. The Old Testament continually tells us to care for
widows, orphans, and the strangers in our land. In other words, the Old
Testament tells us to care for the most vulnerable in society.
What we call the Old Testament was the Bible for Jesus.
Jesus quoted the Book of Isaiah more than any other book in the Old Testament.
In Jesus’ first sermon before his family and friends back home in
A lot of things about 21st century
We, too, are often guilty of false worship. God told Isaiah
that the people honored God “with their lips, while their hearts are far from (God).” We could say that
today. More than 90 percent of the people in our country say that they believe
in God. The overwhelming majority of that 90 percent identify themselves as
Christians. Only about a third of those self-identified Christians are actually
in a service of worship on Sunday. It’s one thing for us to rail against those
who aren’t here, but maybe we also need to ask, “What are we doing to bring
people into our Christian fellowship? How are we spreading the Good News of
Jesus Christ?” Our failure in evangelism may be as much to blame as their
failure to attend.
We have justice issues, just as Isaiah did. In our country,
the ownership of land isn’t one of our pressing issues, although it was a
reason that a lot of our ancestors came here in the first place. Among the many
faith issues before us today, there are at least three that Isaiah would
understand. These three issues may sound like social or environmental issues,
but they are also faith and justice issues.
The first of our main faith issues today is how do we live
in a world where a few of us have so much and so many people have so little? We
may not think so, but we are astonishingly rich people. Almost all of us have
enough food to eat, clean water to drink, clothes to wear, and decent shelter
over our heads. Much of the world doesn’t have any of those. The point isn’t
for us to wallow in guilt or rationalize that we are great people and that is
why we’ve been so blessed. The point is to ask: “How can we as Christians help
bring justice to the world so that people don’t freeze to death, die of
malnutrition, or suffer from diseases caused by impure water? How can we as
Christians help bring justice to the world so that children have a chance to
grow up without being scarred by AIDS, war, or poverty?”
Yes, this is a social issue, but it is also a faith issue
because God’s word tells us over and over to care for those in need. God cares
about the quality of peoples’ lives, and God expects us to care for them, also.
The second issue is how can different groups of people learn
to live together? How can we as Christians help bring justice to the world so
that people of different races can learn to live together? How can we as
Christians help bring justice to the world so that people of different
religions, cultures, and languages can share the planet without every group
believing that it is superior and entitled to more wealth, land, or respect
than all of the others?
This, too, is not just a social issue, but a faith issue,
because God doesn’t recognize the boundaries and the walls that we build to
keep others out. The Bible tells us: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one
in Christ Jesus.” God expects us to build bridges, not walls, between people.
The third issue is how can we care for the world that God
has given us? We don’t have to be experts in global warming or environmental
science to remember what Psalm 24 tells us:
The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell
therein;
for he has founded it upon the
seas,
and established it upon the rivers.
The earth is Lord’s. It is not ours. The earth is not ours
to plunder, pillage, or pollute. God has given us the responsibility to care
for the earth, for the beautiful mountains on either side of our valley, and
for the beautiful rive that flows between them.
These three issues are social and environmental issues, to
be sure, but they are also faith issues because of what God expects of us, how
God wants us to live with each other, and how God wants us to live in God’s
world.
We just concluded our Virginia United Methodist annual
conference this week. Methodists have been meeting at annual conferences for
nearly three hundred years. At one of the early Methodist annual conferences,
someone asked the question, “What may we reasonably believe to be God’s design
for Methodists.” The answer was, “To reform the nation, particularly the
church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”
Sometimes, folks want to read “scriptural holiness” too
narrowly. Scriptural holiness is not just about individual morality. Scriptural
holiness is also about social justice. Scriptural holiness is about giving
everyone a fair opportunity to share in the earth’s resources. Scriptural
holiness is about creating a world where different groups of people can live
together. Scriptural holiness is about caring for the world that God has given
us. We United Methodist have always been at the forefront of the great
movements to bring justice to the world. Our mission statement as a
denomination is to “Make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of
the world.” God doesn’t call the church to withdraw from the world. God calls
us to engage, to change, and to improve the world.
We have a big job ahead of us, one that we surely can’t do
alone. But we don’t have to do it alone. God will guide and lead faithful
people. God will insure that there will be ultimate justice. As bad as things
may be or may become, the world won’t always be this way. God will not leave
the world the way it is now. God is working for a better world right now, and
God expects us to work for a better world, as well.
© 2008 by Ed Winkler