Readings: Isaiah 45: 1-7 NIVUK
Where: St Stephens 22 October
Minister: Brent Richardson
45 ‘This is what the Lord says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armour,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
2 I will go before you
and will level the mountains;[a]
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
3 I will give you hidden treasures,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
4 For the sake of Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honour,
though you do not acknowledge me.
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
6 so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.
Footnotes:
- Isaiah 45:2 Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint; the meaning of the word in the Masoretic Text is uncertain.
(P) Who’s in charge? That has been a question that has held the country transfixed for the past few weeks while the politicians jostled and negotiated to form a new government. The media impatiently speculated while Winston and his team got down to business. Most of us have just carried on with our lives but it’s nice to have a decision finally made. We like to know who is in charge.
We humans don’t cope well when no one is in charge. Whether we like it or not we need to be led. When there’s no leadership, things quickly fall apart. This is brilliantly portrayed in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies which tells the tale of a group of British school boys marooned on a tropical island and their rapid descent into savagery. Because no one is in charge, anarchy and chaos ensue.
Our reading from Isaiah takes us to a time when Israel were living through the disaster of their exile from their homeland to Babylon, a pagan foreign empire that had crushed their beloved city Jerusalem and carried off the best and brightest to serve the empire. It must have been a terrible time for these people whose identity was wrapped up in the promise of Yahweh to bless them with a land of their own and national peace and prosperity.
But because of their worship of false gods and various injustices practiced by the ruling elites, God sends judgement upon them, expelling them from the land of promise. It was a very bitter pill to swallow, to live under the command and authority of a pagan king and the constant nagging question they had was (P) “Is the God of Israel, our God, still in charge?
(P) In those days each nation had its own god or gods. The idea that there was one God over all of creation was inconceivable. They also believed that these gods would fight each other and so human warfare was a reflection of cosmic warfare. It followed that if your country was defeated in war this was proof positive that your gods were inferior to the conquerors’ gods. So, for the Jews in exile, the big question was “Is the God of Israel defeated like the nation of Israel?”
Into this confusion and darkness, the words of Isaiah 45 speak great assurance; “I am the Lord and there is no other; apart from me there is no God” (45:5). This is the refrain that rings throughout scriptures and especially the OT prophets who continuously denounce the idols and false gods of Israel’s neighbours.
But does this claim have any substance or is it merely bluster? Anyone could declare the Lord to be the only God but is there any backing to that claim? To answer that we can consider the accounts recorded in the book of Daniel. Daniel was one of those taken to Babylon in the exile and served in the royal court of Nebuchadnezzar and lived through the reigns of Belshazzar, Darius and Cyrus (the same king mentioned here).
He was a man of great integrity and faithfulness to Yahweh. Because of this he was blessed with an ability to interpret dreams and had experienced the rescue of God from at least 2 life threatening situations. The first was when he and 3 friends were cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down in worship of Nebuchadnezzars’ image. They miraculously escape and emerge from the furnace unharmed. The second when he was rescued from the lion’s pit, again unharmed.
These events serve to affirm the truth that even though his people are in exile God is not defeated. He will rescue and fulfill his promises to his people who remain faithful to him. And that is what is stressed in Isaiah 45. A new king is on the throne- Cyrus- who is Persian and who is taking over the Babylonian Empire. This is God’s doing. God calls Cyrus “his anointed”. That is, his specially chosen instrument to bring about his purposes, which in this case was the release of the Jews back to their homeland (See Ezra 1).
There’s an important message here about how we see God in action around us. To the Jews at this time it would have been a challenging concept to see this pagan king Cyrus as God’s anointed. How could God use someone who doesn’t even believe in him? (P)
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honour,
though you do not acknowledge me. (v 4)
I’ve been pondering this passage this week and thinking about how much benefit has come to humanity by people who don’t acknowledge God. Medical breakthroughs that sustain and enhance the quality of life; scientific advancements that make our lives safer and more comfortable and productive; social movements that address injustice and inequality. Can these things be seen as signs of God’s rule and reign? Yet the church has often lagged behind and sometimes been opposed to progress.
Take feminism for example. This movement has led to greater equality between men and women. Time was when women could be held in abusive relationships because a divorce was nearly impossible to get due to enshrined power imbalances between the sexes. Time was when women were shut out of careers and industries deem unsuitable to them. Income inequality is still an issue but has improved dramatically over the years.
The point is, sexual equality is a biblical principle; Jesus promoted it and Paul affirmed it- (Gal 3:28- we are one in Christ regardless of gender, ethnicity or social status). But in our time, it was those outside the church who championed this cause. Christians don’t have a monopoly on good works! Or even on doing God’s work!
And just like the Jews in exile we need to be alert for how God is moving and speaking in our time. If we don’t we can easily miss what he is saying and doing. This is the great challenge for the church today; to be alert to God moving in unexpected ways so that we don’t simply give up, baton down the hatches and wait for the storm to pass. No, we look for God in the storm!
Our reading finishes with a troubling verse: (P)
7 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.
Light and prosperity I have no issue with. But darkness and disaster? He creates those too? This can conjure up an image of a fierce vengeful God who unleashes fury in the form of fire storms, hurricanes and earthquakes. But that’s not what this is saying. This is challenging the belief that the forces of good and evil are equally balanced in a yin and yang sort of way with no way of knowing which will dominate. It is saying God is in charge of it all.
This also challenges the modern idol of rationalism which believes no one is really in charge. All that we see and experience is the result of a happy accident between blind forces and time. That we are alone in the universe- at least in the sense of not having a personable creator to which we are responsible. It is assumed that the processes of evolution explain away the concept (or need) of a creator. But really it just explains the means of the endless creativity God has placed in the cosmos.
Where are you today? Are you in the darkness struggling to see God at work in your life? Perhaps questioning if he is still there, if he still cares. Hear the word of assurance: “I am the Lord and there is no other”. This is a word of hope given to a people who were short on hope. It is the same word of hope to us today. God hasn’t left the building. He is still in charge.
And he always will be.
