HAPPY EPIPHANY/THEOPHANY!
48 presents a little more chastisement to us: God quickly goes over Israel's sins. This time, however, chastisement does not end in promises of exile or hardship, but of redemption. God never leaves His people in ignorance, and does not want them to attribute their redemption to some other god. 48:16 explicitly mentions that "Me" who will be sent from God to redeem the people, and, even more exciting, is spoken by this "Me:" Jesus!
Go forth from Babylon!
Flee from the Chaldeans!
With a voice of singing,
Declare, proclaim this,
Utter it to the end of the earth;
Say, "The Lord has redeemed
His servant Jacob!"
And they did not thirst
When he led them through the deserts;
He caused the waters to flow from the rock for them;
He also split the rock, and the waters gushed out. [48:20-21]
Moreover brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. [1 Corinthians 10:1-4]
49:1-4 is also from the mouth of the Servant. He describes Himself as being "called from the womb" [49:1], "My mouth like a sharp sword," and as "hidden" [49:2]. (My footnotes tell me that the Servant's mission was hidden until He was sent in order to be more effective. Everyone loves surprises, right?) Verses 5 and 6 tell us that the goal is to bring Jacob back to the Lord, and to be a light to the Gentiles that He "shall be My salvation to the ends of the earth."
God reassures Israel that He will save them. He will not forget them, He will not give them up to Babylon or any other captor. I am particularly fond of these verses:
Shall the prey be taken from the mighty,
Or the captives of the righteous be delivered?
But thus says the Lord:
"Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away,
And the prey of the terrible be delivered;
For I will contend with him who contends with you,
And I will save your children. [49:24-25]
The Lord will contend with him who contends with us...
Our job is to love and to accept God's redemption, and God's is to judge and redeem. I find ch. 49 to be another "tough cookie," as certain people's grandmothers would say, but a promising, comforting cookie as well.
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2 comments:
It's the last lines of 49 that kill me. I really shudder; "I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine." That is enough for a horror story.
I do find God-our-Advocate an amazing image.
"The Lord will contend with him who contends with us..."
Just this past Sunday, we read aloud 35. It turned into a participatory thing, because to really read this psalm is takes . . . emotion/drama/feeling. The line that the congregation repeated is "Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me". The line out of there that I love is "Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them." Scary.
When I was reading this passage, I was remembering an argument that took place in my Sunday school class once in middle school. The whole class thought that vengeance was a whole lot of fun, regardless of what God said about it. There was only one girl in the class who vehemently disagreed, reminding the rest of us that God says "Vengeance is mine." We pretty much shrugged her off, even though we knew she was right (we were a lot like little monsters...13 year-old female monsters). Now I'm wishing we could go back in time and she could point out this passage to us. It is truly terrifying.
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