Isaiah 9:1-7: A ray of hope

Although Isaiah has largely been giving his people bad news, there is a glimmer of light. The food may have overwhelmed them, but their heads are still above the water.

There is an important concept in Isaiah, of the Remnant. Once all the evil, faithless people have been flooded out, burned by fire, killed by the sword or swallowed by darkness, there will be a few left whose goodness and righteousness will shine out. The fewer there are, the brighter their light will shine. Take this to the nth degree, and you have just one individual left, who shines as brightly as God himself.

We met this idea for the first time today - one individual, who becomes the embodiment of all that Israel should be.

The poetic image Isaiah gives us in this passage is one of darkness, swallowing the land, from the north, moving south. Like a weather forecaster on a really bad day, he is describing a wave of invasion sweeping down across the country, but then promising that in the north where the darkness first hit, there the light will begin to shine again. Of course, we Christians get excited about this, because Jesus grew up in the north, in Galilee, and we love to see foreshadowing of Jesus in Isaiah's words.

But Isaiah's first hearers would have no inkling of this, and for them the weather forecaster is simply saying, there will be a spot of brightness in the darkest part of the map, and as we zoom in on it, you won't believe how brightly it shines.

There will be a son born to us, princely rule will be his. He will be a wonder amongst counsellors, supernatural in wisdom, God himself coming in person, in victorious power and fatherly care.

The prophecy of Isaiah has a very difficult mission. God gave this book  the task of conjuring hope out of complete and utter despair. The crisis hasn't hit yet, the despair is still in the future, but here is a first taste of the way Isaiah's words will rekindle hope.

Isaiah 8:9-22: Keep calm and carry on

Although there is terrible trouble ahead, Isaiah foresees that there will be at least a few people who survive it. He's got them in mind in these words. He doesn't want them believing the conspiracy theories, getting panicked by wild talk, he wants them to stay secure in God.

So he reminds his hearers that just as God has got his strong hand on him personally, just as he and his family have become living signs to God's love, so God will be available like a strong tower, like a rock or a fortress. Some people will dash themselves against this rock, and be smashed, like a ship out of control in a stormy sea. They've allowed themselves to be blown this way and that by contradictory and untrustworthy voices, like asking the dead for their opinion of the living (what do they know about it?), like believing conspiracy theories.

Don't fill yourselves with random fears, he says. Fear God, and you need not fear anything else.

Isaiah 7:18-8:8: Bad decision, Ahaz!

Yesterday, we heard God's message to the young king - "trust me."

Today, we read of the consequences of what his majesty actually did.

Ahaz realised that Aram and Israel had come together because of their fear of Assyria, so he tried to outwit them by asking Assyria to intervene on his behalf. He actually invited them in!

Isaiah puts it like this: "you have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah," (this was Jerusalem's water supply - see yesterday) and therefore "the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates" are sweeping in, and you'll be up to your neck in it.

The Euphrates river, of course, flows through Assyria.

Mess with these powers at your peril, God is saying.

There's also another prophetic baby. Perhaps both of them are Isaiah's children. This second one is saddled with an embarrassing name. Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz means something like "swift to the plunder, swift to the spoil," which is exactly what the Assyrians were. I wonder what the lad was called by his playmates?

Hosea called his children by prophetic names as well. Makes me think my children didn't have it so bad after all. Both of them have met friends at uni who were also vicarage children, and shared stories of the strange life they led. There's even a hashtag: #vicaragelife

I think I'd still rather be them than Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz

Isaiah 7:1-17: A message for Ahaz

Uzziah died. A strong king, although unfaithful to God and stricken with leprosy. His death brought Ahaz to the throne, and God's call to Isaiah in the same year.

We are now a little further on - a couple of years into Ahaz's reign, and he is facing his first big crisis. The Northern kingdom has joined forces with Aram to attack Judah. Israel and Aram were old enemies, now forced to be friends in the light of a bigger aggressive force - the empire of Assyria. The two kings know they can't defeat Assyria, but maybe they can take Judah down, and so strengthen their hand.

We can imagine the anxious arguments and discussion in the royal court in Jerusalem: What's going on? Why are they doing it? What are their chances? How can we defend Jerusalem?

Interestingly, God arranges a meeting between his prophet and his king, not in the city, not in the royal palace, but outside at their point of weakness. At this stage in Jerusalem's history, the city's water supply is brought in on an aqueduct from outside the city walls. Later on, it was put into a tunnel, so that enemies couldn't cut the water off. But as of now, Ahaz knows, if it comes to a siege of Jerusalem, this aqueduct is their weak spot.

So Isaiah has a message from God: Keep Calm and Carry On.

He seems to have forgotten the name of Israel's king - you know, what's his name? Remaliah's lad. Saying it like this diminishes him. If you can't even remember his name, you can't be too worried about him.

The essence of God's messages is unexpectedly political: don't worry about Israel and Aram - they're nearly burnt out. Pretty soon Assyria's going to crush them like a twig. Believe me! I'll prove it to you. Ask me for a sign.

Ahaz draws himself up and says, "No! I will not ask my God for a sign."

"Don't be an idiot," replies God. "I'll give you a sign anyway. Imagine a young woman giving birth to a son, calls him Immanuel. (which of course means 'God with us.') Before that boy has finished with his mother's milk, those enemies of yours will be as nothing.

Faith isn't a leap into the dark. It's a leap into the light.

Isaiah 6:9-13: God's message for Isaiah

"They won't listen, but tell them anyway."

That's quite often what God seems to say to the prophets. The people are blind and deaf, but I still want you to hold up signs in front of their eyes and shout my message into their ears.

There's a basic paradox going on here - we can't see what God sees. Isaiah was deafened by the din of heaven and blinded by the smoke of incense. He couldn't even see God seated on the throne, yet God can see clearly every little habit-forming choice that every little human being is making every little moment of their little lives.

God knows exactly what they're doing to themselves. They're heading for ruin and desolation, and they don't know and don't care.

They're in a pleasure boat, heading for a waterfall. And Isaiah's just been given the job of ringing the alarm bells.

Isaiah 6:1-8: Isaiah's Call

Woh! Wait a minute. We turn the page to chapter 6, and suddenly we need to see what's come before in a new light. Why? Because now we get the beginning of the story - Isaiah describes his call to prophecy. Which makes what's gone before ... what? A prologue?

The themes we have encountered so far - the people's unfaithfulness, their forgetfulness of God, their preoccupation with pleasure and wealth instead of righteousness, and God's simmering anger about it all, begin to make more sense when we realise belatedly what sort of person Isaiah was.

He's an insider - a member of the royal court, casually dropping the names of kings as if he saw them every day. He is a religious man - maybe a priest or a Levite - someone very familiar with the Temple. Not a person who just came up once a year for the festival, but a regular. The sort of person who would notice when the building needs a clean.

And one day, perhaps when he was going about his daily duties (maybe even with a broom in hand) his view of the Temple shimmers and changes, and the peace of the half empty building is replaced by a clanging, roaring aural onslaught of angelic worship: the sound is turned up to 11 and the doorposts shook.

A dazzling throne has replaced what was normally in his field of view, and clouds of incense obscure the sight of the Majesty seated upon it. Whirling overhead are strange six-winged creatures booming out their praise to God.

Isaiah crumples to his knees. He feels ruined, dirty, unworthy to witness this spectacle. Then a burning coal singes one of the most delicate parts of his body, and a mighty seraph tells him that his sin has been burnt away.

Now he can understand an urgent question that is being asked in heaven: "Who is there who will go for me? Who can I send?"

Here I am Lord.

Send me.

Isaiah 5:8-30: Judah's guilt & judgement

Capability Brown. A gardener on the epic scale. Could have been useful to some of the rich people of Judah, who found their way round the laws that were meant to ensure that every family had the same amount of land - enough to farm and live on. They'd been busy adding house to house,and field to field, until they lived in splendid isolation in the middle of a large estate.

Now they incur God's wrath, because, as Isiah knows, he has noticed. The rich have blinded themselves to other people's poverty, their consciences are untroubled. But God sees, and Isaiah has a vision of a day when their manicured lawns will be turned over to wild grazing, their big houses empty and open to the elements.

God will not be fooled forever.