Isaiah 11 – The
coming Messiah will spring from the stock of Jesse [David’s father]. The
“Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the
Lord” (11:2).
He will not judge by appearances. Integrity will be his
loincloth and faithfulness the “belt about his hips” (11:5). He will bring the
peace of Eden: “In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the
leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be
safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all” (11:6).
“In that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of
salvation to all the world” (11:10). He will bring back the scattered people of
Judah and end the enmity between Judah and Ephraim. “The Lord will make a dry
path through the gulf of the Red Sea. He will wave his hand over the Euphrates
River, sending a mighty wind to divide it into seven streams so it can easily
be crossed on foot” (11:15).
Isaiah 12 – A hymn
of thanksgiving is offered up to the Lord. The anger of the Lord has been
appeased. “The Lord is my strength and my salvation” (12:2). “With joy you will
drink deeply from the fountain of salvation!” (12:3)
The great things the Lord has done shall be made know to all
the world.
Isaiah 13 – This
oracle on the kingdom of Babylon is about the judgment God will bring on them
for their offenses: “I will punish the world for its evil-doing, and the wicked
for their crimes, to put an end to the pride of arrogant men and humble the
pride of despots” (13:11).
While the title and occasion reference make Babylon the
target, the language of the oracle is more general – more world-wide. Towards
the end, the city of Babylon seems more specifically the topic. The introductory
note to the chapter says that the oracle was likely written during the exile.
From Leadings: A Catholic’s Journey Through
Quakerism
Part 18
I don’t remember exactly how it started to change, but
suddenly I began to see that this was a way of seeing the cross, a way that
illuminated what we were going through day to day, what we were hoping for and
waiting for. I was familiar with
Christian language and teachings, but I had never heard of Christ spoken of in
these terms. He had always been presented as an outward thing to me, a person crucified for sins long ago, or off
in heaven somewhere at the right hand of God, wherever that was, or present in
the Eucharist or in some other thing or place that was always outside of me.
But Friends said Christ was in me. His crucifixion was something to be joined
with in the depths of my being. What he was going in my life now was what he had
come to do in history, and he was inviting me to be joined to him, to trust as
he did in his Father to bring forth something good in his own time. It was
startling to me to think of Christ as something present in me. Later, when I
came to study what early Friends had taught, it was apparent that they had been
started at the thought too. The following is Isaac Penington’s account of his
own “convincement”:
The Lord
caused his holy power to fall upon me, and gave me such
an inward demonstration and feeling
of the seed of life, that I cried
out in my spirit, This is he, this is he, there is not
another, there never was another. He was always near me though I knew him not, not
so sensibly, not so distinctly, as now he was revealed in me, and to me by the
Father. (Isaac Penington, The Light
Within and Selected Writings, 6).
I had experienced the
nearness of God many times in my life: helping me overcome a tangle of lies
so I could start life fresh in a new place, comforting me when I felt rejected
or strange living apart from my parents, strengthening me when I was afraid of
going to sleep, speaking to me out of the night sky when I needed my
grandfather to not die, whispering to me in the words of a great poem. He was always near me though I knew him not,
not so sensibly, not so distinctly, as now he was revealed in me . . .
On the simplest level, what I came to see and then to
experience as I let my defenses down and opened myself to the possibility that
God and Christ might be real and present to me in this interior kind of way
were the two fundamental things early Friends taught: that the Christ of
history, the Christ who suffered crucifixion and rose again—the light and word
of God that John spoke of in his gospel—dwelled
really and palpably in the depths of every human person, and that this
Christ was not in us to merely be a presence or aura of some kind, but was a
power working in us to redeem us from the spiritual death that is the “normal”
or “natural” state of our existence in this world. Christ dwells within you,
and he is there to lead you to life.
This was the Quaker
Message—the early Quaker message.
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