Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Reflection on Isaiah 12:2-6

 


Isaiah 12:2-6

2 Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid,
for the Lord God is my strength and my might, and has become my salvation.
3 With joy you will draw water
  from the wells of salvation.
4 And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the Lord, call on God’s name;
make known the deeds of the Lord among the nations; proclaim that this name is exalted.
5 Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously;
  let this be known in all the earth.
6 Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.


Reflection

Life without God is chaos.  At least the author of Isaiah thinks so.  More to the point, the author of Isaiah knows so.  He knows what happens if God withdraws from us.  His nation crumbed from a flood of chaotic forces which were allowed to slam into Judah and Israel.  The chaos were like walls of water that were released and allowed to flood the land after God’s protective hand was removed. 

Such is what happens when you forget.  When you forget to care for the vulnerable around you, the walls holding back the waters of chaos are taken away and returned to God; chaos floods the land.  After that, God can make a fresh start. 

It is not a literal flood of water, of course.  God promised never to do that again after saving Noah.  But, it is a flood of enemies, allowed to pillage the land.  When your heart becomes hard and you forget to love and care, it needs to be destroyed and replaced.  When your nation forgets to care, another nation may need to arise to destroy and replace.  The author knows that life without God is chaos.

So does the young man who decided to trust only in himself for a change.  He left his family and his faith to live his life his way with his own rules.  It was fun.  It was parties.  It was lights.  It was love.  It was high highs.  It became chaos. 

You can only destroy your body for so long.  And, when it is destroyed, and those who helped destroy it are nowhere to be found, who is left?  Who will save you?  Life without God is chaos.

“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid” (Isaiah 12:2).  I am not sure if the author is trying to convince us of God’s salvation or if he is trying to convince himself; as if saying it out loud will make it more true.

“Surely God will save me, surely God will save me, surely God cares.  I guess, now that everything else has fallen apart, I have no choice but to trust that God is here.”

“I will trust, and will not be afraid” he convinces himself and us.

Do you know what happens when you finally, truly, deeply trust that God is here, present with us, and you finally trust that God actually cares?  God gives you new eyes.  Rather than seeing all that is wrong with the world, and wrong with your life, you start to see God.  You start to see the wonders of God, which look exactly like what we see in Jesus.  We start to see the healing.  We start to see the forgiveness and people coming closer together.  We start to see the feeding.  We start to see the life growing in dark places.  We start to see the power of the cross over death.  We start to see God, who has never wanted to withdraw, but just could not see any other way to get our attention.

And, when we see God, and we see God’s love becoming very, very real in front of our eyes, we start to say things like, “Give thanks to the Lord, call on God’s name” (Isaiah 12:4).  And, “Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously” (Isaiah 12:5).  And, “sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 12:6). 

After-all, God does not have to allow the water to destroy us.  God very much prefers to allow the water to provide for us, “wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3).  Waters that cleanse us rather than drown us.  Waters that provide nourishment for life, rather than swamp our life.  Waters that save and draw us into God’s family rather than making us float away.

“The Lord God is my strength and my might, and has become my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2).

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