Monday 07 December 2009

Background

For those who wish to analyse a book of Scripture in greatdetail to understand how it came to be, Isaiah is a gift. A verycomplicated gift. But a complicated gift that can be unwrapped inmany different ways.

However, for those who wish to draw closer to God, to be touched bypowerful poetry and beautiful imagery, parts of Isaiah are amazing.Chapter 35 is one of those.

While one way of looking at Isaiah is to consider it a book of twohalves (chapters 1-39 - 'judgement'; chapters 40-66 - 'comfort'),chapter 35 stands out as being different from the rest of the first39 chapters. It contains wonderful pictures of a restored Zion(another name for Jerusalem) rather than images of judgement.

These images are very different from those that generally come tomind when we think of restored nations. In the world today,restoring nations is frequently about power, wealth, respect, tradeand jobs, yet in Isaiah 35 we see that restoration is aboutstruggling people being transformed, being freed. Thetransformations are consistent with the claims of Jesus(see Luke4:16-21).

Isaiah chapter 35 shows us that God's view of restoration is quitedifferent to from that of the world. It is about life, aboutrejoicing, about complete transformation, about righting wrongs,about safety and about bringing justice.

That prompts me to wonder whether this 'God view' of restoration islived out in many churches. How different would our behaviour be ifwe understood restoration through chapter 35 of Isaiah?

To Ponder

What do you understand by 'restoration'?

How does your view compare to the views that yousee in Isaiah 35 and those you see in the Church today?

Does it matter if Scripture is understooddifferently in different places? Why?