Thursday • 1/28/2021
Week of 3 Epiphany
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 50; Isaiah 49:13–23; Galatians 3:1–14; Mark 6:30–46
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)
Isaiah. In the face of our faithlessness, God’s faithfulness will prevail! In the face of our feeling unwanted, neglected, and abused, God’s mercy will prevail! In the face of the ground shifting beneath our feet and our losing our bearings in life, God’s steadfast love will prevail! That’s Isaiah’s message for God’s people. On the cusp of their release from Babylonian captivity he points to Yahweh’s comfort and compassion, and he cries out, “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing!” (Isaiah 49:13). It’s difficult for God’s people to join the song. The hurt is so fresh, so real. Israel still feels forsaken and forgotten (Isaiah 49:14).
Isaiah’s response is one for the ages: Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? — Isaiah 49:16a. Isaiah invites us to consider what is to him an unthinkable scenario, in order to make us understand that Yahweh’s “forgetfulness” towards his people is no more thinkable than that. This illustration’s power grows when you realize how truly thinkable the scenario has become. So many unwanted babies not making it out of the womb. So many adults in counseling offices recollecting childhoods of want, neglect, and abuse.
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands…. — Isaiah 49:15b,16a. For Yahweh, there is no such thing as an unwanted baby. No moment of childhood neglect has been unnoticed, nor any instance of want or abuse. Not a single person has been forgotten. No one who has entrusted themselves to his care is beyond his concern. Every tear has been stored up in his bottle (Psalm 56:8). So far did his commitment to our well-being go, that one day, Yahweh took to himself hands just like ours, stretched them out on a cross, and inscribed our names in his hands with nails.
Looking ahead a few short chapters, Isaiah will prophesy a Suffering Servant who will bear our infirmities, carry our diseases, be wounded for our transgressions, be crushed for our iniquities, be punished that we may be made whole, and be bruised for our healing (Isaiah 53:4–6).
In his epistle to the Galatians (his charter of Christian freedom) the apostle Paul will offer this simple summary: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13, quoting Deuteronomy 21:23). He was cursed for every disobedient and seemingly lost and forgotten son of Abraham and daughter of Sarah, “in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14).
And all along, it depends on God’s own faithfulness, not ours. To be sure, the call, indeed the obligation, for us is to believe in his provision and strength, rather than our own efforts, our own “works of the law.” That is, after all, what Isaiah was calling for—trusting in the promises of the God who likens himself to a mother who would never abandon her children, no matter what.
I pray you rest secure in that knowledge for yourself.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+