Inspired by Isaiah 50-51, the Messiah goes toward what’s coming without flinching; God tells His people that the threat filling their vision is temporary, and the ransomed are coming home singing, even if it isn’t here yet. Two friends at a coffee shop sit with the gap between knowing something is certain and actually feeling like it is.
Tom and Ray are at their corner table. Tom’s got his Bible open already. Ray hangs up his jacket and sits down.
Ray: You look like you slept okay for once.
Tom: I did actually. Been in 50 and 51.
Ray: Good chapters?
Tom: Yeah. Chapter 50 has one of the servant songs.
Ray: What does it say?
Tom: The servant’s talking about what’s coming for him. Back beaten, beard pulled out, face spit on.
Ray: That’s Jesus.
Tom: Centuries before. Yeah. And he just, he doesn’t pull back from it.
Ray: Why not?
Tom: Because he knows God’s with him. He sets his face like flint. That’s the phrase.
Ray: Like he’s decided.
Tom: Completely decided. No hesitation.
Ray: Man. I don’t know if I could do that.
Tom: I don’t think I could either.
Ray: Knowing what’s coming and just going anyway.
Tom: Yeah. It’s a different kind of courage than I usually think about.
Ray: What’s in 51?
Tom: God basically asking Israel why they’re so scared of people.
Ray: What do you mean?
Tom: Like, you’re trembling at this oppressor who’s going to die anyway. You’ve forgotten who made the sky.
Ray: Ouch.
Tom: He says the moth’s going to eat them like a garment.
Ray: The oppressors.
Tom: Yeah, they’re temporary. The salvation He offers isn’t.
Ray: I think I do that. Get more focused on the thing scaring me than on what’s actually bigger.
Tom: Same here. Like the threat fills up your whole vision and becomes immediate and threatening.
Ray: And you forget it’s not permanent.
Tom: Absolutely. And God’s asking, where’s the fury of the oppressor? Like, zoom out for a helicopter view. Where does he actually end up?
Ray: Nowhere good.
Tom: Nowhere at all eventually.
Ray: What’s the end of 51?
Tom: There’s this call to wake up. Shake the dust off. Stand up.
Ray: For Israel specifically.
Tom: Yeah, but I don’t think it’s only for them.
Ray: Probably not.
Tom: And then this line about the ransomed coming home with singing. Everlasting joy on their heads. Sorrow and sighing fleeing away.
Ray: That’s not yet, though.
Tom: Not yet. But it’s certain.
Ray: I want to believe that more than I do some days.
Tom: Yeah. Me too.
Ray: I think I believe it in my head.
Tom: But not always in your gut.
Ray: Right.
Tom: I think that’s why God keeps saying, “Wake up.” Like it’s something you have to keep choosing. In other words, eyes wide open and alert to His faithfulness.
Ray: Not just a one-time thing.
Tom: Apparently not.
Ray: Okay. That’s something to sit with.
Tom: Yeah.
Ray: You want anything else, or are you good?
Tom: I’m good. Same time Thursday?
Ray: Yeah. I’ll be here.
Created by Steve
God’s Word…
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Isaiah 50-51
50 This is what the Lord says:
Where is your mother’s divorce certificate
that I used to send her away?
Or who were My creditors that I sold you to?
Look, you were sold for your iniquities,
and your mother was put away
because of your transgressions.
2 Why was no one there when I came?
Why was there no one to answer when I called?
Is My hand too short to redeem?
Or do I have no power to deliver?
Look, I dry up the sea by My rebuke;
I turn the rivers into a wilderness;
their fish rot because of lack of water
and die of thirst.
3 I dress the heavens in black
and make sackcloth their clothing.
The Obedient Servant
4 The Lord God has given Me
the tongue of those who are instructed
to know how to sustain the weary with a word.
He awakens Me each morning;
He awakens My ear to listen like those being instructed.
5 The Lord God has opened My ear,
and I was not rebellious;
I did not turn back.
6 I gave My back to those who beat Me,
and My cheeks to those who tore out My beard.
I did not hide My face from scorn and spitting.
7 The Lord God will help Me;
therefore I have not been humiliated;
therefore I have set My face like flint,
and I know I will not be put to shame.
8 The One who vindicates Me is near;
who will contend with Me?
Let us confront each other.[a]
Who has a case against Me?[b]
Let him come near Me!
9 In truth, the Lord God will help Me;
who will condemn Me?
Indeed, all of them will wear out like a garment;
a moth will devour them.
10 Who among you fears the Lord,
listening to the voice of His Servant?
Who among you walks in darkness,
and has no light?
Let him trust in the name of Yahweh;
let him lean on his God.
11 Look, all you who kindle a fire,
who encircle yourselves with[c] firebrands;
walk in the light of your fire
and in the firebrands you have lit!
This is what you’ll get from My hand:
you will lie down in a place of torment.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 50:8 Lit us stand
- Isaiah 50:8 Lit Who is lord of My judgment
- Isaiah 50:11 Syr reads who set ablaze
Salvation for Zion
51 Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness,
you who seek the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were cut,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
2 Look to Abraham your father,
and to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain.
When I called him, he was only one;
I blessed him and made him many.
3 For the Lord will comfort Zion;
He will comfort all her waste places,
and He will make her wilderness like Eden,
and her desert like the garden of the Lord.
Joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and melodious song.
4 Pay attention to Me, My people,
and listen to Me, My nation;
for instruction will come from Me,
and My justice for a light to the nations.
I will bring it about quickly.
5 My righteousness is near,
My salvation appears,
and My arms will bring justice to the nations.
The coastlands[a] will put their hope in Me,
and they will look to My strength.[b]
6 Look up to the heavens,
and look at the earth beneath;
for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
the earth will wear out like a garment,
and its inhabitants will die like gnats.[c]
But My salvation will last forever,
and My righteousness will never be shattered.
7 Listen to Me, you who know righteousness,
the people in whose heart is My instruction:
do not fear disgrace by men,
and do not be shattered by their taunts.
8 For the moth will devour them like a garment,
and the worm will eat them like wool.
But My righteousness will last forever,
and My salvation for all generations.
9 Wake up, wake up!
Put on the strength of the Lord’s power.
Wake up as in days past,
as in generations of long ago.
Wasn’t it You who hacked Rahab to pieces,
who pierced the sea monster?
10 Wasn’t it You who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
who made the sea-bed into a road
for the redeemed to pass over?
11 And the redeemed of the Lord will return
and come to Zion with singing,
crowned with unending joy.
Joy and gladness will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee.
12 I—I am the One who comforts you.
Who are you that you should fear man who dies,
or a son of man who is given up like grass?
13 But you have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,
who stretched out the heavens
and laid the foundations of the earth.
You are in constant dread all day long
because of the fury of the oppressor,
who has set himself to destroy.
But where is the fury of the oppressor?
14 The prisoner[d] is soon to be set free;
he will not die and go to the Pit,
and his food will not be lacking.
15 For I am Yahweh your God
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
His name is Yahweh of Hosts.
16 I have put My words in your mouth,
and covered you in the shadow of My hand,
in order to plant[e] the heavens,
to found the earth,
and to say to Zion, “You are My people.”
17 Wake yourself, wake yourself up!
Stand up, Jerusalem,
you who have drunk the cup of His fury
from the hand of the Lord;
you who have drunk the goblet to the dregs—
the cup that causes people to stagger.
18 There is no one to guide her
among all the children she has raised;
there is no one to take hold of her hand
among all the offspring she has brought up.
19 These two things have happened to you:
devastation and destruction,
famine and sword.
Who will grieve for you?
How can I[f] comfort you?
20 Your children have fainted;
they lie at the head of every street
like an antelope in a net.
They are full of the Lord’s fury,
the rebuke of your God.
21 So listen to this, afflicted
and drunken one—but not with wine.
22 This is what your Lord says—
Yahweh, even your God,
who defends His people—
“Look, I have removed
the cup of staggering from your hand;
that goblet, the cup of My fury.
You will never drink it again.
23 I will put it into the hands of your tormentors,
who said to you:
Lie down, so we can walk over you.
You made your back like the ground,
and like a street for those who walk on it.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 51:5 Or islands
- Isaiah 51:5 Lit arm
- Isaiah 51:6 Or die in like manner
- Isaiah 51:14 Hb obscure
- Isaiah 51:16 Syr reads to stretch out
- Isaiah 51:19 DSS, LXX, Syr, Vg read you? Who can