Awake, awake!

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Of the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary for 15 January 2014 (Wednesday after the First Sunday after Epiphany), I chose to reflect on Isaiah 51:1-16.

Awake, awake!

The reading I chose to reflect on is a poem of praise, or at least it seems that way in isolation.  Given the triumphal nature of this week, in which the Baptism of Jesus is celebrated in the liturgy, it is to be expected that the readings for this week, especial in this one that closes out the week would be triumphal.  Yet those who chose this reading have done so in a way that strips context from these verses, especially from the latter half of the reading.

Isaiah 51:1-8 is certainly full of praise, and would do fine as a reading intended for that purpose, but Isaiah 51:9-16 is the first of three stanzas that exhort Israel to "Awake, awake!" and it does not sit well with me that it is cut off from the other two.

Isaiah 51:9-16 is not so much a stanza of praise, but a stanza warning of the power of the Lord. It is followed by Isaiah 51:17-23 which also begins with a call to awake, but here it is a call to awake and see the ruin brought upon Jerusalem for forsaking the Lord. The concluding third stanza, Isaiah 52:1-6, also calls upon Zion to awake, but this time to a promise that the Lord will restore once the people have repented their error. Hence I see taking Isaiah 51:9-16 out of the context of the two following stanzas as a distortion of the message the author intended.

It is all well and good to praise the Lord, but one thing I tend to find lacking in the more liberal denominations is a proper appreciation that at times the Lord of Love is a wrathful God, for some times love means rebuking those you love when they go wrong.

[CatoMinor]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSzU9Ji-tV8

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

That song is an exemplar of the saccharine praise that I mentioned in today's reflection.  A little confectionery is good, but one does need some meat and vegetables for a balanced spiritual diet.

[DemPGH]

It is all well and good to praise the Lord, but one thing I tend to find lacking in the more liberal denominations is a proper appreciation that at times the Lord of Love is a wrathful God, for some times love means rebuking those you love when they go wrong.

I'm not sure what the Lord has to do with that, though. Anything that the Lord has to do with we kind of assume anyway (and that's an assumption nearly as large as the universe), but it seems to me that if you love someone and they're about to make a mistake or do something that invites harm, you're kind of acting to protect them by "rebuking" them. We're kind of an instinctively protective species (again, evolution at work). Now we can go overboard and obsess too much about the choices other people make, but the basis is a desire to protect the person from harm. Religion takes a very destructive turn when it says, "God told me you shouldn't do that!" but still the basis is a desire to protect, if it has been totally perverted.