Thursday, December 8, 2011

Redeemer Devotions - December 8, 2011

Adventures... in Hope - Redeemer Devotions 

Again the words of Isaiah 53. Yesterday I said I wanted to especially comment on verses 10 -13.

 

 Isaiah 53

Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?2For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.3He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.

4Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.5But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.8By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.9They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

10Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.11Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.12Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

 

The Servant will not be tolerated. The voice of the Servant will speak in a way that is contrary to the violence of 'everyday.' Therefore, when people are gathered into the crowds to insist on their way of having the world run, the Servant will stand out - an easy one to stone because if the 'good and right' can rid themselves of someone who must have caused the pain and disturbance in the community, there will be peace. Yet, there is never peace - there will only be warfare, brutality, lies, and separation. The Servant of God arrives as one from God to be the one who sides with and becomes one of the disposable ones. It looks like God is doing this in order to 'make things right' in the world - but this is not the case. Those who do the killing and the stone throwing are trying to make things 'right and good and pleasing'. The Servant of the Lord, God, by speaking and living outside the grasp of violence and the power of the mimetic contagion is done in by this contagion. But, alas, it will be with the promise that a positive contagion does and will rise and change all that is.

 

Connection: In the face of all that goes on around us, we compromise. I know I do. Compromise is good. But, compromise also means I will let the violence continue -and in fact - by doing that, I become a part of its power. Think of Peter in the courtyard - the deep desire to fit in - the disease of violence and revenge.

 

As you walk with us, O God, remind us of the one who kneels to serve and who breaks the cycle of violence and control that seems to be able to possess us at every turn of the road within this day. Amen.

 

  

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