Godgrown

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  Mark 5:17 pm on December 12, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  What Eternity Tastes Like! 

  

  Sometimes reading through the prophets of the Bible can be a little awkward, and not a little depressing.  No doubt as we’ve been carving a path through Isaiah the last few weeks, there has been plenty of scandalous material to consider – some of which I never really stopped to think about before.  I hope it has been enlightening and encouraging for you too.

  But here’s where its all headed.

  Some say that the biggest problem with the church today is not compromised morals, or a leadership crisis, or secularism…but a real loss of focus of where things are headed.  When you know where you’re headed, you’ll work together to get there – when you disagree about the end game, bickering and meandering ensues.

  Chapter 25 is Isaiah’s best look at the final scene for all humanity – a climax in the prophecy and a reminder of what we can look forward to and passionately pursue together:

  First, there will be judgment of all the earth, not out of pure wrath and anger, but out of a desire to create a new community built on faithfulness.  (verse 1)  This is a community that is all-inclusive; including all nations, and all peoples! (v 3, 6-7, see also Revelation 7:9 for a great picture of this last scene in future-prophecy!)

  Yahweh God is seen toppling the self-centered cities, and establishing a new kind of city, centered on God himself and welcoming the refugees from across the globe.  At first, this dismantling of human civilization will terrorize people of the earth, but then they will see the beauty of God’s new creation!

  In his incredible new civilization, God will prepare a banquet table on his mountain – where all people are welcome. And as part of the dinner’s entertainment, the whole earth will watch as Yahweh slays death, and then “swallow it up forever!”  Death is for dessert! The dining crowd will shout in celebration and God will wipe every tear from all faces.

  This is where things are headed: A new kind of civilization, God-centered – with representatives from every “tongue, tribe, and nation” giving praise to the God who conquers death and invites us into table fellowship with him and each other!

  But the surprise is, you have the chance to live that amazing future is now! Why wait until the end of the book – God invites you to try out this incredible life today.  Its better than the cynicism or fear you’ve been taught to expect out of life.  This is a new way to be human – a way emerges out of faithfulness rather than fear.

  Give it a try – experience table fellowship and reconciliation with a few others.  Start communities of faith among every tongue, tribe and nation represented in your city!  Cultivate God-centered community as you wait for the new Jerusalem to come in full.  See what is possible with God.  See what eternity tastes like!

  

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  Mark 10:20 am on December 11, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Walter Brueggemann   

  Why You Might Want to Take Up Gardening 

  If prophecy is like weather forecasting, then this chapter is Isaiah’s extended outlook. In this Isaiah looks toward a time beyond all nation names and kingly personalities, and focuses in on what he sees might just be the end of it all.  As in “roll credits!”

  The focus for the prophet is the destruction of the eretz or “earth.” Generalizing every part of the earth as rebellious and wicked and forgetting God’s everlasting covenant (possibly the one Yahweh made with Noah, the primogenitor of all the nations in Isaiah’s day).  He looks with specific accusation at the cities – at all human civilization — every concentration of human power that functions effectively but is rooted in disobedience and defiance to Yahweh.

  As Isaiah watches each city of the future earth being destroyed, he hears the celebration of the rural remnant “like the last olives on a picked tree” those outside of human civilization are happy to see these cities go.  The metaphysical powers (demons, etc) and the physical powers (kings, etc) are bound by God like prisoners in a dungeon!

  Are cities the problem?  Is it that humans just can’t get along?

  Yes and no.  This chapter ends strangely – the end of this apocalyptic chapter; the end of it all…God finishes with a hopeful beginning…

  23b for the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will rule on Mount Zion.
  He will rule in great glory in Jerusalem,
  in the sight of all the leaders of his people.

  There is a new city being built – where the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will rule as mayor. It will be a God-centered civilization. A place where the leaders of his people will keep God in their sights – and where anxiety and ambition and rebellion and more will cease.  Where nature and harmony will bring justice in everything.  Where crime and violence will disappear. This is a great urban center on a powerful green mountain.

  Some say that the setting of the Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city. (Gen 2 Rev 21)  And while that is true – it really is two sides of the same coin.

  God’s new city seems to be on a mountain, and the original garden was landscaped like a city.

  What is in view at the end of time is the same as what we see at the start of it – a real place where nature and humanity find balance, and where God is at the center of it all.

  This whole grand experiment – all of human striving and civilization – won’t end in anything but our own demise.  But out of that rubble God brings us to the deeper delight that is coming when people from the east and the west can celebrate when all the corruptions of human nature are washed away and a brand new culture is created -

  …where God is mayor of our new kind of city.

  
   
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  Mark 2:03 pm on December 10, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: prostitution   

  How You Make Your Dirty Money 

  

  Isaiah’s final prophecy (from chapters 14-24) of a particular nation is Tyre and its twin city Sidon – both part of Phoenicia (modern-day Lebanon).  Since they were located on the coast and several rocky islands with fortresses kept them protected from attack, they had so far withstood the onslaught of the Assyrian Empire.  They had continued to sell their wares and even colonize other parts of the world – even to Tarshish (southwestern Spain).

  But the prophet does not see them as uniquely immune to the coming disaster awaiting the region.  Isaiah announces that Tyre and Sidon will be devastated for 70 years (the year of a person’s lifetime – also the length he declares will be Judah’s exile into Babylon.

  And strangely, after pronouncing destruction for these people, Isaiah gives a picture of a Tyre’s return to joy and power – “like a prostitute returning to the city square” - Tyre will return to the world stage, and once again sell her goods to all the nations. But this time, the money made on her goods will help sustain Yahweh’s people who have returned from exile (18:7 also describes the gifts brought by other nations to the people of God.  See my post on chapter 18).

  Its hard to even know what to do with the idea that Isaiah is okay with a aged-prostitute making money for Yahweh – but its right here in the Biblical text.  Obviously, its not a literal prostitute, its a nation exporting goods to the nations and sending money to a post-exilic Israel; but even still – we are faced with this SCANDALOUS idea; and for Isaiah, he meant it to bring good news to his readers!  They might go into exile, but they’ll be back – and nearby nations will help with the rebuilding effort!

  Israel in other texts are similarly called a prostitute.  In fact, it is hard to argue that any nation, or any PERSON does not have dirty money made in illicit ways.  We are all guilty – we all have the stains of impropriety on our hands. And yet – if we are able to reorient ourselves toward God, even in the final days of our life, we can contribute to the work and wonders of God in the world.

  That’s a hopeful picture of redemption!  No matter what your line of work – or how you’ve earned your living; how you’ve lived your life – learn to give your earnings over to the one who created you…it will return to you in ways more wonderful than riches…it will return to you in your own redemption, in adoption into an incredible story and family… it will return to you in familial love!

  —

  But even still, the analogy is that Tyre goes right back to being a prostitute; selling to the nations – and giving her earnings to the LORD.  I don’t know WHAT to do with that!  Isaiah: you are one rabble-rousing prophet!

  

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