Prepare to Listen. Look to the rock from which you were hewn.
Prayerfully Read Isaiah 51:1-3 Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the LORD. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. 2Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many. 3For the LORD will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song. Prayerfully Wonder Listen. Look. Look. The commands are simple and urgent. Listen and look! Not the inattentive listening that hears superficially. Not the casual looking that fails to perceive. We live today in a culture that listens and looks half-heartedly. We hear words all the time and tune most of them out. We see something beautiful and click our cameras instead of standing and staring in awe and worship. The command to listen is directed at those who pursue righteousness and seek the LORD, that is, those who are serious about their faith and relationship with God. Then comes the two-fold command to look. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and look to Abraham and Sarah. The exiles in Babylon needed to remember the foundation of their faith. God didn’t choose them because they obeyed God’s Word. We know they weren’t good at that. And, let’s face it, neither are we! They were chosen because of God’s grace. The promises of many descendants and being a blessing to the nations given to Abraham and Sarah were freely given, all of grace. Remembering their ancestors was ground for hope as chaos and loss surrounded them, the assurance that what God did then God can do again. And God hasn’t changed. We too, writes Brueggemann, “may now anticipate the same miracle from the same God,”[1] the miracle of free acceptance into God’s household. Prayerfully Reflect As we wait in anticipation for the celebration of Messiah’s coming and in hope for his coming again, pause to listen and look. You may be surprised. Prayerfully Respond Lord, help me to pause long enough to listen silently in order to hear and to look deeply in order to perceive. Amen. Live obediently. Listen and look deeply and patiently. [1] Brueggemann, W. Isaiah 40-66. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998, p. 126.
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