Isaiah 2:1-5, Psalm 122, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-44
I don’t know for sure, but I rather doubt that you are accustomed to receiving things that hurt as gifts, as an inheritance to be desired. Still, as I read the lessons appointed for this week, I am reminded that one of God’s greatest gifts to me is discontent. My heart burns like one of those magnesium fires that can tear its way through the thickest, hardest metals when I read Isaiah’s vision for God’s people. Of course, this discomfort is pretty intense at times, so I do what I imagine most other folks do when they discover they’re unhappy with their present reality. I settle for less. I convince myself that the Gospel is not about turning all of the Principalities and Powers on their heads followed by God’s creation of a new heaven and a new earth. I convince myself that all God dreams of for me is a nicer world where more people go to church and treat each other better than they do now.
Jesus seems to harbor no such illusions. The coming of the Day of the Lord will be like the days of Noah. I know that some have read this passage as evidence of the “rapture,” but in fact Jesus intends quite the opposite. The coming of the Day of the Lord will be like the days of Noah. Those “taken” are those who are “snatched up” (the meaning of the word translated “taken) by the flood, not carried off to bliss! The coming of the Day of the Lord will turn everything on its head in preparation for the reign of Christ.
Uncomfortable as it makes me, the riches that I have to offer this week are only those that will make you miserable part of the time, and overjoyed the rest of the time. It seems foolish to me to think that I can describe the craving of my heart, the craving of your heart too, any better than Isaiah did…
In days to come the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
If we can read these words without feeling a fierce anger at the forces that keep us from enjoying God’s presence in this way, then we have not yet heard them untwisted by the enemy’s whispers and lies. He will do his best to keep you and me from daring to think that Isaiah’s vision can be a reality. He will whisper the foolishness of even hoping for such a thing. “After all, doesn’t Scripture say that ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick’?” Better not to hope too much, then. If we allow ourselves to see what it is that we long for and what we do not yet have, we may become aware too of a deep anger that frightens us. This rage burns so pure, so hot that it threatens to consume everything in its path.
This is the rage of the Father, directed not at our “enemies” but at the “enemy” whose lies imprison so many of us. This is the anger of the jealous God, one that burns so hot that it will indeed burn away everything in us that is not gold. This is the fire that consumes the “dross” in us, but we have little or no experience of this kind of anger that is not deadly. Because we are often unskilled at separating the enemy from his victims, we are afraid that anything that stirs this anger in us cannot be trusted. Better not to dream than to find ourselves too close to this fire.
All because it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom! Because He wills that we should reign with Him in this kingdom, and He will not permit that this desire be thwarted, you and I also have buried in us somewhere the same dream. Jesus asks that we wake to this dream, stay alert to it so that as the Principalities and Powers collapse around us we will not be overcome with fear. Do not go back to sleep. Do not allow the world or the enemy to lead you into numbness because the dream is too overwhelming.
Receive this disquiet, this discontent as a first gift, one that will lead us from Egypt into the Land of Promise.
In Him,
Jeff
