Isaiah, Accountability, and Hope

Today marks the last reading from the Book of Isaiah. God restores the promise after sharing with Isaiah the many ways that the people of Israel chipped away at the covenant until the commitment made between them snapped. God’s wrath poured down over the nation, and in a moment of righteous anger, the Divine arms of safety no longer protected the Hebrews. In their vulnerability, foreign invaders entered the exposed land and took the “chosen” people hostage.

We hear the cries of the Israelites as they were forced out of the promised land and onto distant soil. “What have we done God? Take us back home. This is too much! We promise that we will be faithful, so please don’t abandon us. Have mercy on your people.”

In the end. God reestablished the covenant, but He took the time to repair the fractured relationship.  The Divine would not play the role of the enabler. The Deuteronomic theme (people stop worshipping, God stopped protecting the nation, people lost battles, they cry out to God, He restores the relationship, repeat) would not last. The Divine wanted a relationship built on honesty and trust.

Isaiah is not an easy book to read as God lays out the many ways hope led to betrayal.  It did not happen as a result of one event, but occurred over a series of time: Promises unkept one-by-one, until trust gave way to unfaithfulness. This became a pattern that broke the covenant between humanity and the Creator. The first step in reparation was to admit the times that they failed to be an obedient church.

Isaiah ends with a reminder from God that the covenant was repaired and will never be declared broken by the Holy One. The new establishment of the relationship between the Divine and the Holy One suggests a change in God’s protection to include personal and communal salvation.

May our Isaiah stories hold us accountable for the sins that we commit against one another and God. May the confession of our sins lead us to full restoration. Praise be to God for the chance to remain in the unwavering love of God. Let us continue forward in faith with a renewed sense of identity as children of our amazing God.