Greetings Saint Mark’s Lutheran,

For this month, we will focus on the prophet Isaiah. The book of Isaiah contains some of the most well-known passages in the Bible. In Isaiah, we find the promises of a coming Prince of Peace and the description of God’s suffering Servant. However, the book of Isaiah is complex, given that it is written and compiled by several prophets and editors over a long period of Israel’s history.

In the book of Isaiah, God’s people were caught between the world powers of Egypt to the south and west, and Assyria and Babylon to the north and east. The book of Isaiah announced to Israel what God was doing with and for them when Israel was destroyed and the Jews were exiled. In Isaiah, we see how God guides, warns, challenges, and liberates God’s chosen people and reaches out to all the peoples of the world.
In chapter 55 of Isaiah, God is inviting everyone to a free and rich banquet and extends the promise made to King David to all peoples.

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
For you shall go out in joy,
and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall burst into song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

What I hear the prophet Isaiah remind us is that God wants us to focus on God, forsaking our ways of unrighteousness, wickedness and selfishness. We should not fear God, but instead, run towards God who is ready to welcome and forgive us. God desires that we seek to become more like God, abundant in mercy, compassion and grace.

Our society needs this reminder more than ever, as each of us grow further and further apart from one another. Everyday, we only hear about the divisions that separates us and each side have only dug deeper in their trenches, unwilling to listen to one another.

As society grows apart, I hope that we, as God’s children, remember who we are and whose we are. Before anything else, we are the children of God.

 

What does it mean to live your life with more mercy, more compassion and, with more grace?
God’s Blessings,

Pastor Lue Moua

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