Character in Context

The Gospel of Mark points out something very interesting. When referring to Himself, Yeshua (Jesus) uses the term "Son of Man" instead of Messiah. We're going to do a cultural expectation study about what the term Messiah had come to mean to first-century Jews and talk about why Yeshua instead chose the more obscure title "Son of Man."

This week's broadcast touches on COVID-19. I know we were supposed to start in the Gospel of Mark, but I wanted to take some time to address the power of prayer to unite, fear to destroy and the myth of Torah observance (it's just another mantra, like "the law has been done away with"--no one really keeps even all of it that can still conceivably be kept, which I will prove). Some disturbing "prophecies" have popped up from a number of people making claims that all this will be over by the Passover, that this is the fault of the Jews for not accepting the Messiah, that it is the fault of Christians, and (already proven false among people in my own circle) that anyone who keeps the Passover instead of Easter will not be touched by the virus. I've seen the best and worst in people over the course of the last ten days as people respond in various ways to uncertainty and fear, which has been both an eye-opening gift from God and a sobering look at the reality of how far we have to go as a body in order to reflect His character.

We've finally made it to the end of the series! This week there is an exciting bit of context that I have been sitting on for awhile but I finally feel confident about teaching it. Did you know that the word covenant only appears four times in all of Isaiah 40-55? Twice in reference to the servant who is given as a covenant to/for the people, once in the covenant of peace we talked about last week--but this week we have talk of an "everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David."

This chapter looks rather odd when it isn't taught as the (almost) grand finale to Isaiah 40-55 but when taught in context, it is a real tear-jerker. We are invited into the joy and relief of a desperate woman who has been deserted, scorned and bereft as her husband returns for her and restores her to his side. What a love story!

Yes! In my opinion (which is rarely humble), Isaiah 52:13-53:13 is the most important material in all of the Hebrew Scriptures. Finally, God's plan for the promised end to the relational estrangement between not only God and Israel but also God and the nations will be revealed and the shocking mission of the Servant, the Messiah, revealed.

This week is very exciting, as we close up the ongoing theme of Yahweh comforting His people and promising them salvation not only from exile but also from the estrangement that exists between them. All of this in preparation for the fourth Servant Song next week—the suffering servant song.

This week we cover the third Servant Song, where the mysterious Servant of Yahweh further sets himself apart from the nation of Israel and we begin to see the legal persecution of the Servant by the ba’al mishpati. We will also explore the preamble to the second Zion song and its connection to The Great Scroll of Isaiah, 1QIs-a and see how the Qumran community taught it as sort of an extra Servant Song.

In light of the marvelous deliverance promised in last week's segment, through the work of the Servant, we would think that Jerusalem would respond with joy and song and exultation! We would be wrong.

The first Servant Song, Is 42:1-9, was fairly vague when it comes to identifying the Servant and His mission, but this week we will be going through the second song verse by verse. The Servant, in the first half, speaks about Himself and what He has been commissioned to do. Then Yahweh responds to the Servant and the earth rejoices.

Isaiah 48 is very much a downer. Israel is repeatedly confronted with the word "shema" which means to both hear and obey--and then they are outright told that they have never heard and never obeyed. Yahweh delivers a very potent warning for those exilic Jews who are going to refuse to leave Babylon when Cyrus sets them free, and it's really easy to point our fingers and shake our heads but--how are we, all of us, still comfortably residing in Babylon when we have been called to be elsewhere?