By Alex Florez
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 15:1-9, Isaiah 16:1-14, Psalm 13:3-6, Hebrews 1:1-3, Hebrews 1:8-9
People who know me best might characterize me as a “catastrophic thinker.” If someone says, “Looks like we got some weather coming,” I check my phone to see if the tornadoes will obliterate the entire city or just my house specifically. If another person says, “Alex, you look tired,” I wonder if I have some exotic new strain of mono or if it’s just a poor night’s sleep. I often drive to work wondering if this is the day something in our home will spontaneously combust and all our worldly possessions will be lost forever. A cursory reading of today’s passages might lead us to think that Isaiah is a catastrophic thinker’s worst nightmare, a herald of inevitable destruction and doom.
Anyone living in Isaiah’s time—Israelites, Moabites, and all of the other “-ites” we meet in Scripture—lived in a world rife with trouble; they all heard the approaching rumble of the invading armies, saw the withering harvest in times of famine, and watched fugitives in flight from cities in ruin. They heard the echoes of wailing and lamentation from their neighbors. In one sense, Isaiah affirmed what people might have already known: the world’s a mess, and it’s only getting worse.
Maybe you can relate. Even if you have rosier glasses than I do, you have to admit that there is some pretty thick darkness in our world. So are we to panic and flee for the hills? Are we to shrug our shoulders in despair and await the inevitable tsunami of suffering? As followers of Jesus, do we just avert our eyes and pass the days until God calls us home? I don’t think so.
I think one reason Isaiah shines a light on the brokenness and suffering in the world is to contrast all of it with the wholeness and rejoicing the Lord has in store. “When the oppressor has gone, destruction has ended, and marauders have vanished from the land, a throne will be established in love, and one will sit on it faithfully in the tent of David, judging and pursuing what is right, quick to execute justice” (Isaiah 16:4–5). Moab may be in flames, Assyria may be on the way, and even God’s people may be suffering in a world marked by greed, violence, and death. But a day is coming when God will triumph and His faithful love will reign supreme.
As a follower of Jesus, He has freed me from the spiral of cataclysmic “what ifs” because I know where the story is headed—both within the book of Isaiah and in the scope of all of Scripture. Jesus is the one on the throne. Jesus is the one who conquers sin and death. The universe is not to be assessed by the ups and downs of my circumstances. To the contrary, all of creation is bending toward the healing and restoration that was signed for on the cross, guaranteed by the empty tomb, and sealed by the coming of God’s Holy Spirit.
Written by Alex Florez
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