One week of Isaiah in the books already!  I hope you’ve been enjoying it?

Isaiah, for all it’s quirks, is a book that establishes a message very early on. Even if you’ve only read a few chapters this week, you’ll have a reasonable enough picture of Isaiah’s key messages. They are, as I expressed on Sunday (listen here), challenge and hope.

Littered across these opening chapters we find both challenge and hope. Sometimes, challenge also looks like judgement or pronouncements, and sometimes hope looks like promises or visions of the future.

In this reflection, we can look at a few examples of both of those as we encountered them in this week’s readings, but also begin to address a big question;

Why would God go so quickly between challenge and hope?

Before that, let’s remind ourselves of the evidence that this is the case as we find it in Isaiah.

There are occasions on which the hope is found in addressing the challenge. In chapter 1, for instance, we see:

“If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land,  but if you refuse and rebel,  you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” – Isaiah 1:19-20

Here is one of the prophetic duties; an explanation of actions and consequences. The hope for Judah is found in their return to God’s ways. There is a big but here – ‘if you refuse’, hangs ominously behind that glimpse of light. This is a trope that appears across history, normally associated with some tyrant, whereby obedience to their will lead to a happy ending, but disobedience leads to death.

Now, in most contexts this is framed as a kind of ‘Hobson’s choice’, unfair and imbalanced. “Do as I say, or else!”

There are, however, other factors which prevent us from labelling God a tyrant. The main one is that we can read this as not a threat but a warning. Being ‘devoured by the sword’ would not be a punishment for refusal or rebellion, but merely the inevitable consequence of following that path, as warned by a God who has been in these situations before.

Whilst that’s a fair reading of that verse, other verses do appear to implicate God more in the outpouring of those ‘consequences’.

“Surely I will pour out my wrath on my enemies and avenge myself on my foes!”  - Isaiah 1:24

We end chapter 1 in the same tone, but then find a complete change of tone, from challenge to hope, at the start of chapter 2:

“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.” – Isaiah 2:2

In my first reading of these chapters, it seemed as though they did contrast this challenge into hope. The beginning of chapter 2 feels so hopeful – the establishment of something we might think of as God’s Kingdom.

On reflection, however, this might not be so jarring as it seems. The return to the ways of God, in the wider picture, appears to be definite. This is how things will go. Chapter 1 alludes to this:

“Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness. But rebels and sinners shall be destroyed together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.” – Isaiah 1:27-28

So, the start of chapter 2, then, is a picture of what that might be like, but we are reminded that only the righteous will see this happen. The choice of the people is whether or not they are prepared to turn back to God.

This pattern repeats as we see chapter 3 focus on the ‘Woe to the guilty’ type stuff, and then chapter 4 speaks of the glory that awaits the ‘survivors’.

Let’s return to that big question then of why God might be portrayed as flip-flopping between challenge and hope, judgement and promise, cruelty and kindness?

Well, as we’ve seen already, these things are not disconnected from one another. There is hope for those who heed the warnings and judgements of God.

There are, however, other ways of reading these.

Think, for example, about our human justice system. In order for there to be genuine rehabilitation, there often needs to be the hope of a new life, a second chance. A sentencing is both the declaration of a punishment and the start of a countdown to a new beginning, the restoration of freedoms.

The same could be true of God’s warning.

On my first reading of these opening chapters of Isaiah, it felt as though the ‘challenge’ bits were the strongest and the hope bits were out of place. When I went back over them, however, it felt more like the judgement passages were just the broader context, and the hope passages began to stand out more. It felt to me like the hope passages were interspersed regularly in order to remind those receiving the message what the end goal is.

The notion of God’s methods of enacting judgement is something we’ll come to terms with over the journey through Isaiah, but at least as we start we can remember that it is not judgement without cause, or without mercy.

Isaiah’s message is repeatedly that those who return to God, who are faithful and righteous, will be saved and enjoy the glory of God. There is hope, the people of Judah just need to choose the right path!