This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Isaiah 8:16–9:1; 2 Peter 1:1–11; Luke 22:39–53
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)
Isaiah. This week we continue to read God’s pronouncements, through Isaiah, of condemnation and destruction for Israel and Judah. God’s people have been horribly faithless towards Yahweh. They have spurned his blessings and presumed his protection without honoring him as the source of these good things. They have cheated on him. They are flirting with, or are having full-fledged affairs with, other gods. The consequence: Israel will be decimated by the Assyrians in 732 B.C.
Judah, on the other hand, will be miraculously delivered from the godless Assyrians (2 Kings 19:32-36):
32 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, shoot an arrow there, come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege ramp against it. 33 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return; he shall not come into this city, says the Lord. 34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
35 That very night the angel of the Lord set out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; when morning dawned, they were all dead bodies. 36 Then King Sennacherib of Assyria left, went home, and lived at Nineveh.
Nevertheless, Judah, too, will break faith with Yahweh, and later be destroyed by the Babylonians, marking the end of Davidic rule.
Even in judgment, Yahweh leaves a remnant. Believing this truth, Isaiah says, “…I will hope in him. See, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion” (Isaiah 8:17b–18). As testimony, Isaiah names his own children Shear-jashub (“A remnant shall remain”) and Maher-shalal-hash-baz (“The spoil speeds, the prey hastens,” meaning Assyria will invade, but its victory will be short-lived—Isaiah 7:3; 8:3–4). Moreover, Isaiah promises that Yahweh will begin his greatest work of redemption in the north, in “Galilee of the nations (or Gentiles)” (Isaiah 9:1). Centuries later, Matthew will record:
12 Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. 13 He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
15 “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles (or nations)—
16 the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light has dawned.” (Matthew 4:12-16)
In the end, a faith like Isaiah’s prevails because Yahweh prevails.
2 Peter. It is a lovely work of providence, I think, that today we begin a reading of 2 Peter. The epistle of 2 Peter is eloquent testimony to God’s faithfulness to Isaiah’s promise. Peter is a supposedly ignorant fisherman. He comes from “Galilee of the nations.” His home is Bethsaida, on the eastern shore of the River Jordan in the Golan Heights, literally “beyond the Jordan.”
In this stunning first chapter of his second epistle, Peter writes in refined Greek to a literate Gentile Roman congregation about some of the richest benefits of the resurrected Christ’s work in our lives:
4 Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.
5 For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness,
and goodness with knowledge,
6 and knowledge with self-control,
and self-control with endurance,
and endurance with godliness,
7 and godliness with mutual affection,
and mutual affection with love.
8 For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For anyone who lacks these things is short-sighted and blind, and is forgetful of the cleansing of past sins. 10 Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble.
The coming of Jesus Christ into the world, Peter maintains, has enabled us to become “participants (koinōnoi, or “sharers”) of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). The pattern of growth into bearing God’s image that Peter lays out here has profoundly motivated believers, even if in different ways. Peter’s language has fired the imagination of churches of the Orthodox tradition in one way. They explain Peter’s meaning in terms of “theosis” or “divinization”—that is, of our bearing more and more the divine image. By contrast, Peter’s pattern of growth has inspired Catholic and Protestant churches more in terms of “sanctification” towards “glorification”—that is, of our bearing more and more the divine image. At the end of the day, I believe that we will find these to be different, but complementarily important, emphases.
God’s very being is being poured into our lives as we grow in faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, mutual affection (philadelphia), and love (2 Peter 1:5–7). The Christ who once walked in “Galilee of the nations” now lives within us, reproducing God’s own life in us, giving us, as Peter says, everything needed for life and godliness. Praise be!
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+