by 
Rebuilding the Kingdom
By Bill Wright
The beautiful words of Isaiah should perhaps be applied first to their own time: here he announces to Israel God’s promise of a chance to rebuild and shine before other nations after a devastating exile. The time of rebuilding, however, was mired in disappointments. As elsewhere in Isaiah, so exalted is his vision of God’s righteousness and promises that the message, like a skipping stone whipped with excessive vigor, careens off its own time and leaps into the future. So we are right to imagine these words splashing down in Jesus’ time-Jesus himself (in Luke’s account) cites verse 1-2 (without the day of vengeance) in his inaugural synagogue lesson-and skipping on to address our own mourning and longing.
What intrigues me here is the shifting of the pronoun “I” from the prophet, then to God (vs. 8), and back in vs. 10 to one rejoicing “with my whole being” in God, adorned with righteousness (or “justice”), surprisingly, as both a bridegroom and bride are “decked” (sounds Christmas-y!). Though unusual, the images work well to evoke the marriage of identities in Jesus-the condescension of the divine, the exaltation of the human.
Miraculous as that sounds, as if it would defy all lines of secure expectations, the conclusion in verse 11 sees righteousness among the nations arising completely naturally.
After all, the world is (still) God’s creation. Advent invites us to recall that, despite frozen and barren appearances, there is no reason that the world cannot be the garden of God’s justice.
Prayer: Come, expected Savior, whet our taste for a justice among the nations beyond imagining, and at the same time restore our faith in possibilities by which we and the earth may be your habitat. Amen.
