In reading through the book of Isaiah I notice that Isaiah was a little weird. Really I think that all prophets are weird, but I can be forgiving because if God himself was telling me to do or speak something, I think I'd be frightened and a little weird. Some of the other prophets strike me as weirder than Isaiah, (Ezekiel perhaps), but we will get to that later. Here's what God told Isaiah to do:
"Go and unwind the sackloth from around your waist, and take your sandals off your feet." So he did it, going about unclothed and barefoot. In time, ADONAI [Hebrew for the Lord] said, 'Just as my servant Yesha'yahu [Hebrew name for Isaiah] has gone about unclothed and barefoot for three years as a sign and portent against Egypt and Ethiopia, so will the king of Ashur lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, unclothed and barefoot, with their buttocks exposed, to the shame of Egypt...."
THREE YEARS? Three years of walking around naked and barefoot, all to make a point for the Lord? Now this is the height of weirdness. I've been friends with many people, and some of them call themselves prophets and they give "words from the Lord", but if Isaiah is the standard bearer, well then I've never seen anything like that before. I take that back. I once saw a man who was crawling around on the floor near the back door of a church and pecking the ground like a chicken. He was also squawking and cackling a bit. I was visiting the church, and this man was having some sort of religious experience, and me being me, or I being I, asked the man, "Why are you pecking the ground like a chicken?" To which he answered, "I am pecking the ground to show you the way that you receive from the Lord. He's got much to say to you, much to give you, but you are content to peck at the ground looking for small tidbits. You could have the whole barn full of feed, but you just peck." That is the closest I've ever come to meeting Isaiah. Thankfully in my case, there was no nudity involved. Not to say that I don't question the chicken man because I do, but if there had been nudity involved, I would have questioned his prophetic credentials even more than I did at the time. Now that I think of it, I saw and experienced some other very weird things. Enough on that.
When Isaiah wasn't walking around in his birthday suit, barefoot he said some very beautiful (if not weird) things from the Lord. Let me quote one that caught my eye this morning:
"ADONAI , you will grant us peace; because all we have done, you have done for us." [I sense some Calvinist leanings in the preceding statement.) "ADONAI our God, other lords beside you have ruled us, but only you do we invoke by name. The dead will not live again, the ghosts will not rise again; for you punished and destroyed them. Wiped out all memory of them. You enlarged the nation, ADONAI, you enlarged the nation; and thus you glorified yourself; you extended all the frontiers of the country. ADONAI, when they were troubled, they sought you. When you chastened them, they poured out a silent prayer. As a pregnant woman about to give birth cries out and writhes in her labor pains, so we have been at your presence, ADONAI__we have been pregnant and been in pain. But we, as it were, have given birth to wind; we have not brought salvation to the land, and those inhabiting the world have not come to life. Your dead will live, my corpse will rise; awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the morning dew, and the earth will bring the ghosts to life. Come, my people, enter your rooms and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while until the wrath is past. For see! ADONAI emerges from his place to punish those on earth for their sin. Then the earth will reveal the blood shed on it and no longer conceal its slain."
If I'm not mistaken, here is a passage in Isaiah that talks about the resurrection of the dead. I look forward to the resurrection because there are increasingly more people who I love that have died. I know I'm supposed to be grateful that I get to see them someday, but I miss them now. I can't wait to see my Dad again, and I would love to have a chat with my mother in-law. I never got to meet my grandpas, and it would be really fun to see my grandmas again. It would be really, really nice to meet Abraham and Moses, and I would love to play piano with King David. I might even want to meet Isaiah (if he's fully clothed). And one day I'll get to do that because the earth won't conceal its slain any longer. I had no idea this stuff was in the book of Isaiah.
Rachel was a little girl of about three or four when Great Grandpa died. The family was standing at the graveside and the priest was reading all the passages and saying all the things you would expect a priest to say. He talked of Grandpa's three wives whom had preceded him in death, when Rachel tugged on my sleeve and before I could shush her, said, "Mama, all these wives are really going to have a big fight when they all wake up from being dead!" What a resurrection story that will be...like some kind of zombie cat fight. But the little one was right to think like that. And that will be some day.
Now this prophecy did come from Isaiah, and he had a touch of weird, so who knows if any of us including me are gleaning the correct meaning from his words. Tonight though I am going to give some thought to the end of death, and how really great that's going to be when the earth gives up her slain.
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