Thursday, September 27, 2007

Audio Isaiah

Over the last two weeks, I have been listening to Isaiah on the Daily Audio Bible.

This passage (Isaiah 46:5-11 The Message) struck me...

"So to whom will you compare me, the Incomparable?
Can you picture me without reducing me?
People with a lot of money
hire craftsmen to make them gods.
The artisan delivers the god,
and they kneel and worship it!
They carry it around in holy parades,
then take it home and put it on a shelf.
And there it sits, day in and day out,
a dependable god, always right where you put it.
Say anything you want to it, it never talks back.
Of course, it never does anything either!

"Think about this. Wrap your minds around it.
This is serious business, rebels. Take it to heart.
Remember your history,
your long and rich history.
I am God, the only God you've had or ever will have—
incomparable, irreplaceable—
From the very beginning
telling you what the ending will be,
All along letting you in
on what is going to happen,
Assuring you, 'I'm in this for the long haul,
I'll do exactly what I set out to do,'
Calling that eagle, Cyrus, out of the east,
from a far country the man I chose to help me.
I've said it, and I'll most certainly do it.
I've planned it, so it's as good as done.
The first two lines are telling to me...
So to whom will you compare me, the Incomparable?
Can you picture me without reducing me?
It is quite easy to recreate God in our image. We reduce God to a managable god. Some think of him as loving but not just, some think of him as just but with no grace. Some even go as far as the rest of the paragraph, talking about how it is easy to replace God with an image we not only construct in our minds but with our hands. The next paragraph is the rebuttal...

Remember your history,
your long and rich history.
I am God, the only God you've had or ever will have—
incomparable, irreplaceable—
This is good because any god I could make would be quite destructable, not crafted well and definately replaceable.

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