This promises to be long.
Lately I've been looking at the theology of the Arm of the Lord, also known as Jesus. It's a fascinating study. When you switch out the phrase "arm of the Lord" with "Jesus" you begin to see some cool specifics on what God was thinking and feeling as He put His plans in motion. It's also cool to see the combining of a paradox: judgment and mercy are both given specifically by the Arm of the Lord, Jesus.
Isaiah 53:1, 2 -- "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up like a tender shoot ... He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him ..."
Isaiah 52:10 -- "The Lord will lay bare His holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God."
God laid bare His Son for the nations to mock and scorn, and the salvation of the world is only offered through Jesus Christ. But so many have not believed what has been revealed. Sure, it's hard to believe something that seems so ... normal, so small and boring, like a baby in a cow trough. No fireworks, no trumpets and no national parades ... not the majesty we assumed would accompany the King of the universe, so we weren't attracted to Him. He came as a person, He was so much like us that we weren't drawn to Him. We didn't see His true beauty.
What actually happened was that God reached within the infiniteness of His own being and gave to us the most profound and accessible thing in existence--Jesus Christ. It's one thing to be accessible; most of us are ... through cell phones, email, and other various mediums. And it's one thing to be profound; we are drawn to people and things which have inherent depth and a weight that is otherworldly. Lots of us even try to wax eloquent. Few succeed.
But it is an altogether distinct thing to be both eternally profound and eternally accessible. Jesus is the core of the Godhead. Colossians 2:9-10 tells us that the fullness of Deity lives in Jesus in bodily form. God became Man. This is part of the beauty of being in the human race. In Jesus, God now calls us fellow brothers and sisters. He's completely accessible to us forever. He is ours and we are His.
God has bared His holy Arm in the sight of all the nations. We have been given access to God. It's amazing to me the difference between various religions. Jesus came near to us while all the others crossed the road and passed us by, looking the other way or busying themselves with "more important" things. Jesus is different--He decided you were His "important thing".
And He doesn't ask you to take over nations, cleanse your aura or be nice to creepy-crawlies. He simply asks you to believe His message of accessiblilty, see His beauty, and worship His majesty as your eyes become opened to His salvation.
3 comments:
Awesome Josh. Isaiah 53 is by far one of my most favorite chapters in the Bible. It amazes me every time I read it that God loves us that much. That God would become like us to save us blows my mind. I don't think that we really grasp that until moments like this.Thanks.
BTW, congratulations. We pray blessings over your family.
Thanks, Chuck. We appreciate the well-wishes.
For me, I just can't veer too far away from Isaiah in general, but chapter 53 specifically. It's deep and chock full of divine goodness (that sounds too much like a snack commercial, doesn't it?). To me, it's one of the preeminent chapters in the Bible. I'm able to engage with God and understand a little more how He feels toward me when I read it.
Josh
That's so simple and so profound. I still can't get over the fact that GOD would become a man and die on a cross for people who hated Him...hmm. He must really like us. :)
Maggie
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