Abstract
…They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they. —Alfred, Lord Tennyson
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness, on them light has shined.” It has been four weeks since these words of Isaiah were read on Christmas Eve/Christmas. Then, the homiletical expectation was unmitigated—hope, joy, peace, and love. Still in the season of hope, Epiphany affords us the subtlety of more careful, more grounded sifting of light and darkness. Our daily lives are replete with the deep darkness of conflict and confusion, traumatized by tragedy and war, and we tend to hold on to whatever glimpses of hope appear on the political horizon. Inevitably, they prove to be broken lights.
Like Tennyson, we might find ourselves stringing together fragments these days. Christian leadership seems more the befuddling sorting among shards and ruins than an epic journey with clearly marked treks. As a church we are fragmented, divided, estranged—seemingly un-stitchable. It is difficult to find a certain path forward among the shards of what once was thought to be life together, let alone to find space to grieve the fractured past. We long for a deeper hope within the constant confusion, alienation, meanness, and mindless hate. To find it, we might do well to go back to Isaiah and discover the voiced hope in just such a fragmented time as ours. Like Isaiah, we may ground hope in the sovereign mercy of God and that among the sharded fragments the sure trek of the Kingdom of God remains still.
The prophet Isaiah spoke within the tumultuous political and societal fragmentation to eighth century
For Isaiah, this was never a simple hope tied to political actors. The phrase, “rod of their oppressor,” is multivalent and could be associated with Northern Israel and Syria during the Syro-Ephraimitic War or applied to the imperial expansion of Assyria against the Judeans. For the Judeans, oppression was experienced at the hands of different political actors. During the war, according to Chronicles, Judah lost 120,000 soldiers in one day. As for the king of Judah, his chief advisor, his lead general, and his own son were killed. “The people of Israel took captive two hundred thousand of their kin, women, sons, and daughters.” (2 Chron 28:8) Assyria, who seemed to be Judah’s liberator at first when it defeated the Syro-Ephraimitic coalition, eventually (some might say inevitably) became Judah’s oppressor (see Isa 10). Political leaders can be fickle and conflicted. Isaiah grounded hope on God’s sovereign commitment to justice.
It is likely that the prophet Isaiah originally delivered this oracle at the coronation of King Hezekiah. Unlike his father, Ahaz, who eventually buckled under the political pressure of chaos and war and became a vassal of Assyria, Hezekiah could be different. Perhaps he would rule with justice and rightness, neither by political calculation nor surrender to fear in the face of a warring bully. In political-speak it would make sense to think of Hezekiah being that light himself. But in Isaiah-speak, in the worldview of the prophet who bids Israel come and walk “in the light of the Lord,” (Isa 2:5), the emphasis should fall less upon the person of Hezekiah and more upon the ‘justice and rightness” that he would bring to Judean society.
The people had minds of clay. Admonitions for justice and rightness and encouragements to live the covenantal life under the sovereignty of God, were surprisingly difficult for many Judeans to accept. Isaiah had to wade through many of the same existential and epistemic challenges we face today.
Similar to today, Orwellian, vicious, and crazy-making distorters of factual truth peppered intellectual and religious discourse. Isaiah speaks against what we know to be gaslighting in Isa 5:20, “Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” The prophet confronts the leaders of Judah who, just as in our post-truth political world, aim to undermine epistemic confidence and autonomy by shattering a person’s cognitive trust to manipulate and seize power. For the prophet, gaslighting was incompatible with rightness or justice. It was an affront to the work of God, and God would expose and destroy it.
Knowing that even the prophet could be influenced by conspiracy theories, God cautions Isaiah to not fall prey to cultural prevarications. “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy,” (Isa 8:11). To give into conspiracy theories would be to give into anxiety and alienation—not only from others but also from God. Such a distorted view of reality could only lead to compromised theology and loss of connection with the divine (Isa 1:3–5).
Regardless of the scheming of political actors and bullies, despite misinformation and manipulation, it was Yahweh alone who would ultimately bring to Judah political disestablishment: “For now the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, is taking away from Jerusalem and from Judah support and staff,” (Isa 3:1–3). It is God who is sovereign. Bottom line, this is the good news. A society propped up by disinformation and conspiracy, even if victim to foreign oppression, will not commit to rightness and justice without the divine shaking of the foundations.
Matthew saw the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry as a fulfillment of the words of Isaiah. Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life, offered a new hope and a way forward. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As we read these words today, we might ponder our own darkness, the fragments, the shards, and reflect upon what has been revealed this Epiphany by the clear light of Christ. Jesus is the true hope and the radical restart.