The Real, Regal Reboot
In a May 14, 2018 issue of the New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum profiles Ryan Murphy as, "the most powerful man in TV." She faithfully reports that even Murphy has difficulty persevering in creativity. He confesses that good ideas are used up in early episodes of television seasons and in the early seasons of shows and counters this ennui with a radical proposal. He pitches a series in which producers, actors and viewers are drawn in with the co-mingling of enthusiasm and novelty, which is reinjected in the show's second season when many of the same actors reappear as different characters under divergent premise.
The Lord our God does not need to counter boredom. He is compelling both to Himself and to His Creation in perpetuity. Nevertheless, between what we divide as the first and second chapters of the book of Isaiah, He showed a fondness for a reboot that isn't entirely dissimilar. While men have put some of the chapter divisions of His Word in puzzling places, this one is indisputable. It launches a new message to Isaiah, new in every sense. God is still there playing Himself. He cannot do otherwise. He cannot but find men to whom He would display His character. Isaiah keeps his same role as the constant chronicler by grace. Fair to say God will rarely, if ever, stop a conversation for long with one of His servants who is willing to put His Word into immediate action. Says verse one, He speaks. Isaiah writes. And the beat goes on.
Otherwise, much has changed. It had to. God is, in Isaiah 1, David Selznick directing Gone with the Wind's burning of Atlanta. Just as the iconic scene couldn't be shot twice because of the sets that were burned up in the one and only take, so is Israel by the end of the chapter. God is not an enemy of steady growth. Plenty of verses show His delight in it to a degree that would exasperate the most doting, patient human parent. Nevertheless, our Heavenly Father also seems to delight in reminding us that He does not need steady progress in a holy direction in order to bring about His ends.
Note the gleeful impracticality of Isaiah 2:2. The physical Jerusalem in which Scripture says God already delights is in a valley surrounded by mountains. This time, even geography points to the sovereignty of God. He wants His house to be associated with the kind of awe even dulled humans direct toward mountains. Put it on top of a mountain,
God plans aloud with almost impish ingenuity curling the lips of His shining face, because I can. Every screw. Top of the mountain. Every precarious pane of glass. Top of the mountain. Every ponderous boulder, it's very heft weighing in on My Majesty. Top of the mountain. He relishes the architectural demonstration of His sovereign, undiminished creativity. I formed them, He insists. I can make a new home at their peak. A château on a hilltop would not be impressive enough.
Yet, in the graceful dance throughout Scripture between God's majesty and His approachability, we get both. He doesn't finish laying up the blueprints before He ends verse two with, shall we say, curb appeal? God shows grace on stone and in stone in part because of the visibility such a challenging location offers. Since He doesn't struggle to put His home with men on a mountaintop, why not mention that this location allows the nations to see the splendor of His handiwork. He has no fear. He need not work like Gideon in a hole.
One dialect of grace transmitted here isn't enough, either. He Who demands in the Law that the cities of refuge be within easy access for the desperate fugitive also finds useful having His humans climb to reach intimate times of fellowship with Him. Did not the Transfiguration require climbing of the select for Christ invited with Him? The climb, the deliberate eschewing of convenient, lesser pleasures, allows us to clear our heads and hearts on the way up.
Depending upon the place of this chapter in an eschatological puzzle I can't begin to put together, if there is still a sin nature for the disciple to discipline, to subject to worship, surely the climb is a helpful, deliberate, between time to do so. If there is shortness of breath on exertion as a precursor to shortness of breath in His awesome Presence, even this is grace. Pilgrims on this climb won't be inclined to be distracted by chatter or dissension with fellow climbers. This is all about Christ as Destination. What exalted grace!
The Lord our God does not need to counter boredom. He is compelling both to Himself and to His Creation in perpetuity. Nevertheless, between what we divide as the first and second chapters of the book of Isaiah, He showed a fondness for a reboot that isn't entirely dissimilar. While men have put some of the chapter divisions of His Word in puzzling places, this one is indisputable. It launches a new message to Isaiah, new in every sense. God is still there playing Himself. He cannot do otherwise. He cannot but find men to whom He would display His character. Isaiah keeps his same role as the constant chronicler by grace. Fair to say God will rarely, if ever, stop a conversation for long with one of His servants who is willing to put His Word into immediate action. Says verse one, He speaks. Isaiah writes. And the beat goes on.
Otherwise, much has changed. It had to. God is, in Isaiah 1, David Selznick directing Gone with the Wind's burning of Atlanta. Just as the iconic scene couldn't be shot twice because of the sets that were burned up in the one and only take, so is Israel by the end of the chapter. God is not an enemy of steady growth. Plenty of verses show His delight in it to a degree that would exasperate the most doting, patient human parent. Nevertheless, our Heavenly Father also seems to delight in reminding us that He does not need steady progress in a holy direction in order to bring about His ends.
Note the gleeful impracticality of Isaiah 2:2. The physical Jerusalem in which Scripture says God already delights is in a valley surrounded by mountains. This time, even geography points to the sovereignty of God. He wants His house to be associated with the kind of awe even dulled humans direct toward mountains. Put it on top of a mountain,
God plans aloud with almost impish ingenuity curling the lips of His shining face, because I can. Every screw. Top of the mountain. Every precarious pane of glass. Top of the mountain. Every ponderous boulder, it's very heft weighing in on My Majesty. Top of the mountain. He relishes the architectural demonstration of His sovereign, undiminished creativity. I formed them, He insists. I can make a new home at their peak. A château on a hilltop would not be impressive enough.
Yet, in the graceful dance throughout Scripture between God's majesty and His approachability, we get both. He doesn't finish laying up the blueprints before He ends verse two with, shall we say, curb appeal? God shows grace on stone and in stone in part because of the visibility such a challenging location offers. Since He doesn't struggle to put His home with men on a mountaintop, why not mention that this location allows the nations to see the splendor of His handiwork. He has no fear. He need not work like Gideon in a hole.
One dialect of grace transmitted here isn't enough, either. He Who demands in the Law that the cities of refuge be within easy access for the desperate fugitive also finds useful having His humans climb to reach intimate times of fellowship with Him. Did not the Transfiguration require climbing of the select for Christ invited with Him? The climb, the deliberate eschewing of convenient, lesser pleasures, allows us to clear our heads and hearts on the way up.
Depending upon the place of this chapter in an eschatological puzzle I can't begin to put together, if there is still a sin nature for the disciple to discipline, to subject to worship, surely the climb is a helpful, deliberate, between time to do so. If there is shortness of breath on exertion as a precursor to shortness of breath in His awesome Presence, even this is grace. Pilgrims on this climb won't be inclined to be distracted by chatter or dissension with fellow climbers. This is all about Christ as Destination. What exalted grace!
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