Dying To Live

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
"Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"
Then I said, "Here am I!  Send me."  And He
said, "Go, and say to this people:

  "  'Keep on hearing, but do not
               understand;
     keep on seeing, but do not perceive.'
     Make the heart of this people dull,
          and their ears heavy,
          and blind their eyes;
     lest they see with their eyes,
          and hear with their ears,
     and understand with their hearts,
          and turn and be healed."
     Then I said, "How long, O Lord?"
     And He said:
     "Until cities lie waste
          without inhabitant,
     and houses without people,
          and the land is a desolate waste,
     and the Lord removes people far away,
          and the forsaken places are many in
               the midst of the land.
     And though a tenth remain in it,
          it will be burned again,
     like a terebinth or an oak,
          whose stump remains
          when it is felled."
     The holy seed is its stump.

-Isaiah 6:9-13

At the risk of being run out of the church, I have to confess, I have come very close to hating this passage.

What kind of God is this?  What kind of God is it that would not want His people, His children to turn from their self destructing ways back to Him so that He might heal them?  Why bother sending Isaiah in the first place?  Why give them the message they need to hear and then hope they don't get it so they will be destroyed?  What kind of God is this?

A frustrated God?
An angry God?
A righteous, vengeful, holy, vindictive God?

These are some of the explanations I've been given.  God in His awesome holiness and righteousness decided to deal with the wickedness and idolatry of Israel...but He was legally obligated to give them one more chance first.  Fairness demands an opportunity to repent.  So God in His omniscience devised a plan satisfy the demands for fairness, an opportunity to repent, while secretly hoping they would not take it, and then He could act on His frustrations, releasing His pent up anger, and unleash mountains of justice and righteousness on His children, dealing them a devastating blow.

This is the God of the Old Testament.  This is the God whom Jesus came to restrain with love.  This is the God whom Jesus could convince to let Himself take the beating that God was so eager to give all of humanity.

My problem was....this is not how Jesus talked about the Father.

How was I to reconcile the frustrated, angry, vindictive God image seemingly on display here with Jesus' explanations of Abba...daddy.

Oh, this ate at me...

How many times I have prayed, God, what am I missing here?...

In John 12 we see a story of when Jesus returned to Jerusalem towards the end of His ministry.  He had done so many things among the people, touched so many, the people were becoming convinced that He was indeed the long awaited Messiah.  They met Him at the entrance of the city with palm branches, laying them down in front of Him as He rode a donkey into the city fulfilling yet another of a long list of prophecies foretelling His arrival.  The cries of "Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!" reverberating off of the walls of the city; it was a powerful moment indeed.  But that was verse 13...

Starting at the end of verse 16 we read:

When Jesus had said these things, He
departed and hid Himself from them.
Though He had done so many signs before
them, they still did not believe in Him, so
that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah
might be fulfilled:
  
     "Lord, who has believed what he heard
               from us,
          and to whom has the arm of the
               Lord been revealed?"

Therefore they could not believe.  For again
Isaiah said,

     "He has blinded their eyes
          and hardened their heart,
     lest they see with their eyes,
          and understand with their heart, and
               turn,
          and I would heal them."

Isaiah said these things because he saw
His glory and spoke of Him.  Nevertheless,
many even of the authorities believed in Him,
but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess
it, so that they would not be put out of
the synagogue; for they loved the glory that
comes from man more than the glory that
comes from God.

What in the world happened between verses 13 and 36???

Jesus called them to die.

Verse 24:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of
wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains
alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Whoever loves His life loses it, and whoever
hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal
life.  If anyone serves me, he must follow
me; and where I am, there will my servant be
also.  If anyone serves me, the Father will
honor him.

This is when it hit me, in order for their to be life, true life, real life, abundant life, eternal life, then I must let go of the shadow of physical life and all it's trappings.  What was true for Israel is still true today, as long as I am pursuing physical existence then I will provide for physical existence, I will be consumed with physical existence.

What will I eat?
What will I drink?
What will I wear?
Where will I live?
Where will I work?
What kind of car will I drive?
How can I best manage my 401(k)?
...and I begin to look for a god that I can hold, that I can touch, that I can feel.  I look for an idol.

What will set me free?

Death.

Jesus said if you want to serve me, you must follow me, and I'm on my way to the cross.  I'm about to show you how to die.  It is the only way for you to live, and I am dying for you to live.

Where does this leave us with Isaiah 6?

What if God, Abba, daddy, Father loves His children so much, and He knows that the only way for us to live is to die, but sometimes we get so entrenched in chasing the shadows of life that we just can't seem to break away on our own?  What if God, Abba, daddy, Father loves us so much that if we turn around even for a moment with our big multi-colored eyes and hold out our arms to Him He will run to us and sweep us up in His ever reaching arms, saving us from all manner of harms?  What if God, Abba, daddy, Father loves us so much that He knows He can't help it, even though He knows that for us to really live we must die?  Might He then say,

     "I have blinded your eyes

          and hardened your heart,

     lest you see with your eyes,

          and understand with your heart, and

               turn,

          and I would heal you."

It would be the hardest thing for God, Abba, daddy, Father to do, to not save the day, to not rescue, to not heal, to watch die.  But this is the only way to live, and so it must be done, and Jesus says follow me, I will show you the way.  I will show you how to die so you might live.

I don't know about you, but I am dying to live.