Today's reading brings us back to the theme of the messianic Kingdom, revealing it from a side perhaps somewhat...
Today's reading brings us back to the theme of the messianic Kingdom, revealing it from a side perhaps somewhat unexpected for the prophet's contemporaries. Isaiah says that in the Kingdom a person receives everything necessary for life as a gift (vv. 1-2). And this is not simply about an extraordinary abundance of earthly fruits, which in the transformed world a person can receive without labor. It is no accident that the prophet connects this abundance with the covenant (v. 3), which presupposes witness to the pagans (vv. 5-6) and the turning of the wicked and apostates (v. 7).
Such an approach did not fully fit the ideas about the covenant and the Kingdom that were traditional for those times. To religious people, and they were the overwhelming majority in the Jewish community, whether among the repatriates or among those who remained in Babylon, it was completely obvious that the right to enter the Kingdom had to be earned. But Isaiah, speaking in God's name, says something else: the Kingdom is given as a gift to those who seek it.
Such a view, of course, immediately devalued all achievements and made all religious arithmetic meaningless. But it opened the road into the Kingdom to everyone who sought that Kingdom. Gold and silver can pay for earthly life and earthly goods; for the life of the Kingdom a person has nothing with which to pay. Earthly currency is not accepted there, even if it is the currency of religious achievements and merits. But relationships with God are fundamentally important; without them neither turning nor witness can be imagined. The person who turns to God and repents of his sins also can count not on the fact that from now on he will "reform" and "work it all off," but only on the mercy of God.
All this seemed so strange and so contrary to settled ideas that Isaiah, speaking in God's name, says directly to his listeners that human thoughts and ways are as far from God's designs and ways as earth is from heaven (vv. 8-9). And he says that God's word does not remain barren, making possible what is impossible for man (vv. 10-11). The time will come, and the impossible will become real: the Word will become flesh, and the Savior will enter the world.
55 An invitation to seek for spiritual blessings from Christ, whom the Father sends, Isa 55:1-5.
To come to him speedily and by repentance, Isa 55:6-7.
His grace infinite, Isa 55:8-9.
His word powerful, Isa 55:10-11.
The joy of believers, Isa 55:12-13.
55:8 For - If any man injure you, especially if he do it greatly and frequently, you are slow and backward to forgive him. But I am ready to forgive all penitents, how many, and great, and numberless soever their sins be.