NOTES for Isa 40:1-11

Babylonian Isaiah was the first to say that the time of exile was drawing to an end, that the people had atoned for their sins and that the road to Judea, to the land of the fathers, would soon open to them again. Then a fully natural question arose before him in that situation: what is the people of God? That people, that community of Jerusalem residents deported to Babylon, with which the history of exiled Jewry had begun, no longer existed. There was a community, but it was different, new. New both spiritually and religiously. In essence, a new people, a new Jewry. A people that had received the chance to live another, second historical life. What connects it with the former people to which the Jerusalem residents deported to Babylon had belonged? Historical continuity? But is that not an illusion? What is historical memory?

What is a people, any people? Grass that dries up in the dry steppe under the rays of the hot summer sun. Here today, gone tomorrow. But can the people of God be like that? Surely God must have a plan for His people. His people cannot be drying grass in the field of history. So what makes the Jewish people God's people? The answer to the prophet was the vision revealed to him: the glory of God, the shining Presence moving through the wilderness toward Jerusalem.

Once, soon after the Babylonians devastated Jerusalem, another prophet, Ezekiel, in another vision had seen this same shining Presence leaving Jerusalem. Leaving because there was no longer room for God in Jerusalem. Not because of the Babylonian soldiers who destroyed the Temple, but because of those servants of God who had defiled it long before those Babylonian soldiers made the hidden thing visible. And now God was ready to return to the emptied city, to the ruined Temple.

The way had to be prepared for Him. The road had to be made level. And participation in that task alone could make the community born in Babylon the true people of God. Neither national features nor religion make God's people God's people, but active participation in carrying out God's design for the salvation of humanity. And witness to God, who had given His people a new historical life. A witness that all Judea would hear from Zion. And the whole world.

Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord calls His people to be comforted, yet He leaves 99 sheep in the mountains for the sake of one that has gone astray. The Lord "comes with might, and His arm rules," yet He takes the lambs in His arms and carries them at His breast.

These are not contradictions, although it may appear that community does not go hand in hand with individuality, or strength with tenderness. But the Lord shepherds the whole flock - the Church; it is all His body. And at the same time He died for each of us, and even if only one person remained on earth, the Lord would still have died for him on the Cross and, dying, would have looked at him with love and tenderness.

The Lord conquers our enemies with a strong hand, yet He also supports us if we stumble and carries us in His arms if we no longer have the strength to walk. But the most astonishing thing is that we are His children, and He calls us to the same thing: to be strong in weakness, to support, comfort, and strengthen the weak, and humbly allow ourselves to be comforted in weakness and sorrow; to live together, love one another, be the one Body of Christ - the Church, and personally answer for ourselves before God, standing firmly before Him in our individuality and trying to become again what He created us to be.

What can comfort persecuted people, who lost and their country and their saints? The promise for a new life, in which everything will still be as before? Perhaps. But such promise will hardly delight a spiritually mature person: indeed, it is impossible for such person not to understand that, if the new life is the same as was the former life, it will then also end so disastrously, as ended the former life.

Such a person can please not the return unto the past, no matter how much this past may seem happy from far, but an onward movement, which is unthinkable without spiritual renewal. It is not accidentally if the main comfort of the people turns out to be the news that their committed sin is forgiven, and its consequences are redeemed, such that now before them opens the possibility of a new life on the land of the ancestors, on which they can now return.

Before, the return on this land would have become the return to the past; now it will become a step to the future, to the future, where there will be many spiritual discoveries and revelations, to the messianic future, about which had already spoken the prophets before the period of captivity.

Without spiritual renewal the return in Judea would have been an undeserved reward, not bringing either joy, or benefits. After the renewal the return became the crown, which found his winner and the beginning of a new history of the people, who after the historic disaster that reached them, seemed to be condemned to disappearance and oblivion.

This beginning of the Book of Consolation of the prophet Isaiah, predicting the liberation of Israel from the Babylonian captivity, and moreover, as usual in the prophetic books, and several more things. And the first image that he uses, is so clear and evident insomuch that another prophet John the Baptist, will quote it in his sermon. Indeed, imagine yourselves: God goes to a hilly wilderness separating the Promised Land and Babylon, to fulfill the new Exodus, and He sends forward His crier so that people may prepare the way, worthy for the King of Kings.

It is interesting, how refracted these words were in the consciousness of people afterward: the punctuation is put in another place, after the word "wilderness", and the meaning has changed. “Voice of him that crieth in the wilderness” – it is when someone shouts, and no one listens. It was not like that with Isaiah, neither with John. Why the accent was so moved? Certainly, because in Christians time people began naturally to interpret these words in the spiritual sense: God goes towards each of us to save us from sin and death, but in order that He enters our heart, confession and the correction of our life (" to prepare the way") are necessary, and here is where is shown our "deafness", and whoever call us to confession, find himself in emptiness...

The image of the Messiah as shepherd appears often in Isaiah's preaching, and also in that of other prophets. In the Gospel, Jesus too often speaks of Himself as the good shepherd. Today this image may seem somewhat humiliating to us, for if we follow the logic of the image, we must feel ourselves to be sheep and rams. Not a very pleasant association. Meanwhile, in antiquity sheep and rams, and domestic animals generally, were viewed somewhat differently, especially in societies that grew out of a pastoral, nomadic tradition.

Of course, there could be nothing like the sentimentality toward domestic animals sometimes found today. But there was something else: responsibility for the whole flock and for each sheep in it. Both in the prophets and in Jesus Himself we often meet the image of a bad shepherd, for whom the flock is only a source of income, food, and wool, and who cares nothing for the sheep. Such a shepherd merely uses the flock as a thing, and in case of danger, for example an attack by predators, immediately abandons it: his own life is worth more than the income.

The real, good shepherd loves his sheep. Not as equals, of course, but even God cannot love us as equals: we are not equal to Him by definition and never will be. But we are His, and if so, then above all He is responsible for us and loves us, and does not simply use us to solve His tasks in this world. With us, of course, it is in many ways more complicated for Him than even for a good shepherd with his sheep: unlike sheep, we possess free will, which God has to take into account. And possessing it, we can always do something no ram would ever think of.

But His love for us remains unchanged, just as a good shepherd loves his flock and every sheep in it, even one that is not very obedient and for that reason sometimes has to be searched for throughout the area. And he rejoices over such a sheep more than over all the rest of the flock. Because a good shepherd feels responsible for every sheep. And loves every one as well. Just as the Messiah loves each of us. And for this reason becomes our good shepherd.

Thus the prophecy about coming destinies turns into consolation for the very people to whom so many rebukes had been addressed. Their sins have now been atoned for, and twice over; in this connection it is usually recalled that under the Law a thief had to repay twice the amount stolen. Of course, far from all sinners were thieves in the literal sense, and theft is not the only vice. But that is unimportant at this point: no one has the right to exalt himself above robbers, for other sins, often considered “permissible,” are no better. Now, however, forgiveness comes, and with it the hope of a new, qualitatively different life in accordance with the Creator's will.

Quite naturally, after the promise of hope, the prophet begins to speak of the Lord's greatness, of how He cannot be compared with anything or even imagined. Here Isaiah's words are somewhat reminiscent of the closing chapters of the Book of Job, whose questions fall away after the Creator reveals His incomprehensibility to him. The situation here is different, of course: unlike Job, the people of Israel did not suffer without cause. Yet even now, when the sinners seem to have repented of their sins and at last to “understand everything,” the Lord again shows that both He Himself and His mercy surpass every degree of our understanding.

For today's Day of the Holy Spirit, let us quote words from the liturgy written by St Theophanes the Branded, who lived in the first half of the ninth century.

Source of life, in whom we believe, stream of goodness, Holy Spirit of God, bring my deadened mind to life and by Your action raise it up to sing of Your divinity.

O Spirit of wisdom and the fear of God, Spirit of truth, counsel, and understanding, Giver of peace, dwell in us, so that, sanctified by Your indwelling, we may sing without ceasing in the night: We glorify You, Lover of humankind.

Almighty and Lord of all, who preserve all creation from decay, grant us sanctification and enlightenment, so that, filled with Your light, we may sing without ceasing in the night: We glorify You, Lover of humankind.

Come to us, Holy Spirit; make us partakers of Your holiness, of unfading Light, of divine life, and of Your fragrant gifts, for You are the stream of the Godhead, proceeding from the Father through the Son.

It is very important that today, on the day of the Holy Spirit, the Church reminds us of the Lord's promise to be among us when two or three of us gather in His name. At the time when Christ spoke these words, the apostles hardly understood how the Teacher could always be present with all those who gather "in His name." Until they learned this and were convinced of it with their own eyes, through their own experience, these words remained a mystery to them. Christ, foreseeing this, still sent the apostles this "package," which reaches its addressee in time.

And precisely on the day of Pentecost this package was delivered: "But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything that I have said to you" (John 14:26). On that day the Spirit gave the apostles the sense of the living presence of their Teacher among them, just as real as it had been when they walked together along the roads of Palestine. Perhaps even more real: the Spirit "provided" His presence both among them and in each one of them at the same time. For they were truly gathered in His name.

It is possible that, while awaiting the descent of the Spirit, the apostles were doing exactly what Paul lists in the Letter to the Ephesians (Eph. 5:9-19). After all, this is a concrete embodiment of the words "in His name"; it is truly what is worth doing while waiting for the Spirit. In any case, the apostles truly took Christ's words to heart and remained together. And their shared disposition, their faithful waiting during the ten days from the Ascension, was what the Lord wanted from them. It was the one step in response to which He does far more: He pours out His grace on us.

Today the Orthodox Church celebrates the Day of the Holy Spirit. The Epistle to the Ephesians reminds us that 'the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth' (v. 9), and calls us to 'be filled with the Spirit' (v. 18). The apostle Paul calls this new state of the human being 'light in the Lord'; the apostle John also turns to this image of light when he speaks of brotherly love among believers (1 John 2:10). In the spirit of love we are called to 'seek those who have gone astray' (Matt 18:10-14), to resolve problems in our relationships (Matt 18:15-18), and, finally, to receive God's grace in unanimous prayer in the name of Christ and in His presence, just as we were promised.

The words warning us not to despise these little ones are spoken immediately after the warning about the danger of stumbling blocks. But are only children among the little ones mentioned? If Christ tells adults to become like children, then all kinds of people in any age group can be little ones.

In advising us not to despise anyone, He gives us a very difficult commandment. Many of us are used to treating with contempt those who do not suit us. It is very convenient to feel that you are better than other people, those unpleasant people. More than that, many of us are used to "improving ourselves morally" by comparing ourselves with "bad people" and looking good against their background.

But here too the Lord sees and acts differently. Those whom we habitually place below ourselves may turn out to be much more precious to Him than some "proper" people, precisely because we have increased the pain of the rejected with our "proper" blows.

And let us remind the comfortable people whose arithmetic cannot make sense of Christ's rule, according to which one may leave the whole vast flock in order to save a single lost sheep, that no one has a guarantee that he will never become that sheep. And then the Good Shepherd, leaving everything, will go to save him too. After all, He wants every last one to be saved.

How are we to understand the words that we need to become like children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Surely everyone who is at least somewhat familiar with little children knows that they are by no means angels, though their angels do stand before the throne of the Most High in heaven. Perhaps the point is precisely their smallness, defenselessness, and dependence on their parents, since the Lord speaks specifically about humbling oneself (v. 4). They are especially vulnerable to temptation, deception, and the action of the world's evil, and therefore they so need God's love and protection. Apparently this very kind of relationship with God is the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The evangelist connects the words about the children we must become in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven with a small parable about a shepherd and a lost sheep, and this immediately puts everything in its place. The point is not only that we become weak, defenseless, and dependent, although at times we really do need to feel like children before God; Christ is clearly speaking here about a "new childhood," that is, about a second birth - not only about feeling like children in comparison with God, but actually becoming children of the Heavenly Father (and here any childishness is out of place; this calling is too high).

Understood this way, the familiar commandment "be like children" becomes an incomprehensible call to become participants in God's life, to become beloved sons and daughters in the beloved only-begotten Son - the path opened before us in Christ's Resurrection...