NOTES for Isa 26:1-6

Describing the people of God, to whom God opens the gates of the renewed Jerusalem, the prophet speaks of them as people who are "righteous" and "keep faithfulness" (in the Synodal translation they are called those who "keep truth"), people with "firm will" or "firm intention" (or the "firm spirit" of the Synodal translation). What stands behind these prophetic definitions? None of the biblical authors ever considered righteousness to be inherent in a human being. God alone is righteous. For a person, righteousness is not a property or a quality, but a state. A person can be righteous as long as God's righteousness is reflected in him. This is possible if a person keeps unconditional faithfulness to God, which is why the prophet calls the righteous those who "keep faithfulness."

What helps a person keep faithfulness to God? Isaiah answers this question as well: firmness of intention. Or firmness of will, which in this case is the same thing. This is not willpower in the sense in which we are used to understanding the expression. By willpower we usually mean a specific effort needed in a specific situation. But the prophet speaks of a strength of will that belongs to a person as an inalienable property of his spiritual "I." The difference here is the same as between, for example, muscular effort applied in a specific situation and muscle tone, which belongs in principle to a physically healthy person regardless of the effort being made. Just as normal physical life is impossible without physical tone, so normal spiritual life is impossible without volitional tone. Spiritual life is, first of all, relationships that bind a person to God and to other people, and these are impossible without volitional tone. Without volitional tone, these relationships cannot be stable and constant. In that case, preserving faithfulness (whether to God or to a person) will have to be forgotten: a person without will simply has nothing with which to preserve it. Faithfulness, after all, presupposes more than emotions or theorizing, which usually require no special effort of will.

Faithfulness to God, for example, requires keeping the commandments given by God, if only because at Sinai, during the making of the covenant-union with God, their observance was prescribed as an indispensable condition of the union being made. No keeping of the commandments - no covenant; no covenant - no relationship with God. Faithfulness to Him in that case turns out to be purely theoretical. But life with God, life in the Kingdom, is not theory but practice. And it is impossible without a firm intention to keep faithfulness to God and to guard the relationships that unite with Him the faithful who seek the Kingdom.

Advent is a season with a particularly good selection of readings. They are short and extremely concrete. It is a time to return to the way children learn what matters most. Isaiah and Matthew give us two opportunities to understand something that is unpleasant to understand. They explain it in simple words. They explain it as to children, using different arguments and trying to lead us to act reasonably. It is no accident that the Sermon on the Mount, with all the force of its directness, ends with three verses about a house on rock and a house on sand. Like little children, the Lord teaches us His truth, which is that we can do anything—even build a house on sand. A house on sand is a house built upon what is temporary. The rock is what is eternal. In our life, only the Lord is eternal.

The Apocalypse of Isaiah is not a story about coming disasters, but a vision of the triumph of God's Kingdom. Let us note for ourselves several details of which the prophet speaks: victory over the enemies of Israel, the gathering of Israel from dispersion, the Lord's feast for all nations on Mount Zion, the openness of the paths of personal righteousness, victory over death and the resurrection of the dead, the defeat of the serpent, and joy and gladness in God's salvation. Why was this written? We are called to take part in this victory - through our trust in the prophecy and our agreement with God's plan.