NOTES for Isa 55:1-13

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.

Both then and now, the prophets, through their fiery preaching, drew those capable of hearing it out of the mire of commonplace religious notions. We really do often fashion for ourselves a god (God?) in our own image and likeness. We know what He thinks about this or that matter (Scripture provides us with enough material for such conjectures, while we overlook its paradoxes); we are always ready to help Him in the difficult work of judging the living and the dead, to remind Him of what He has forgotten to do for us, and so on. No, He is not like that! Believing in the incarnation of God, we must not believe that He became as petty, malicious, and foolish as we are: He remained Himself. He does not carry out our will; His purpose is not to fulfill our desires (somewhat... primitive as they are). He is incomprehensible; His thoughts are not our thoughts; He does only His own will. He remains the same, whether dwelling in unapproachable light, pervading all creation, or traveling the roads of the earth.

Mostly, people (especially the city-dwellers, even more the children of the city) think that rain and snow are just a certain dirty trick, which falls from heaven to spoil the humor to everyone. The prophet Isaiah in this case can play the role of teacher of "nature study", reminding us that rain and snow do not fall for no reason, but to water the earth. Nothing will grow without rain and snow! Well, it is the same thing with spiritual life. It will be too sad, if we begin thinking that the Bible is just like that, to be put on a bookcase. If we think so, then there is a drought in our heart - that we realize it or not. God's word is living water necessary, in order that we don’t dry up.

“Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near” Strange words: Is God not always near us? Of course always, but in reality, not always we can find Him. But it doesn’t mean that He hides deliberately from us and behaves cruelly towards us. It sometimes happens that a longtime believing and asking person forgets about God, or prays by habit, not understanding which inestimable gift is God's presence. So God can deprive of this feeling of His presence, so that we understand how much life without God is horrible than a life with God.

But, probably, it happens again mostly that we call the Lord with bad intentions: not for Him Himself, and even not to ask for something good, but, for example to ask for God to punish our enemy, or to ask God for obtaining the person, with whom we are in love. Then he can seem to us that God doesn’t hear our prayer. That’s not the case, He hears it, but doesn’t fulfill by love for us. If we correct our ways, our thoughts and our desires and we direct them towards love, towards God - it turns out that He is very near.

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.” We understand it very often like this: "well, we cannot understand God, we need something easier ", or " the ways of God are so complex, we cannot understand them and cannot cross them, we shall then go our own way, in a simple way". That’s not what the Lord means. He asks us not to transfer on Him our human representations of good and evil, justice and mercy etc. Yes, we are created in the image of God, but it doesn’t mean that we can imagine God, Whom "nobody has ever seen". God is different. Completely different from us. And His love is more than what we can imagine. Then, it is better not to give full swing to our imagination, trying to fancy God’s thoughts and ways, but simply try hard, by living according to the Gospel, answer to God's immense love.

We usually read this text on Holy Saturdays, when we don’t know and don’t understand where is our God. It seems that everything on earth stands still, keeps silent and waits for the promised miracle of the Creator - Resurrection. And it turns out that God is so near, He is very near that if we seek Him, we can find, and if we call Him - He hears. And will not delay to appear. It is in particular on the Resurrection day that He will appear in His glory, given by the Father (see Jean 13:32) and will call to share with him His joy for new life. He will call everybody, no matter when they would have addressed Him: the workers of the third hour and the eleventh hour (see Matthew 20:1-9), fasting and not fasting. We only have to call His name and to be ready to enter His joy and to share it, admit Jesus in our heart and triumph with him. Triumph in the fact that Christ brought us a new life, liberation from sin and His Love. But it is tomorrow. Today we seek Him and wait.

When, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Russian censorship began to "block" materials about evolution from print, a remarkable epigram appeared:

  "How the Creator made this world,
  What He counted most fitting,
  The chairman cannot know
  Of the Committee on Printing"

A person who has gained a faith that he considers true, and which really may be true, for some reason supposes that he possesses the truth itself, that he already knows everything and determines things like God Himself. If not alone, then collectively.

Through the prophet Isaiah, God speaks quite unambiguously: no. He is not like us, even if we were created in His image. Even if we have memorized everything He said, we have not learned to think as He does. Therefore our attempts to build our model of behavior on the basis of what "Jesus would do" are completely useless. Therefore we will always need not the law of God and not stories about Him, but Him Himself, the Living God, who cannot be modeled.

A person, having found faith, which he considers true (and which can be in reality true), for some reason thinks that he possesses the truth itself and that he already knows everything and determines as God Himself. Well, if not alone, then collectively. God through the prophet Isaiah expresses Himself completely clearly: no. He is not like us, even if we are created in His image. Even if we learnt by heart all that He said, we didn’t learn to think as Him. That is why are completely useless our attempts to build our model of behavior, assuming "how Jesus would have acted". That is why we shall always be in need not of God's law and not of narratives about Him, but of Him Himself, the Living God, Whom one cannot model.

So what: if His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways also, does it mean that everything is useless? How to live with such a God, how to understand Him? Probably, in no way. But what is our thoughts and our ways? When, at which moment they become ours separated from Him? Indeed, from the beginning, from the moment of the creation His breath beats in us, becoming our heart, this spiritual heart, where is born the will and the determination, where the choice is made and decisions are taken. Then when and why His thoughts stopped being ours? Every person, familiar to the biblical history will say: at the moment of the fall. But what then happened? Man wanted to become "as God" (in the Hebrew text it is really like this). In what? By measuring force? Or knowledge? Surely, no: for, such a thing even to us fallen men seems absurd. Then in what In the knowledge of the good and evil? But before the fall, people did not know what is good and what is bad?

Of course they knew, otherwise any prohibitions lose any moral sense, as the notion of sin itself. But indeed, there is another thing here: the desire to decide by ourselves what is good for us, and what is bad. Ourselves, without Him. Not according to His orders, but independently, as adults.

So it seemed. But in the facts it is particularly at this moment that the will of man began to part from God's will. But He did not take away from us His breath, did not deprive us of the heart. Just that this breath began to be felt more and more weaker, and together with it weakened even the will, which before the fall determined our entire life, spiritual and physical. And after - more and more - our will began to obey what it was called to rule.

And the more it obeyed, the less we had the power for the opposition of what we shouldn’t resist, of course if the relationships with God for us were not just simple words. So gradually, step by step, our will separated from His will, and our ways - from His ways. Of course, it does not belong to man to know the depths of the Personality of God. They are only known by Himself, and no one else. But to know His will and His ways defined by Him for us, man was always capable. For as long as he did not want to live himself, separated from God, in his small world. According to his will. And according to his ways.

So what: if His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways also, does it mean that everything is useless? How to live with such a God, how to understand Him? Probably, in no way. But what is our thoughts and our ways? When, at which moment they become ours separated from Him? Indeed, from the beginning, from the moment of the creation His breath beats in us, becoming our heart, this spiritual heart, where is born the will and the determination, where the choice is made and decisions are taken. Then when and why His thoughts stopped being ours? Every person, familiar to the biblical history will say: at the moment of the fall. But what then happened? Man wanted to become "as God" (in the Hebrew text it is really like this). In what? By measuring force? Or knowledge? Surely, no: for, such a thing even to us fallen men seems absurd. Then in what In the knowledge of the good and evil? But before the fall, people did not know what is good and what is bad?

Of course they knew, otherwise any prohibitions lose any moral sense, as the notion of sin itself. But indeed, there is another thing here: the desire to decide by ourselves what is good for us, and what is bad. Ourselves, without Him. Not according to His orders, but independently, as adults.

So it seemed. But in the facts it is particularly at this moment that the will of man began to part from God's will. But He did not take away from us His breath, did not deprive us of the heart. Just that this breath began to be felt more and more weaker, and together with it weakened even the will, which before the fall determined our entire life, spiritual and physical. And after - more and more - our will began to obey what it was called to rule.

And the more it obeyed, the less we had the power for the opposition of what we shouldn’t resist, of course if the relationships with God for us were not just simple words. So gradually, step by step, our will separated from His will, and our ways - from His ways. Of course, it does not belong to man to know the depths of the Personality of God. They are only known by Himself, and no one else. But to know His will and His ways defined by Him for us, man was always capable. For as long as he did not want to live himself, separated from God, in his small world. According to his will. And according to his ways.

Mostly, people (especially the city-dwellers, even more the children of the city) think that rain and snow are just a certain dirty trick, which falls from heaven to spoil the humor to everyone. The prophet Isaiah in this case can play the role of teacher of "nature study", reminding us that rain and snow are not a fate, but they are made to water the earth. Nothing will grow without rain and snow! Well, it is the same thing with spiritual life. It will be too sad, if we begin thinking that the Bible is just like that, to be put on a bookcase. If we think so, then there is a drought in our heart - that we realize it or not. God's word is living water necessary, in order that we don’t dry up.

When the prophets speak about the Word of God, they always have in mind something completely concrete and connected with their own spiritual experience. The Word of God is for them absolutely real, they really hear the voice of God so clearly, as we hear the voices of people who speak to us. God speaks with the prophets as we speak with one another. But it is not yet all, there is in the Word of God something bigger than the will and the revelation addressed to man. For God the word is even also a tool of His action in the world. With the word God creates the world; with the word He manages it. It can seem that the word that hears the prophet, and the word with which God manages the world are two different realities called in the same way by virtue of the peculiarities of the use of the biblical word, but it is not at all the case. Of course, the revelation received by a concrete person, cannot be compared with this power, by which God creates the world, or manages in it the movement of the natural forces.

But in both cases there is a substantial similarity: there and there, there is this sense, which does not exist in the nature and without which there is no universe. The science that studies the nature (whether it is the physical nature or the psychic nature), can find the answer to the question "how", but it does not look for the answers to the question "why so" or “what for so”. For God particularly these questions are the key. For Him, the world is full of sense and senses - sense as a whole reflecting His intention for the world, and senses as these purposes, which are put by Him in all that He created, from man to the stars and the sand.

Only man can understand in our world these senses put by God in things created by Him, and besides the senses are inseparable for man from the word: it is not accidentally if before even the fall, it is in particular to man who saw then the intention of God more clearly that was granted the possibility of giving names to everything that surrounds him and with what he has to interact directly. That is why the will of God is revealed to man in the word, not only when it is about a personal revelation, but also when it comes to the universe as a whole. Without the word, the world is a machine sometimes submitting itself to man, but more often hostile to him. With the word it [the world] is the meeting place of man with God, meeting that makes the man participant in the realization of God's plan, if only man himself wants it.

When the prophets speak of the word of God, they always mean something entirely concrete and connected with their own spiritual experience. The word of God is absolutely real to them; they truly hear God's voice as clearly as we hear the voices of people addressed to us. God speaks with the prophets just as we speak with one another. But this is not all: in God's word there is something more than will and revelation addressed to a person.

For God, the word is also an instrument of His action in the world. By the word God creates the world; by the word He governs it. It can appear that the word the prophet hears and the word by which God governs the world are two different realities, called by the same name because of the features of biblical usage, but this is still not entirely so. Of course, the revelation received by a particular person cannot be compared with the power by which God creates the world or directs the movement of natural forces in it. But in both cases there is also an essential similarity: in both there is that meaning which nature does not have and without which there is no created universe.

The science that studies nature, whether physical nature or psychic nature, can find an answer to the question "how," but it does not seek answers to the questions "why this way" or "for what purpose." For God, however, these very questions are central. The world for Him is full of meaning and meanings: meaning as a whole that reflects His design for the world, and meanings as the purposes He has set for everything He created, from a human being to a star and a grain of sand. And in our world only a human being can understand these meanings placed by God in the things He created; moreover, for a human being, meanings are inseparable from the word. It is no accident that even before the fall, it was precisely the human being, who at that time saw God's meanings with complete clarity, who was given the opportunity to give names to everything surrounding him and to everything with which he had to interact directly.

That is why God's will is revealed to a person in the word, not only when the matter concerns personal revelation, but also when it concerns the created universe as a whole. Without the word, the world is a machine, sometimes obedient to man but more often hostile to him. With the word, it is the place where man meets God, a meeting that makes man a participant in the fulfillment of God's plan, if only man himself wants this.

When the prophets speak about the Word of God, they always have in mind something completely concrete and connected with their own spiritual experience. The Word of God is for them absolutely real, they really hear the voice of God so clearly, as we hear the voices of people who speak to us. God speaks with the prophets as we speak with one another. But it is not yet all, there is in the Word of God something bigger than the will and the revelation addressed to man. For God the word is even also a tool of His action in the world. With the word God creates the world; with the word He manages it. It can seem that the word that hears the prophet, and the word with which God manages the world are two different realities called in the same way by virtue of the peculiarities of the use of the biblical word, but it is not at all the case. Of course, the revelation received by a concrete person, cannot be compared with this power, by which God creates the world, or manages in it the movement of the natural forces.

But in both cases there is a substantial similarity: there and there, there is this sense, which does not exist in the nature and without which there is no universe. The science that studies the nature (whether it is the physical nature or the psychic nature), can find the answer to the question "how", but it does not look for the answers to the question "why so" or “what for so”. For God particularly these questions are the key. For Him, the world is full of sense and senses - sense as a whole reflecting His intention for the world, and senses as these purposes, which are put by Him in all that He created, from man to the stars and the sand.

Only man can understand in our world these senses put by God in things created by Him, and besides the senses are inseparable for man from the word: it is not accidentally if before even the fall, it is in particular to man who saw then the intention of God more clearly that was granted the possibility of giving names to everything that surrounds him and with what he has to interact directly. That is why the will of God is revealed to man in the word, not only when it is about a personal revelation, but also when it comes to the universe as a whole. Without the word, the world is a machine sometimes submitting itself to man, but more often hostile to him. With the word it [the world] is the meeting place of man with God, meeting that makes the man participant in the realization of God's plan, if only man himself wants it.