NOTES for Isa 1:19-31

The way of the Lord, of which the prophet Isaiah speaks, differs strikingly from human ways. The Lord Himself proclaims this through Isaiah, saying: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord" (Isa. 55:8). This qualitative difference is expressed above all in the fact that human ways do not lead into life; only the Lord, who is Life itself, can lead us to Himself.

And now we read at the beginning of the book of Isaiah that God does not abandon people, but that a day will come when He will teach all nations His ways. That means it is attainable, no matter how hard we try to prove the opposite. And it means that God's will is for us to find the way of life. It is also important that this prophecy was fulfilled in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

People have reflected on communion with God and on what is needed for it in every age, even when they remembered God poorly and remembered poorly what He wants from them. With Abraham's calling a new era began: God Himself spoke to people, and not only spoke, but also began to create His people, raising it from a small tribe. Now, it would appear, there could be no questions concerning communion with God: God Himself could answer any question and resolve any uncertainty; one only had to ask Him. But people tend to cling to traditional paradigms, whether in behavior or in thinking.

Sacrifices had long been regarded as a form of communion with higher powers, as a shared meal of gods and people. But fallen man has always tended to seek convenience and emotional comfort more than spiritual renewal. Communion with higher powers created obligations; their nearness at times began to feel burdensome. Sacrifices ceased to be communion with higher powers and turned into a treat by which people tried to appease those powers so that they would leave in peace those who prepared the treat for them. The history of Yahwism began from a clean slate, but fallen man, even when receiving revelation from God, remains fallen man. And in Yahwism too, especially when it spread widely and became, as it was in the time of Isaiah of Jerusalem, the state religion, sacrifice, which in the days of Abraham and Moses had been a shared meal of God and people, also became a means that allowed religious but not very believing people to buy God off.

The logic was simple: keeping the commandments is difficult and often inconvenient, while it is easy to organize a splendid festival with many sacrifices so that God will be satisfied. Will a multitude of sacrifices replace keeping the commandments? Through the mouth of His prophet God answers: no, it will not. Stop doing evil, learn to do good, and then come to Me, He says to those who hoped that sacrifices could replace the path of righteousness.

And the point here is not even that God is repelled by violators of the commandments, though their choice can hardly please Him. The point is that the sacrificial meal has meaning only as a form of communion with God. That communion with God is impossible without keeping the commandments. And the arithmetic of offense and ransom, violation and penalties that remove guilt from the violator, is out of place here. God offers man only one choice. Nothing else can replace it.

This is the beginning of the book of the prophet Isaiah. Here the task of every prophecy becomes very clear: in a situation where people are losing all spiritual and moral bearings, God through His prophets restores the true understanding of righteousness.

So, first: wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. To do this we must agree that we are unclean, acknowledge our failure and sinfulness. And then we must stop doing evil, remove evil deeds "from before God's eyes," that is, remove them from life altogether, because God sees everything. And after that we must do good, while the criterion of this good's authenticity is selflessness. To save a slave, to defend an orphan and a widow, means doing something good for the weakest, poorest, and most powerless people in that world, those from whom one could expect no reward for a good deed. Selflessness is a sign of mercy and sacrificial love, so dear to God's heart.

Of course, by itself this prophetic call does not give a person the strength to live according to these guidelines. It only awakens the desire for such a life, while the possibility of the fullness of righteousness is opened in the New Testament with Christ.

Isaiah utters terrifying words. Through our lawlessness we have deprived ourselves of the possibility of God's constant presence. We try to observe rules—the rules of fasting and prayer—and offer sacrifice, but we do not fulfill the law. If it were not for the Salvation to come, we would be wiped from the face of the earth. It is important to fulfill the law constantly and actively. The one who fulfills the law will receive his reward. But the one who follows the Lord and performs deeds according to the word of the Lord fulfills His will. No sacrifices are required from him. What is needed is love, which will allow God once again to commune with His children, to receive us once again into His home. To meet us again like the prodigal son and arrange a feast, to slaughter the “young goat” in our honor and bestow His love upon us. He created the whole world, and we try to offer Him part of His own world as a sacrifice. We take what does not belong to us and give it instead of ourselves. Yet all that is required is to give ourselves—such as He has already made us, but to whom He has given freedom. And in this freedom we have the opportunity to take the difficult path, but the path of the Lord's works.

The texts for the first Sunday of Advent call us first of all to watchfulness. Not only because we cannot determine the moment when a child will be born. But also because our expectation of seeing Jesus now must be like what parents feel when they have already been waiting eight months for the birth of a child. There is no patience left at all: when at last will we be able to see, to know who this is, what He is like? Life is about to change at any minute, and there are too many of those minutes.

The changes in our life that Jesus gives us are immeasurably greater. He will come to us as a newborn infant, who cannot speak and who will not get anywhere unless we carry Him. In the time left to us before His birth, we must accustom ourselves to the thought that, like any little child, Jesus means cares, constant anxieties, and watchfulness at any time of day or night.

Is He well with us? Is He warm? Will we teach Him to smile? And will we unlearn how to wage war when He appears in our life?

In today’s reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah, the Lord tells us three important things that express all our hope. First, He promises to cleanse His people. This is our only hope, because in the final analysis a person is unable to purify his own heart. Of course, purification is also impossible without the person’s own desire and effort. Repentance and fasting can become the point of support through which God fills our desire for purification with strength.

Second, the Lord once again speaks of what He expects from people. “Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her converts with righteousness.” In this way, God shows us the path of purification and reveals His will for us in a few words.

Third, today’s reading contains Isaiah’s first messianic prophecy, which corresponds almost word for word to the words of his contemporary, the prophet Micah: “Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains.” Repentance and purification, righteousness and hope—everything for us is centered on Christ.

All people's hopes in themselves and in other people are in vain... Only when the word of the Lord reaches people, when the Lord Himself reigns, when all nations believe and call upon His name—only then will there be true light and genuine peace on earth.