NOTES for Isa 55:8

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.