Year 3, Day 44: Isaiah 60

Another Smashing Opening Verse

I’m going to make a really obvious comment to begin this blog.  Again we have another incredible verse with which a chapter begins.  It’s almost like the authors of the Bible knew what they were doing!  {I know, I know…}

In all seriousness, how often as I write this blog do I comment on the very first verse of every chapter?  This chapter is not different.  “Arise, shine, for your light has come.  The glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”  This is such an incredible verse at it helps us frame faith perfectly in our worldview.  We do not do anything to earn the presence of the glory of the Lord.  The glory of the Lord rises upon us. God sends His glory.  We have all fallen short of the glory of God, but He sends His glory to rise and shine upon us anyway.  This is such a humbling verse that leaps off of the page as a demonstration to God’s gracious nature!

The Return To The Lord’s Hand

As we move through the pronouncements in the following verses, we can hear how these words so clearly speak about the restoration of the Hebrew people after the Babylonian captivity.  They will return to the land.  There will be great joy among the people.  The wealth of the land will be returned.  {This is probably an obscure reference to the temple furnishings being returned, which the Babylonians had plundered from the temple.}

When we get to verse 6 the message in verse 2 suddenly takes a whole new meaning.  Yep, you’ve guessed it.  Here comes another one of those double-interpretation passages!  In verse 6 we hear about the nations bringing gold and frankincense.  We hear about them bringing praise to God.  And then we look back to verse 2 and read the words in a new light.  “The Lord will arise upon you.”  Not only will the glory of the Lord arise, the Lord Himself will rise among the people!  Suddenly this passage is not just about the return of the people out of exile but this chapter is about the coming of God’s Messiah in the form of Jesus.  The gold, the frankincense, the Gentiles coming and bringing praise to God’s name – this passage ultimately finds it’s fulfillment in the gospel story of Jesus!

It is hard for me to not read the rest of the chapter through the lens of Christ now that Jesus is so clearly portrayed in the opening section.  So I will surge ahead in interpreting this chapter through the lens of Christ.  The next dozen or so verses have much focus upon the nations and their relationship with the Hebrew people.  The nations will continue to praise God.  The glory of the nations will come and bow in the presence of the Hebrew people.  The wealth of the nations will pass among God’s faithful.  I can’t help but see these verses coming true in Christ as well.  As Christianity spread through His disciples, the nations have come and given glory to God in the presence of the Hebrew people. 

The truth is that God’s Messiah was a Hebrew.  We have the Hebrew people before us to thank for bringing forth this testimony to God’s grace and glory.  It is out of God’s relationship with the Hebrew people that we find Jesus emerging into our lives.

It Is The Lord Who Works

I’m going to close these reflections with an intentional focus on the last two verses.  In a sense, these verses bring us back full circle to where we began in this chapter.  It is the Lord who does the planting of His righteous branch.  It is the Lord who does the work.  It is the Lord who shall be glorified.  He deserves the praise.  He deserves the glory.

Then we hear that the least one shall become a clan and the small one a mighty nation.  I can’t help but hear this again as a prophetic verse that is fully true only in the light of Christ.  Here we have Jesus, born into a stable – laid in a manger, even – to a man who wasn’t even fully married to Jesus’ own mother.  You don’t have much more of a humble beginning than that.  You aren’t much more small in life that that.

However, out of this least of beginnings shall come the Messiah.  Then, out of Christ comes His mighty nation – a people of grace.  What a great thought to reflect upon for the rest of the day.  God’s hand is at work.  God’s Messiah has come out of the lowliest of beginnings.  But He has come nonetheless!  He deserves the praise.  And we are a part of His mighty nation.  Thanks be to God!

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