The Prince of Peace
- Details:
- Written by Heathere Cetrangolo
audio (6MB)
Israel was a divided nation during Isaiah’s life … and the two kingdoms were under threat of foreign invasion. That threat became a reality in Isaiah’s lifetime.
By 722 BCE the Assyrians had conquered the northern kingdom and ten tribes (of the 12) had been relocated and scattered throughout what is today Syria, Iraq and Turkey (predicted in chapter 7 of Isaiah)
In 586 BCE (as predicted by Isaiah) the southern kingdom was also conquered and the people exiled by the Babylonians.
The result of war and exile: mass cultural genocide. It meant that even after return from exile, only a remnant remained of what was once the Jewish nation … a people set apart by God to be a holy people. In a sense, it’s not unlike the remnants of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples that remain in our nation today. The damage that was done was so significant that culture, language and story were lost forever:
- The people were murdered
- Raped
- Pillaged
- Used for slave labour
- Forced to scatter, in the hope that their culture would soon be bred out of them
Well, that’s the history behind today’s passage (in brief) … and it’s shocking for two reasons:
1. On a human level violence and war is always shocking and distressing;
2. But from a faith perspective there’s another level …. It’s shocking because God had promised peace to this people.
Seeing the King
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- Written by Heather Cetrangelo
audio (7MB)
There are moments in life that make us quake. There are moments that make us tremble on the inside … and sometimes we tremble on the outside.
We tremble when we’re nervous, when we’re afraid, when we’re overwhelmed by emotion, and sometimes when we’re very sick, or in a lot of pain.
When I was 18 I went through an experience that made me think that there was something really wrong with my health. You see within the network of friends that I hung out with at that time, was a young man whose name was Adam. I’d known him for a number of years and he was a mutual friend. It was around June 2001, when I began to notice, that every time I was around Adam, my heart would beat a little faster than normal. On the inside I would tremble, in his presence. At first I thought maybe I just had an iron deficiency, but over time I noticed, that it was getting worse. It got to the point that every single time this young man came near me, my heart began to pound so hard, that I thought it was going to burst through my chest.
I remember crying out to the Lord one day, ‘What is wrong with me? I can’t calm down. My heart won’t slow down. I can’t breathe properly. I’m completely unsettled. What is wrong with me?’
A little sentence came into my mind … ‘Maybe you’re in love with Adam.’ I thought, ‘shut up shut up shut up! I don’t want to know that. If it’s an iron deficiency, I can fix that … but if I’ve fallen in love, well, then what am I gonna do?’
Isaiah 1-2
- Details:
- Written by Chris Appleby
A King Forgotten and Foretold audio (5MB)
A King Forgotten
It’s a tragic story isn’t it? A nation chosen, indeed created, by God to be his special possession. A nation nurtured and helped along at every point. Rescued from captivity in Egypt, given the law to direct their daily lives, given priests and kings to guide them; and it’s all been for nothing. They’ve failed so badly that it seems there’s no longer any help for them. In a mere 400 years they’ve gone from being a flourishing nation to being under siege, about to be abandoned by God.
Or is it the other way around? Has God abandoned them or have they abandoned God? You see this book isn’t primarily about Israel. It’s really a book about God. And the problem with Israel is that they’ve forgotten who God really is.
Isaiah 5
- Details:
- Written by Chris Appleby
The Song of the Vineyard audio (5MB)
I grew up in the 60’s listening to the Beatles. If you know anything about their music you’ll know that most of it was love songs: ‘I want to hold your hand’, ‘She loves you’, ‘From me to you’. And it was a winner because everyone loves a love song and everyone can relate to them. Of course not every love song is a happy one. Sometimes they’re more like a lament. That boy took my love away but this boy, wants you back again. She’s ignoring him, he comes to her door and there’s No Reply. I can’t sleep at night since you’ve been gone, ... I call your name.
Well Isaiah gathers the people of Jerusalem together and sings them a love song which turns out to be a parable. It starts out very happy like a good love song
The Hope of a Harvest
You can imagine the people settling down to hear this song of love and devotion. “My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it.” If you’ve been out along the Yarra Valley lately you can imagine the scene. Rolling hills, green fields, rows of vines lining the road as you pass by. A stone farmhouse in the middle. It’s an idyllic description isn’t it? The watchtower indicates that he’s here for the long haul. And he’s dug a wine vat to store the wine so he must expect a great harvest. Everything that could be done for the vineyard has been done. The best position, the best soil, the choicest vines.
But then like every good parable we come to the sting in the tail.
Is 62 - Christmas Day 2010
- Details:
- Written by Chris Appleby
A Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord audio (2MB)
I have a problem with Christmas. Not with the idea of celebrating Jesus’ birth of course. Nor with the idea of giving gifts to our loved ones. That’s good because it helps us remember that God gave us the greatest gift of all. It’s not even the temptation to eat more than I really need, though that is a problem.
No, I have a problem with presents. More particularly I have a problem deciding which present to open first. Should I choose the most interesting shape? Or should I choose the one with the glossy wrapping? Or should it be the one with the plain brown paper wrapping?
Of course you can see the problem can’t you? The quality of the wrapping may have no relationship to what’s inside. Without looking inside it’s almost impossible to see whether the package is worth opening.
That’s the mistake that so many people make when it comes to Christianity. The package doesn’t look particularly exciting so they never look at what’s inside.
