Self-Imposed Exile

Above:  Assyrian Empire

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

–The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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The Assigned Readings:

Isaiah 10:12-27, 32b-34

Psalm 33 (Morning)

Psalms 85 and 91 (Evening)

2 Peter 1:1-21

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Some Related Posts:

2 Peter 1:

http://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/last-sunday-after-the-epiphany-year-a/

http://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/week-of-last-epiphany-monday-year-2/

http://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/week-of-proper-4-monday-year-2/

The Remnant:

http://taylorfamilypoems.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/the-remnant/

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You have been gracious to your land, O LORD,

you have restored the good fortune of Jacob.

You have forgiven the iniquity of your people

and blotted out all their sins.

You have withdrawn all your wrathful indignation.

Restore us then, O God our Savior;

let your anger depart from us.

Will you be displeased with us forever?

will you prolong your anger from age to age?

Will you not give us life again,

that your people may rejoice in you?

–Psalm 85:1-6, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)

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For very soon My wrath will have spent itself, and My anger that was bent on wasting them.

–Isaiah 10:25, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

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But without [goodness, understanding, self-control, perseverance, devotion, and kindness to brothers with love], a person is blind or short-sighted, forgetting how the sins of the past were washed away.

–2 Peter 1:9, The New Jerusalem Bible

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God will destroy the Assyrian Empire, Isaiah told his audience.  Not only that, a remnant of Judah will return and God’s anger will run its course.  One might flip forward to Isaiah 40 and read:

Comfort, oh comfort, My people,

Says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

And declare to her

That her term of service is over,

That her iniquity is expiated,

For she has received at the hand of the LORD

Double for all her sins.

–Isaiah 40:1-2, TANAKH:  The Holy Scriptures

Divine anger which led to the destruction of Assyria will end.  Divine anger which led to the Assyrian and Babylonian Exiles will run its course.  But Assyria did not rise again.  In contrast, exiles from Judah did return to their ancestral homeland.

The author of 2 Peter told his audience to lie in goodness, understanding, self-control, perseverance, and devotion, and to be kind to one’s Christian brothers (and sisters) in love.  By so doing, he wrote, the knowledge of Jesus Christ would be neither ineffectual nor unproductive.  Yet without them, one forgets that God has washed our sins away.

If we live as if God has not forgiven certain sins, we go about our lives entrapped in our ignorance and illusions.  We become prisoners of a lie, or at least a misunderstanding.  We live in a self-imposed exile.  This is most unfortunate.  What might we do for God if we were living as the free people we are?

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

DECEMBER 9, 2011 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF THE HOLY MEN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

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http://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/devotion-for-december-4-lcms-daily-lectionary/

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