The Isaiah Project: Chapter 64, or, Cards on the Table
Welcome back--I find these last few chapters beautiful and terrifying. Enjoy.
The Vision Isaiah Saw: Chapter 641. Oh if you would only tear the Heavens apart and descend. In your presence the mountains would quake as when fire crackles through kindling. The fire makes the waters seethe, so your name is made known to your adversaries, and nations quake in your presence.
2. You did fearsome things, things we never hoped for. You descended; the mountains quaked in your presence.
3. From all eternity no one has heard, and no eye has seen any god but you, and the things you do for the ones who wait for you.
4. You come to meet, in his delight, he who enacts righteousness, who remembers you on your pathways — they remember you. Look! you have burst out in anger, we have sinned, but in these things, forever, we are saved.
5. And we’re as good as filthy, all of us, all our righteousness as good as a soiled rag. We disintegrate like leaves, all of us, and our corruption carries us off like a breath of wind.
6. There is no one who calls on your name, who rouses himself to clasp onto you — because you hid your face from us and let us decompose at the hand of our corruption.
7. But now, God — you are our father. We are clay, and you sculpt us. We are all of us things that your hand makes.
8. Oh God, don’t burst out in such anger, and don’t remember corruption forever. Look close and see: we’re your people, all of us.
9. Your sacred cities have become wasteland; Zion has become a wasteland and Jerusalem is devastation.
10. The house of our sanctity, our adornment, where our fathers praised you — it’s burning, it’s fuel for fire; all our pleasures and desires are a desert.
11. Are you going to restrain yourself, God? For all these things, will you keep away? Will you impoverish us that much? -- -- --If you have ever really loved, you have also begged for mercy. I don’t mean that you’ve made excuses for a minor slip-up. I don’t mean you’ve laughed together with your beloved over a charming foible you have. I’m not talking about always being five minutes late or leaving the toilet seat up.
I’m talking about the 3 A.M. phone call to a mother you screamed at in tears over some meaningless thing. I’m talking about dad can you come get me, I trusted that guy when you said I shouldn’t, and now I’m scared and I can’t get home. I’m talking about please will you take me back, I can’t live without you.
We are this way. Humans, I mean. We screw up the best relationships for the worst reasons, throw away the deepest love without thinking twice. And when it hits us, when we find ourselves on the outside of the door, we have two choices. We can sit there in our cold pride and shiver, or we can pound on the door and plead to be let back in.
And if you have ever really loved, you also know what you do when you hear that knocking. You know there’s no reason why you should. You know you’re in the right. But you also know it doesn’t matter. You open the door. In fact it’s all you want to do; in fact, it floods your heart with something so tender it can’t be called either sorrow or joy.
I want to stress here that there are situations in which forgiveness doesn’t mean you keep someone in your life. Sometimes you’ve been abused. Sometimes your abuser may be sorry, but he can’t stop abusing or you can’t bear to see his face anymore. Maybe, with time and work, you can let go of the resentment and the gnawing desire for vengeance. But don’t misunderstand me: when God sets you free, he wants you to stay free.
Still, even the best relationships break. And when they do, when the remorse is real, when it would be madness to make an end of things, then you beg for mercy and you receive it.
That’s what this chapter of Isaiah is about. That place of desperation, that place of regret and of begging to be let back in: that’s where Israel is in these verses. “Oh God, don’t burst out in such anger, and don’t remember corruption forever. Look close and see: we’re your people, all of us” (verse 8). I can’t live without you: please will you take me back.
I could go on explaining to you the historical context of it, the symbolism of Jerusalem refounded and the people of God brought back together on Mount Zion. But I’ve told you all that now, and said what I had to say about it. And really, this chapter is beyond its time and place. This is pure, unmediated petition. This is cards-on-the-table prayer, one hundred percent helplessness and zero percent merit.
When all our grand designs lie in pieces around us (verses 9-10), when all our pride is broken and we’ve made a mess of all the good things we had going for us (verse 5), that’s when it’s time to make that 3 A.M. phone call. “Look close and see: we’re your people, all of us.”
At the end of all Israel’s wanderings, after failure and exile and despair, that was all they had left to offer. Just need. It’s all any of us has, really. And when we realize that, God takes us back.
Rejoice evermore,Spencer