Exhortation

“I hate your new moon festivals,” the Lord says at the beginning of Isaiah, “Bring your worthless offerings no longer; Incense is an abomination to me.”

He rejects Israel’s offerings and festivals because their hands are filled with blood and because they oppress the weak.  Seek justice, Yahweh says, and I will listen to you.  “Reprove the ruthless.  Defend the orphan.  Plead for the widow.”

Isaiah’s prophecy elaborates the promise that the Lord will bring His justice.  The king to come will establish His throne in righteousness (9:7), and the shoot from Jesse’s stump will judge on behalf of the poor (11:1, 4).  Yahweh’s Servant is “the Righteous One” who brings justice (53:11; 54:17).  Anointed by the Spirit and wrapped in justice, He causes righteousness to spring up before the nations (61:10-11).

The world is still full of victims of violence and injustice.  Children are held in forced prostitution, prisoners are tortured and imprisoned without charges, widows are robbed of their land, workers are virtual slaves.  No one can turn to the police because the police are corrupt.  This is not a distant problem.  Girls as young as 9 or 10 are walking the streets of American cities as prostitutes.

Jesus is the King and the Servant who has come to carry out the will of His Father, the God of justice.  That is our task as well.  Even if we can do no more, we can remember the oppressed in our prayers.  You are prophets, and so you are an officer of the Supreme Court of the Universe.  Reprove the ruthless, plead for the widow and the orphan before the Judge of all the earth, who does right.