Isaiah 50:4-9 (NRSV)
Read Isaiah 50:4-9 on biblegateway.com
Verse 4The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens- wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. Verse 5The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. Verse 6I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. Verse 7The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; Verse 8he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. Verse 9It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? All of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.
Devotion
This week's Old Testament reading drops us into the humiliation of Israel's exile. Because of their sins, God has handed Israel over to foreign empires. The Israelites are scattered away from their homeland, suffering under the oppressive force of the Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians. And yet in the midst of that pain, that suffering, that humiliation, the Lord speaks to Isaiah and gives him a word of comfort for a broken people. Isaiah proclaims a word of hope in the Lord's promise to help, save and vindicate all those who suffer humiliation.
Suffering and persecution are as present today as they were in Isaiah's time. Where do you see suffering and persecution in your world? Still today the Lord vindicates all those who suffer persecution by offering a word of hope that someday they will be raised from their humiliation. How will you bring that word of hope to the persecuted?
Prayer
God of all vindication and justice, forgive us for the ways we contribute to the suffering of the world, and provide us your word of hope to sustain the persecuted. Amen.