“Awake, awake, put on
your strength, Zion!”
Isaiah 52:1a (Common English Bible)
Captivity
for Israel has ended. God has defeated the powers of Babylon and has authorized
Israel to depart and head for home to Jerusalem. A new day, with a strong
future, now rises for God’s people. “Awake, awake!” is God’s double imperative
to Israel. “Put on your strength, Zion!” The call sounds strangely familiar.
“Up and Adam! Let’s get going!” is the more common usage today. These, or
similar, words have been uttered by most parents summoning their children
awake from their sleep. The image of sleepy children, resisting the call to
leave the comfort of a warm bed, is sharp and crisp. The parent can wake the
child with a shout, can summon the child from the bed, but it must be the
child’s own strength that moves them from slumber to a fresh engagement with a
new day.
God’s
present difficulty is that Israel doesn’t want to get out of bed. During their
captivity in Babylon, Israel has become dulled, inattentive, hopeless, and
grief-stricken.[i] Israel
has been humiliated by Babylon and has spiraled into such despair and self-pity
that they no longer want to live. No longer did life offer a driving purpose,
only a memory of brighter days. Absent was a radiant hope, only a fading dream.
A captivating vision has fled from their sight. What remained was a history.
“Awake, awake!” is God’s response to Israel’s self-pity. “Put on your strength,
Zion!” God is reminding Israel that there is still strength in the people and
is here urging them to summon that strength and toss-off that negative attitude
that has consumed them.
Psychotherapist
and author, Amy Morin writes that feeling sorry for yourself is
self-destructive.[ii]
Though we all experience pain and sorrow in life, dwelling on your sorrow and
misfortune can consume you until it eventually changes your thoughts and
behaviors. Morin contends that any of us can choose to take control. “Even when
you can’t alter your circumstances, you can alter your attitude.”[iii]
This is the clear declaration of God to Israel; the clear call to shake off
their indulgence in self-pity, claim the strength that remains in them, and
move positively forward toward the future God has prepared for them. God’s
strength comes alongside our own. It does not do for us what we can do for
ourselves.
After
Victor Hugo was exiled from his beloved France, he spent 18 years in the
Channel Islands. Hugo once described this exile from the nation he loved as
worse than death. Each afternoon, at sunset, Victor Hugo would climb to a cliff
overlooking a small harbor and look longingly out over the water toward France.
Legend tells us that each day, following his meditations, Hugo would pick up a
pebble and throw it into the sea. One day the children who developed an
affection for him asked why he threw a stone in the sea each day. “Not stones,
children, not stones. I am throwing my self-pity into the sea.” Little wonder
that during those 18 years of struggle, Victor Hugo gave the world his best and
most profound work of literature.
Joy,
[i]
Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66.
(Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) 136.
[ii]
Amy Morin, 13 Things Mentally Strong
People Don’t Do. (New York: William Morrow, 2014) 20.
[iii]
Morin, 18.
No comments:
Post a Comment