Content related to Isaiah

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Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

Advent 3B

Who doesn’t want to preach on a passage as chockfull of lyric imagery as is Isaiah 61!?  These words are so redolent of new hope and new beginnings and fresh joy that just reading this chapter aloud delivers more gospel freight than even some whole sermons that are four times as long. Of course, many…

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Isaiah 40:1-11

Advent 2B

Today “comfort” conjures up a cloud of images ranging from La-Z-Boy recliners to Royal Caribbean cruises.  “Comfort food” is all about the personal satisfaction that can come from mashed potatoes and meatloaf.  “Creature comforts” are all about having the nicest stuff even as the words “luxury and comfort” get yoked to describe things like the…

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Isaiah 64:1-9

Advent 1B

Comments, Observations, and Questions: At their honest best, biblical writers—psalmists, prophets, and others—are seldom able to call down judgment on others without also, in utter humility, admitting that when it comes right down to it, they aren’t any great spiritual shakes themselves.  You see this at the end of Psalm 139: after so many verses…

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Isaiah 49:8-16

Epiphany 8A

Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Isaiah talked to people who wondered if anything was stable in the world. Like any number of people in our world at any given moment, so the Israelites of Isaiah’s day found themselves going through hard times in a world where the unexpected had become normal. Their country had…

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Isaiah 60:1-6

Epiphany C

Comments, Observations, and Questions to Consider Oh how we love Isaiah 60 these days!   But I wonder if the full sweep of these half-dozen verses really sounded that great to the folks way back when who first heard this.  Israel had lately been held captive by foreign types.   Their land and Temple had been sacked.  …

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