I wondered what Isaiah would make of his words being so used 2 500 years after he wrote them! But the message was clear: Arise, even though darkness still covers the peoples.
This Easter season, darkness covers three countries surrounding the Holy Land on the west, north and south: Libya, Syria and Yemen. They are suffering acutely. The promise holds for them. This great rumbling of the earth, so like a tsunami, will not be quiet until all is settled there and here and everwhere.
Quoting Isaiah on T shirts and kombis fulfils the words in Sounds of Silence, the song of Simon and Garfunkel, written at the time of the Vietnam war and the great anti-war movement of the time, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls. The word of God is not only written in the bible or on T shirts; it is written everywhere. We have only to recognise it. The division between religion and life is being chipped away in our time to reveal a unity in all creation. We can no longer put God into the pigeon hole called religion and then get on with real life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor executed by the Nazis wrote from prison days before his death; now that it has come of age, the world is more godless, and perhaps it is for that very reason nearer to God than ever before. In the dominant culture of today people do not speak of God, do not call on Him publicly and do not belong to organised churches.
It is like children growing up who gradually become less dependent on their parents and even rebel against them for a time. Wise parents are not discouraged by this. They simply wait. Perhaps they even rejoice to see their children make their own decisions and find their own way.
Our world is becoming godless in the way we become parentless. And the mature adult ends up closer in a much deeper way to their parents. So it is with us and God only that now we are not talking of individuals but of the whole human family. We are growing up.
All these revolutions the ones that have taken place, the ones that are taking place and the ones yet to happen are all manifestations of this. Meanwhile the word of God explicit, for example in the bible and on T shirts, or implicit in art and ordinary life are everywhere to be seen and heard for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear (Matt 13:16).
Post published in: Opinions