This blog is one person’s daily discipline of bible reading. It uses the Episcopal Church’s list of readings for every day in the year (Lectionary) and gives a personal meditation on it, while remembering what’s going on the world with a headline reference to the news. Readers can access past blogs from the date list onscreen right or by googling emmock.com plus scripture reference or theme.
GOLIATH TRUMP PEEVED AT GLENFIDDICH AWARD TO HIS SCOTTISH DAVID
(Whisky Firm honours local opposition to Trump Golf Course) 
Isaiah 2:12-22
13 against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up; and against all the oaks of Bashan;
14 against all the high mountains, and against all the lofty hills;
15 against every high tower, and against every fortified wall;
16 against all the ships of Tarshish, and against all the beautiful craft.*
17 The haughtiness of people shall be humbled, and the pride of everyone shall be brought low; and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.
18 The idols shall utterly pass away.
19 Enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground,
from the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth.
20 On that day people will throw away to the moles and to the bats
their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship,
21 to enter the caverns of the rocks and the clefts in the crags,
from the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth.
22 Turn away from mortals, who have only breath in their nostrils, for of what account are they?
Lord’s Resistance Army killers
This is a profound and disturbing prophecy because one cannot deny the integrity of the author. He portrays something which arises in the midst of human experience but which reveals itself as profoundly other, different, alien and destructive. This presence “rises” from a place which cannot be named because of course it is not any place in the universe; it rises in the sense that it imposes itself on all human and even natural attempts at importance; and especially on attempts to fabricate Gods from earthly materials. An annihilating nothingness which lies just beyond everyday experience erupts into the prophet’s consciousness demanding worship and brooking no competition. It is the Lord of hosts, Jahweh, the God of justice who requires humility from human beings. It’s good for Christian believers to live with this vision without immediately running to Jesus for a reassurance he does not in fact give.
“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Contemporary theology has often failed to engage with what the ancients called the mysterium tremendum, the dread-ful mystery. I think I might argue that this failure has disabled not only its doctrine of God, but also its doctrines of salvation ( if God is not dreadful perhaps we don’t need saved from his wrath?), and of evangelism (if the love proclaimed is not the love of the dreadful God, is it really anything more than permissiveness?) and damnation (if God is not dreadful is there really any justice for Mladic, Pol Pot and the Lord’s Resistance Army and other proud Lords of the earth?)
against all that is lifted up and high
But of course there is also the question of how we can say of this same God, “The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.” In Christian mythology the day when “the idols utterly pass away” is Christmas Day, when the dread-ful God becomes flesh in the baby at Bethlehem. From this moment, weakness and foolishness is as much part of the character of the true God as the dread-fulness, which is however increased rather than eliminated by this revelation. Love is more terrible than wrath.
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