Daily Lesson for December 13, 2018

Daily Lesson for Isaiah chapter 7 verses 1 through 

In the days of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel went up to attack Jerusalem, but could not mount an attack against it. 2When the house of David heard that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

3 Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field, 4and say to him, Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smouldering stumps of firebrands, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah. 5Because Aram—with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah—has plotted evil against you, saying, 6Let us go up against Judah and cut off Jerusalem and conquer it for ourselves and make the son of Tabeel king in it; 7therefore thus says the Lord God:

It shall not stand,

   and it shall not come to pass.

Fear paralyzes us.  When we are afraid we tighten every muscle in our bodies and brace ourselves for impact. Or, we just run like hell. So we’re either stiff as a board or hiding under a rock. Or we’re both. Some people spend their whole lives like this. 

The Prophet comes to show us how our fears are often self-fulfilling. We’re afraid of defeat, so we don’t enter the battle. We’re afraid of losing what we have, so we hunker down, bury our treasure, and wait out life. We are afraid of being hurt, so we never put ourselves out there to love or be loved. We let fear take the wheel while we cower in the backseat; and we’re 20 years down the road before we realize we’ve been kidnapped. As Jesus said, we lose our life in trying to save it.

We can be our own worst enemies, fulfilling our own prophecies of loss defeat. The Prophet comes to us saying, “Do not fear; and do not let your heart be faint.”  It’s a message we have to hear over and over again.  

And this is the reason why Advent comes every year, to remind us again and again that in the new year there will be many things to fear, but the greatest of them is fear itself.