‘Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the LORD, who have despised the Holy One of Israel.’ [1.4]
In the verse after this there is reference to a beaten body which is a clue to some of Isaiah’s thought. Israel is collective and this message, or should I say announcement, collectively addresses. There are times [chs 6, 53] in which Isaiah includes himself in that body-this collective group. And the nation is spoken to first in the opening lines of the announcement. ‘Laden’ is another hint at a broke body not functioning the way it should. Also a sick corrupt people produce (offspring) a collective community and continuing community that does evil. The spiraling energy of ‘us’ is perpetuating violence, struggle and a kind of hell on earth but the end of this verse provides somewhat of an upswing.
They together have forsaken the LORD. The LORD is a name for the One who is unnameable. It is by this name that the people will be saved. Isaiah’s name literally means ‘Yahweh has saved’ and so it is only appropriate that he would be sent. Notice quickly the relation between the name Jesus and Isaiah, both meaning the same thing, simply, ‘God saves’. But back to the LORD’s name which in this case Isaiah uses Hebrew parallelism to clarify who this god is and therefore what he is up to. The Holy One of Israel is the title given for clarification and it is clarifying only when we dig into Isaiah’s understanding of God’s holiness. Looking forward to the temple scene in Isaiah 6 where he only catches a vision of the throne room of God and is in the presence of angels singing, “Holy Holy Holy is the LORD God Almighty, the whole earth is filled with his glory” notice how he is not excluded from the presence that seems to be other than and righteous and…(all the other words we could use to describe goodness). Rather he is brought in to participate. Glen Stassen pointed out that ‘holiness shifts from kicking out to the actions of a compassionate deliverer’.
And so even with the weight of communal guilt ringing in our ears the weight of this God’s faithful, just and committed ethos brings our laden shoulders to rest inside the Holy so we are no longer to be utterly estranged.
