No peace for the wicked

The phrase "no peace for the wicked" is one that has passed into common use. It occurs twice in Isaiah, in chapter 48 and in chapter 57, and is part of the explanation of why things have gone so wrong for God's people. In chapter 48, God tells the people that if only they had kept His commands, peace and well-being would have flowed like a river, as unending as the waves of the sea; in chapter 57 God promises to bring peace and healing to people far and near. Chapter 57 includes descriptions of the kind of things that wicked people are doing. They are described as tiring themselves out, rushing from one useless idol to another and from one sexual partner to the next, unwilling to admit that none of these things are actually helping.

Although there is less child sacrifice nowadays, the search for a goal, an aim, a sexual partner, an idol that satisfies is still a feature of modern life. Should we condemn the world as wicked? Certainly there is wickedness. But this description of life from Isaiah's time is also useful as an explanation of why it's so difficult for people in the world today to find peace.

God is not angry

What is God like? One of the criticisms that non-Christians aim at the Bible is that God is vengeful, capricious and angry. They ask why they would want to believe in such a God, let alone worship or obey him? And parts of the Old Testament, taken by themselves, certainly make it appear that God is like that. There's a lot of anger and destruction; it's easy to see where a caricature of God as forever smiting people has come from.

God is a person, not an impersonal force. He has feelings, and He responds to what we do, just as a friend might be upset or angry with us - while not stopping being our friend. In the first books of the Bible, God does get angry. But there is an important promise in Isaiah 54, when God says that He's not going to be angry any more.

Eat and drink for tomorrow we die

A while ago I was watching a programme on TV about money and spending, and there was a woman interviewed who justified the large amount that she spent on designer clothes, phones, tablets, etc., by saying "I could be dead tomorrow." The phrase "Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die" is in Isaiah 22, and is followed by God saying that this sin will never be atoned for. Does this mean that God doesn't want us to have fun? Is God anti-party? Should we be sober, sensible and just a little bit sad?

What do you do when you're healed?

All three of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) have a brief story - a couple of sentences - about Jesus healing Simon's mother-in-law. It's part of a larger narrative about Jesus doing lots of healing, and followed by a description of many people with illnesses and demons coming to him. In Matthew, it comes after Jesus has healed a man with leprosy and remote-healed a centurion's servant. In Mark and Luke, it's after Jesus has cast out an impure spirit.

Jesus goes to Simon's house, where his mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. Without any drama, Jesus heals her. Matthew and Mark say that he takes her hand; Luke says that he rebukes the fever. It's all done with a minimum of fuss. Jesus goes to her, and she's better. And then she gets up and waits on them. I used to think that this seemed a bit unfair. Assuming that Simon is at least in his mid-twenties, his mother-in-law will be in her forties or possibly fifties, and a few minutes earlier she was ill in bed. But of course I was missing the point.

Authority figure

One of the things I like about Mark's Gospel is how fast everything happens. Apart from the fact that everything seems to happen "immediately" or "at once", Mark starts the action right from Chapter 1. There's no Nativity story, no long genealogy, just straight into the action. Right from the word go Jesus is healing people, teaching, casting out demons (and annoying the religious hierarchy). So it's only 21 verses into the Gospel that we have the story of Jesus healing a man who is possessed by an "impure spirit." 

Jesus has gone into the synagogue to teach. This isn't some kind of open mic Sabbath; Jesus is recognised as a Rabbi, a teacher, someone who is entitled and equipped to sit and teach everyone else. And people are amazed at his teaching. They say that he has authority. What do they mean?