These writings, in the Hebrew apocalyptic style, can be seen to come from times of extreme hardship, when human hopes are crushed by overwhelming catastrophe. Isaiah 65 evokes the catastrophe of the crushing of Jerusalem in war and deportation, and Luke’s reminds us that it is written during the Roman occupation and crushing of the Judean insurrection. You can be optimistic in good times, when there is enough food, enough peace, and time to enjoy family life. Few people have experienced directly the violent disruption seen in Germany, Russia and Poland, or Vietnam last century. If you came recently to Australia, full of hope but surrounded by strangeness, prejudice and discrimination, that must come close to what we would call tough times. Even after Black Saturday, where the destruction was great, it did not compare with the deaths of millions, and the decades of suffering and humiliation of the last 100 years.
Those are the conditions in which Isaiah’s spiritual insights were formed. It is a truism that in enormous suffering comes insight into God’s life amongst us. The other side is that in times of plenty, hearts grow hard and the Spirit seems so far away as to be forgotten by whole populations. Lest we forget. Brad
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