Sometimes, when we look at the state of the world, or think about something that’s going on in our community, we find ourselves asking “Why on earth doesn’t God do something?”
It’s a question that’s asked many times, by many people, in many different situations, throughout the Bible. The Psalms and the books of the prophets in particular come back to it again and again. So God knows that it’s a question we struggle with.
But it’s worth asking ourselves what exactly we want God to do. What kind of action on God’s part would set the world right? And what would happen to us today if he did it? Our passage from Isaiah this week (chapter 59) is one of many that lays out what God plans to do to restore justice to the world. It’s a vision both of judgement and of salvation and not all of it makes for easy reading. But the closer we look at it, the more it becomes clear that God’s judgement is part of his promise of salvation. We can’t have one without the other.
Ed