Week 26 Isaiah 1
This is a good section on religious practice. It’s a reminder that the obvious & visible religious & ceremonial parts of religion (for instance killing an animal for a burnt offering) will only get me so far. Isaiah makes that pretty clear right up front. The Lord is sick of Israel’s religious practices:
Animal sacrifices? Sick-of-them
Incense? Sick-of-it
Religious festivals? Sick-of-them
Fasting? Sick-of-it
Prayers? Sick-of-them.
It’s a serious situation when the Lord is sick of religion.
Isaiah doesn’t leave it there. He tells them why the Lord is sick-of-religion: because your hands are covered with the blood of your innocent victims (so…formal religious practice + bloody hands = sickening religion).
Fortunately Isaiah gives the Lord’s starter solution: wash yourselves and be clean. Let me no longer see your evil deeds. Give up your wicked ways.
Fortunately (again) Isaiah then recommends follow-up steps – several concrete things-to-do:
learn to do good
seek justice
help the oppressed
defend the orphan
fight for the rights of widows
Unfortunately Isaiah doesn’t spell out a third-level solution. For example he said to help the oppressed but he didn’t spell-out an action-step to actually help-the-oppressed (like maybe giving donations to the food bank). That might come later in the book. Or maybe Isaiah figured I could dope them out for myself.
Either way religious formalities & ritual actions aren’t stand-alone projects. No doubt they’re okay as far as they go. Where they get to isn’t far enough.
Note: quotes from Isaiah 1:15 16 17 (NLT)