Isaiah 41 is a proclamation to Israel not to fear, because the LORD is with them. With many vivid images, we are told of how the LORD will restore His vanquished people. Perhaps the most vivid of all for me, having just returned from Israel, where much of the land is desert, the LORD says,
18I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys.I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. Isaiah 41:18 (ESV) The LORD is always there to meet our needs, and His love for the people of Israel is a sign to us that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Whatever trouble we might be experiencing right now, read Isaiah 41 and remember: fear not the LORD is with you!
Isaiah 42 offers us one of a number of “Servant Songs,” in which we see images of Jesus being prophesied. As we read through the entirety of Isaiah 42, and hear of the blind seeing, and the deaf hearing, we know the message was for those of Isaiah’s day, but was also for the people alive when Jesus walked the earth, and it is for us as well. We must be aware that Jesus, the Messiah, works wonders in every arena of life: the physical, the emotional, the spiritual, and even the social. After all, one day He will come and establish a new society, an everlasting Kingdom, where all the promises of Isaiah 42 will be yes, and amen.
As we return to John 5, we read again of Jesus healing the lame man by the pool of Bethesda. That miracle was amazing, yet the religious leaders took offense at it, because Jesus performed the miracle on the Sabbath. We have seen in our reading of the other gospels that the Pharisees were more concerned with Jesus “breaking” the Sabbath by healing the sick on it, than they were that the sick were sick in the first place. Here in John 5, Jesus offers a long discourse on His position in relationship to the Father, His authority to do what He does, and also the reality that even Moses testified to His coming, and His work among them. Jesus’ words made it clear to anyone who was listening that He was claiming to be the Messiah, and claiming to be equal to God. This was enough for the Pharisees to condemn Jesus, because they did not believe Him. That is always the case when it comes to Jesus: we must affirm Him for the God He is, or we must seek to destroy Him. No one can ignore one who claims to be the author of life, the God of creation. He is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord as has been said by many over the centuries. Jesus can be ridiculed or lauded, but ignoring Him is not an option.