Isaiah 58 offers us examples of true and false worship, fasting, and keeping the Sabbath. The true examples honor the LORD, put Him first in every area of our lives, and when we keep the Sabbath we enjoy Him. The most extended examples of falseness in practicing faith come in the area of fasting. In Isaiah’s day it was common to wear sackcloth and put ashes on ones head and face to show you were mourning and/or fasting. Jesus would condemn this practice in His Sermon on the Mount, but Isaiah condemns it here. When we fast, Isaiah tells us, the attitude of our hearts is most important. After all, what good is it to fast from food, while we are abusing our workers, or dishonoring any other person? When we read Isaiah 58 and compare it with Jesus’ teaching, we see the consistent truth: True worship comes from the heart out of our relationship with God, and then moves to the outward, visible parts of our lives. Unless that happens, any outward appearance of worship is nothing more than religion.
Isaiah 59 offers a lengthy list of the ways the people of Israel have turned against the LORD. As a result the LORD has turned away from them. Isaiah reminds the people the LORD’s love and mercy are not inadequate for them, but He withholds it from those who live in willful, purposeful sin. Toward the end of the chapter, the sins of other nations are brought to our attention, but for most of the chapter it is the sins of the LORD’s own people that are cause for judgment. At the end of the chapter the LORD reminds us that He will be seen and known by all nations, and He will judge sin wherever it originates.
Isaiah 60 offers a glorious picture of Jerusalem’s future! The images push us to consider what it will be like when Jesus returns. Even though Jesus had not yet come the first time when Isaiah recorded these words of the LORD, they tell us of a time when Jerusalem’s gates will never close, and people from every nation will bring gold, silver, and other precious items to her. Having recently visited Jerusalem, I can assure you that time has not yet come, because some of the gates are not only closed, they are sealed shut. The LORD’s promises are always true, so He offers us glimpses of what it will be like when Jesus is reigning over His eternal Kingdom. Please, read this chapter and imagine what our ultimate future will be like, as we trust Jesus and live into His future with Him.
As we return to John 12, Jesus is moving toward His “glorification,” that is his arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, and resurrection. In this chapter, Mary anoints Jesus with expensive perfume, which causes an outcry from Judas and some others. The outcry came, because the perfume could have been sold and the money could have been used to feed the poor. Jesus tells them the poor would always be with them, but what Mary had done was to prepare Him for burial. This was a hint for them all that what He had been telling them all along, about His coming to die for all was near.
We read, too, about Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. A point John tells us that isn’t found in any of the other gospels is that the crowds had gathered, because Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. After this, the Jewish leaders determined to kill Lazarus along with Jesus, because so many were leaving their ranks to follow Jesus, because of the miracle of Lazarus being raised. Jesus gets into another disagreement with the religious leaders and the people, because He told them He would be dying soon. They didn’t believe the Messiah would die, so in their minds if He died, it would prove He was not the Messiah. Jesus pointed out He was the light of the world, and He was there to fulfill His Father’s purpose. As we see time and time again, the people didn’t understand, not even the apostles understood, Jesus’ purpose in dying to pay the penalty for all our sins, and then rising to life to establish that He had authority over both life and death. We might find it easy to criticize the people for not seeing who Jesus was, but we have the benefit of living on the resurrection side of Easter. They did not yet have that benefit. Once they did, they started the movement that continues to this very day!