Day 43: Cosmic Comedy

Who dares call the Holy Bible a comedy? How could you? What is funny about the curse "you shall surely die" coming true for the first parents and passed on to the whole human race by the third chapter of the first book? What is funny about the fact that everyone ends up dead, and that most people will live unhappy lives, and suffer cruelty, violence, homelessness, execution, poverty, loneliness, failure, leprosy, barrenness? That family after family in every generation have siblings who trick or murder or rape each other or betray each other into slavery? That cities are regularly wiped out by attacking armies or plagues or fire and brimstone or floods? Every single person's story, the Bible illustrates in story after story, has the tragic finality that comes with death. Game over. The End. Who dares call the Bible a comedy?

Well a comedy doesn't have to be a funny story. A theatrical comedy is called such, not so much for its funny moments, but because an unlikely event happens which turns everything quite suddenly from hopeless tragedy into a surprise good ending. People whom we thought were dead come back on stage. The impossible thing happens that is able to work everything out and allow reconciliation for alienated family members or friends or lovers.

There are only a few things that humans can do to deal with the reality that death comes for everyone. We can pass on life through bearing children to keep the human race going. We can eat and drink and party hard enough to forget thinking about tomorrow. We also can search for a fountain of youth, apply various technologies to combat the effects of old age. What can we do if we can't accomplish those things, and find ourselves both barren and old?

Well nothing, unless we hope for something impossible to be done for us. Something surprising, maybe even a ridiculous event, like what would happen in a comedy or fairy-tale or a soap opera. Here is that event in the Holy Bible: A story of two old people who are beyond child-bearing age and when they were young, they were barren. They are as good as dead. What is the point. Abraham can plant his seed, but his seed might as well be dead. Sarah can receive the seed, but her womb is lifeless, dried up, post-menopausal and barren. Dead in every way. Her womb is like a rock, a cave, whatever seed goes in will be dead and will stay dead.

And then they get some pregnancy news. Abraham and Sarah are promised that a multitude of children, more numerous than the stars, will have its source in her womb. Life abundant will come out of her dead cave of a uterus. She laughs at the ridiculous impossible prospect of that idea. She is as good as dead. No way. But it happens. A baby is born and named Laughter. The ridiculous turn of events has happened and for the first time it can not be said that death must be the end of every story. Laughter's birth is like a resurrection, life coming out of a cave that has only ever been sterile and barren.

Think of the most tragic turn of events in any story, or in your life. The reality that today makes you squirmy, scared, terrified, anxious, hopeless, resigned, guilty, heartbroken. The bad thing that you did or that happened to you or someone that brought death to relationships or to love or to bodies. Death. No hope. Game over. Tragedy. But look right at the graveyard where that dead thing was hid away forever. That graveyard is hearing ridiculous rumors like the kind that came Abraham and Sarah's way, a crazy outlandish impossible promise: Out of that tomb-womb, a place from where a living human has never emerged, there shall be fertility, fecundity, fruitfulness, the emerging of a live person, and descendants innumerable.

Barren old lady Sarah or Elizabeth, virgin Mary, cave/grave/tomb, you can't possibly give birth in your condition and that is why life will come from you. This is a comedy. Life and salvation comes from the last place you would expect, right when you thought that Death had the last laugh. In a comedy Life and Love get to have the last laugh. What an unpredictable turn of events. Any curtain that tries to close on the bloody death scene of a tragedy will be required to reopen until the characters sit up and breathe, the celebration music starts rocking the house, and everyone dances off the stage together.

Isaiah 51 begins with a recall of the miracle in Sarah's womb and foreshadows another event which totally destroys Death's power to keep anyone stuck in a tragic ending: the emerging of a resurrected Jesus from a tomb that was hewn in the rock. He, like Abraham's son Laughter, became the first-fruits, or firstborn, of the dead. Watch for the clues in the prophetic chapters 51 through 53 that this story of God and his cosmic kingdom is undeniably a comedy, a story which holds the attributes of all my favorite stories of delayed recognition, a story which is being skillfully executed by an Author who has an amazing way with comic timing:

Isaiah 51 (The Message) www.biblegateway.com

Committed to Seeking God
1-3 "Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God.
Ponder the rock from which you were cut,
the quarry from which you were dug.
Yes, ponder Abraham, your father,
and Sarah, who bore you.
Think of it! One solitary man when I called him,
but once I blessed him, he multiplied.
Likewise I, God, will comfort Zion,
comfort all her mounds of ruins.
I'll transform her dead ground into Eden,
her moonscape into the garden of God,
A place filled with exuberance and laughter,
thankful voices and melodic songs.
4-6"Pay attention, my people.
Listen to me, nations.
Revelation flows from me.
My decisions light up the world.
My deliverance arrives on the run,
my salvation right on time.
I'll bring justice to the peoples.
Even faraway islands will look to me
and take hope in my saving power.
Look up at the skies,
ponder the earth under your feet.
The skies will fade out like smoke,
the earth will wear out like work pants,
and the people will die off like flies.
But my salvation will last forever,
my setting-things-right will never be obsolete.

7-8"Listen now, you who know right from wrong,
you who hold my teaching inside you:
Pay no attention to insults, and when mocked
don't let it get you down.
Those insults and mockeries are moth-eaten,
from brains that are termite-ridden,
But my setting-things-right lasts,
my salvation goes on and on and on."

9-11Wake up, wake up, flex your muscles, God!
Wake up as in the old days, in the long ago.
Didn't you once make mincemeat of Rahab,
dispatch the old chaos-dragon?
And didn't you once dry up the sea,
the powerful waters of the deep,
And then made the bottom of the ocean a road
for the redeemed to walk across?
In the same way God's ransomed will come back,
come back to Zion cheering, shouting,
Joy eternal wreathing their heads,
exuberant ecstasies transporting them—
and not a sign of moans or groans.

What Are You Afraid of—or Who?
12-16"I, I'm the One comforting you.
What are you afraid of—or who?
Some man or woman who'll soon be dead?
Some poor wretch destined for dust?
You've forgotten me, God, who made you,
who unfurled the skies, who founded the earth.
And here you are, quaking like an aspen
before the tantrums of a tyrant
who thinks he can kick down the world.
But what will come of the tantrums?
The victims will be released before you know it.
They're not going to die.
They're not even going to go hungry.
For I am God, your very own God,
who stirs up the sea and whips up the waves,
named God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
I teach you how to talk, word by word,
and personally watch over you,
Even while I'm unfurling the skies,
setting earth on solid foundations,
and greeting Zion: 'Welcome, my people!'"
17-20So wake up! Rub the sleep from your eyes!
Up on your feet, Jerusalem!
You've drunk the cup God handed you,
the strong drink of his anger.
You drank it down to the last drop,
staggered and collapsed, dead-drunk.
And nobody to help you home,
no one among your friends or children
to take you by the hand and put you in bed.
You've been hit with a double dose of trouble
—does anyone care?
Assault and battery, hunger and death
—will anyone comfort?
Your sons and daughters have passed out,
strewn in the streets like stunned rabbits,
Sleeping off the strong drink of God's anger,
the rage of your God.

21-23Therefore listen, please,
you with your splitting headaches,
You who are nursing the hangovers
that didn't come from drinking wine.
Your Master, your God, has something to say,
your God has taken up his people's case:
"Look, I've taken back the drink that sent you reeling.
No more drinking from that jug of my anger!
I've passed it over to your abusers to drink, those who ordered you,
'Down on the ground so we can walk all over you!'
And you had to do it. Flat on the ground,
you were the dirt under their feet."

Isaiah 52
God Is Leading You Out of Here
1-2 Wake up, wake up! Pull on your boots, Zion! Dress up in your Sunday best, Jerusalem, holy city!
Those who want no part of God have been culled out.
They won't be coming along.
Brush off the dust and get to your feet, captive Jerusalem!
Throw off your chains, captive daughter of Zion!

3God says, "You were sold for nothing. You're being bought back for nothing."

4-6Again, the Master, God, says, "Early on, my people went to Egypt and lived, strangers in the land. At the other end, Assyria oppressed them. And now, what have I here?" God's Decree. "My people are hauled off again for no reason at all. Tyrants on the warpath, whooping it up, and day after day, incessantly, my reputation blackened. Now it's time that my people know who I am, what I'm made of—yes, that I have something to say. Here I am!"

7-10How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of the messenger bringing good news,
Breaking the news that all's well,
proclaiming good times, announcing salvation,
telling Zion, "Your God reigns!"
Voices! Listen! Your scouts are shouting, thunderclap shouts,
shouting in joyful unison.
They see with their own eyes
God coming back to Zion.
Break into song! Boom it out, ruins of Jerusalem:
"God has comforted his people!
He's redeemed Jerusalem!"
God has rolled up his sleeves.
All the nations can see his holy, muscled arm.
Everyone, from one end of the earth to the other,
sees him at work, doing his salvation work.

11-12Out of here! Out of here! Leave this place!
Don't look back. Don't contaminate yourselves with plunder.
Just leave, but leave clean. Purify yourselves
in the process of worship, carrying the holy vessels of God.
But you don't have to be in a hurry.
You're not running from anybody!
God is leading you out of here,
and the God of Israel is also your rear guard.

It Was Our Pains He Carried
13-15"Just watch my servant blossom!
Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd!
But he didn't begin that way.
At first everyone was appalled.
He didn't even look human—
a ruined face, disfigured past recognition.
Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback,
kings shocked into silence when they see him.
For what was unheard of they'll see with their own eyes,
what was unthinkable they'll have right before them."

Isaiah 53
1 Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?
2-6The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.

7-9He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.

10Still, it's what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.

11-12Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.