Now Is the Hour

[HKHaugan]

Now is the Hour

When a 700 year old prophecy is fulfilled, you've got to look at it, consider what it means and personally deal with it. That's exactly what the call is when we come to Isaiah 11:1-5. We cannot escape what the real focus is in this passage from the prophet that predicts the coming of Jesus. It has everything to do with how the Father restores and defines our humanity starting with our heart, our mind and our spirit. Especially now in the aftermath of our self destructive political atmosphere. It's time for us to recenter ourselves in the truth, the real truth and nothing but the truth. It gives us the actual understanding of what we as persons can become. And when we do, we are, as Jesus said, 'The salt and light' for the world (Mt.5:13-14).

“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord— and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist (Is.11:1-5).”

This chapter begins with the shadow of the Cross in the background. You can see it in the first two paragraphs above, the vertical beam (vs.1-2) and the horizontal beam (vs.3-5). That image is important because of the intersection, its middle.

There is the heart of Jesus, the perfect Spirit balanced heart from which poured forth the true spiritual motivation to be a physical sacrifice for the individual human soul. The sacrifice which takes us back to His lifestyle, a life consciously living for His Father's will in every next moment, event and occasion. Every relationship, every thought, reason and action was lived in the Spirit of God. Every choice and decision was His perfect humanity revealed as He acted in faith. His life was a daily sacrifice for His people, the images of God that are all human beings.

That was His mission, to make His Cross the way for each of us to shape our lifestyle. A lifestyle that calls us to be like Him, with Him, He in us and we in Him. That's why He offers us a relationship with Him by believing Him, trusting Him and following Him, which is what faith is all about.

For us, we start with attitude, of which we have many. Because we are sinners from birth it is the self centeredness of sin that gets us to develop different kinds of attitudes for different occasions. We may tend to be withdrawn when we are among people we don't know. Sin teaches us to be self protective and defensive. Because of good, bad, pleasant and unpleasant experiences we develop different kinds of attitudes to fit avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. Those attitudes can be manipulated by spirits that separate us from being honest in our responses. That's where profiling takes place. We learn to profile people according to our attitudes about their appearance, behavior and opinion. It's all surface. The real person, the heart of a person, is lost in the shuffle. Rather than bringing us together they separate us. Much of how we deal with others is influenced by them. Is it any wonder that fear, anger, rage and malice, the spirits of separation, take over?

Attitude profiling has become a social and political science, the core of demographic study, the means to win elections by appealing to visible categories like white male, black female, urban housewives, Latino workers, educated, uneducated, white collar, blue collar, blue states, red states, etc., etc., etc. While this is the driving political strategy in every election by political parties, it is also the direct opposite of what we as followers of Jesus are to avoid in every contact we have in the world.

Those categories do three things. First, they separate us from the hearts of others. We only look at the surface. Second, they condition us and our children to be judgmental by grouping others according to a category rather than by them being images of God, human beings like us with hearts, minds and unique individual value. Third, they make us afraid and operate by fear. Be suspicious of others on the basis of their thinking and appearance. Who really knows what's inside them or what they might do? Because they appear different they might be a threat. Avoid them. They probably don't like us anyway.

If there is anything that stands out about Jesus it was His viewing everyone as a redeemable individually unique person worth loving. Whether they were religious, political or social leaders, everyday workers, housewives, children, fathers, mothers, single, divorced, sinful, opinionated, hateful, indifferent, and even evil, every person was valuable to Him. Jesus was the “Branch from the root of Jesse“, whose discernment of everyone He met was perfect. His wisdom always led Him to be and make the right decision wherever He was. You can feel His counsel in His parables, know His might from His miracles, His heart for His Father when He met people. His humility before His Father among others never wavered. His judgments, His words and how He was the man of faith in every next moment, even at the point of death, proved, as the centurion said at Jesus' death, “Truly, He was the Son of God.” The Cross was perfect human life fulfilled in the Spirit by faith. Jesus' Resurrection was its proof. Now it's His lifestyle for us. Now is the hour. Now is our hour. Especially now.