Sixty-Six Chapters in Search of an Answer

Homily for Tuesday of the Second Week in Lent

The Book of the Prophet Isaiah is sixty-six chapters long. One biblical commentary upon this prophetic book says that the purpose of the prophet Isaiah is to answer one question. God had promised that a descendent of King David would sit on the throne of Israel forever. However, it is rather obvious that that promise was not kept in the way the people of Israel thought it would be. According to one biblical scholar, it took sixty-six chapters to show how they had mistaken God’s promise.

Right out of the starting gate in chapter one, Isaiah states “Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD.” Obviously, the situation is not as it should be.

The Book of Isaiah is traditionally divided into three sections: proto-Isaiah, duetero-Isaiah, trito-Isaiah; or put another way, pre-exilic Isaiah, exilic Isaiah, and post-exilic Isaiah. As we are reading from chapter one, we know that we are looking at the time before the Babylonian exile. Things were amiss. Isaiah calls the people to repentance.

The situation had not changed much by the time Jesus entered the world. Things were still amiss. Jesus, like Isaiah, preaches repentance. He insists that the Kingdom of God is near which he offers as the motivation for repentance. At the end of today’s Gospel text, we hear the very familiar strains of a theme that surfaces in all four of the Gospels. “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Jesus is the embodiment of these words. As St. Paul writes it, Jesus emptied himself of his Godhead and took on our human flesh. He humbled himself. He calls us to humility. St. Francis of Assisi is just one of many saints who heard this admonition and practiced it faithfully. As followers of St. Francis, it should be our first thought at the beginning and at the end of every day.