Ellen, I appreciate your honest reflection on Good Friday. The Isaiah text and Walt's reflection make me think of the many people who "endure a life of adversity and pain" even though they don't deserve that pain and adversity. If we believe in the incarnation, we believe that God knows the pain of those who suffer. God is with us when we suffer. In your friend's comment I hear the theology of "vicarious atonement" or "substitutionary atonement" -- that Jesus volunteered to die "for our sins" in our place. That theology is held by many Christians, but not all. If we take an Anabaptist perspective that affirms God's nonviolent nature and Jesus' message of nonviolence, we cannot also hold that Jesus' death had to happen in order to bring about our salvation. My view is that Jesus died because the powers of the world lined up against him, saw him as a threat, and made him an example to others. I think the resurrection says that the truth of Jesus' message and identity did not die when he was crucified. Kate Eisenbise Crell, who teaches at Manchester University and whose parents are Jeff and Becky Eisenbise in our congregation, has written on this in her book "Cooperative Salvation: A Brethren View of Atonement." Here is one quotation from Kate's book: "Jesus' suffering and death were not salvific, but the actions that led to that suffering were and are salvific." Another book to add to your reading list, Ellen!

"Numinous" is one of my favorite words.

I love the imagery in today's verses, especially the trees clapping their hands. This makes me think of today's "Bird Note" (a 2-minute daily podcast I try to listen to every morning). Today's Bird Note was about the importance of oak trees for birds. I highly recommend the website and the daily podcast. "Oaks support more caterpillars [needed to raise baby birds] than any other tree genus." The moral of the story: if you like songbirds, plant oak trees.

David, thank you for this reflection on the passage and on Walt's devotional. Do you think Isaiah is talking about the longevity of an individual or the longevity of God's people? (I am thinking ahead to next Saturday, and the passage I am assigned, which says "all flesh is grass.")

Thank you for sharing the information about Lilias Trotter. I love her artwork! I found this meaningful from Walt's reflection: "Even in the dry periods of our souls, hope blossoms and joy returns."

Yes, Andy, I think so. Don't get mired in the past, because God is doing something new about Israel's current bondage to Babylon. I don't think it can mean forget about the Exodus, because the prophet uses the Exodus as the paradigm event of God's rescue of the people from bondage. This will be a "new Exodus."

This section of the book of Isaiah is generally thought to come from the period of Israel's exile in Babylon. The "new thing" the prophet announces is that God will lead another exodus. This one will be from bondage in Babylon. The language is figurative, but the people's return from Babylon to Judea was real. This passage says that God does "new things" all the time -- God responds to human need. (This is a good process theological perspective.)

May 1 on the Pharisees.

I love those two graphics! I see that #6 of the first list says "eat healthy food" -- so curl up with an apple when you need some alone time. And follow it up with #7, "talk with others." Since I have retired, I've been reading advice about how to age well and all the lists stress the importance of having a social network.

I am so glad you focused on our actions, rather than castigating the Pharisees of the text. One scholar calls Matthew 23 "the unloveliest chapter in the Gospel." It unfairly stereotypes the Pharisees and contributes to the stereotyping of Judaism as only interested in external ritual. (I'm doing an adult Sunday school class soon on the Pharisees and how we have unfairly stereotyped them.) So, as you do, we should read this passage and ask ourselves "Do our interior thoughts and feelings match the way we present ourselves in public?"

Thanks for providing the two images, Ellen! This Isaiah passage is one of my favorites (and I have a lot of favorite Isaiah passages), but it is challenging to read it now, as I watch the destruction of Ukraine, city by city. Are the western nations doing as much as they can to stop Putin's War? As I read the various columnists on the subject, I realize that we should have seen this coming. We should have worked to prevent this war. I still don't know if we could have prevented it, but I think that too often we wait until conflict breaks out before we act. We ignore the warning signs, and then there is nothing to be done other than sit and watch helplessly or enter the war ourselves. (I don't know exactly who I mean by "we." I suppose it is the experts in international relations and our political leaders.) What if we redirected some of the money that goes to support the military-industrial complex and used it to support education in the nonviolent transformation of conflict?

Amen, Sister!

What strikes me in Walt's devotional reflection is the phrase "to serve boldly as God's messenger." How does anointing prepare us to serve boldly?

Gina, where are you moving to? We have started to get rid of stuff, too, and it is hard. I have taken several carloads of old toys and puzzles and clothing to Re-Uzit in Ephrata, and I have barely begun to downsize. But every time I drop off things that have been cluttering our house and are no longer used, I feel a little lighter.

@Ellen Flury Yes to everything you write here. There is guidance and a sense of direction, and I agree that the language of consequence is more in line with this view a persuasive God than the language of punishment.

@Ellen Flury Talk to Julie about the Keller book. It's not easy reading and Keller works as a theologian and philosopher, so there is more about Calvin and Whitehead than there is deep discussion of biblical texts. (Process theologians are often criticized for failing to support their claims with biblical texts.) The book we are going to discuss in April and May picks up many of the same topics Keller addresses, but without the heavy theoretical component. There might be another venue for discussion of Keller's book with those people who are interested.

Gina asked yesterday for passages that support a view of a God who is a co-creator with humanity, rather than a God who uses power to coerce. To tie this to yesterday's discussion -- does the imagery and language in this passage suggest that God reaches out to persuade and to guide, rather than to use power to enforce obedience to the divine will?

Gina, it's not just Genesis. It's the entire Bible, where God is portrayed as a divine being who has power and who loves all creation, without explaining precisely why innocent people suffer. If we think that Jesus reveals God to us, doesn't Jesus model a non-coercive, loving God, who is willing to die rather than exert divine power to stop the crucifixion?

Ellen, you put your finger on the thorniest of theological problems. Theologians call it the problem of theodicy--how can a God who is both loving and powerful (all-powerful) allow so much undeserved suffering to go on in the world? (If you have Catherine Keller's book "On the Mystery," she addresses this from a process theology approach in chapter 4.) First, on the Isaiah passage: Biblical Hebrew uses a lot of merisms (the use of two contrasting or opposite elements to refer to the whole). "Heaven and earth" = all creation. "Night and day" = the whole 24-hour period. So when God says in Isaiah "I form light and create darkness; I make weal (the Hebrew word is shalom) and I create woe" it is a way of saying "I create everything." That does not solve the problem of theodicy, but it affirms a belief that there is only one God. From a biblical perspective, we cannot thank God for the good things and blame the bad things on "the Devil." Everything, good and bad, has its ultimate origin with God. In general, biblical writers believe that when bad things happen they are brought on by human disobedience. God created a world that is good (Genesis 1), but humans mess things up (everything that follows Genesis 1). God gives us instructions on what we should do and not do (the Ten Commandments and other laws in the Pentateuch). Jesus repeats and expands upon that instruction. We should know the difference between right and wrong, so the problem is doing it. Second: thinking theologically to push this further. The enormity of human cruelty that became visible in the twentieth century with the Holocaust forces us to think further on the problem of theodicy. We have to ask, how could God allow such cruelty to occur. That is the question many of us are asking about Ukraine (just as we asked it about other genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries). Theologians say we have to give up either the belief in a loving God or the belief in an omnipotent God. I am not willing to give up a belief that God's essential nature is love. I am willing to give up the notion that God could and would fix things to eliminate and prevent all innocent human suffering. From a process theology perspective, Catherine Keller says we need to revise our understanding of God's power. She proposes replacing a theology of God's coercive power with a theology of God's persuasive power. She speaks of a God of Love who calls forth--but does not coerce--our human cooperation with God in the world. Everything has its origin with God (Isaiah), but humans are called to be co-creators with God of the world that God wants us to inhabit (Genesis 1, humans are the image of God in the world).

Ellen, I really appreciate your distinction between passive yearning and active yearning. I also appreciate your point about how we often turn to God when in a crisis -- and then it often becomes a prayer asking God to do something for us.