Isaiah 52:7-10

Year B - Christmas Day or Blessed Body

December 25, 2014

Isaiah 52:7-10

Just before this passage we hear such phrases as:

• Awake, awake, put on your strength
• Shake yourself from the dust
• Here I am (echoes of a burning bush as antecedent to a Freedom March)

This is important, otherwise the beautiful feet bearing a message of peace might sound as if we don’t need to do anything but sit back and wait for G*D to reign, that there is no need of our waking, shaking, or committing to make a change. The passage for the day is all about showing off our G*D as better than every other G*D. What more is asked of us than to drowse and watch through half-lowered lids as G*D bares a “holy” arm, flexes G*D muscle to the ends of the earth, and makes nations into theocracies.

This is a passage dangerous to use on its own as it breaks the creation covenant with us and leads us from captivity to captivity, never to grow up.

If bodies are engaged in incarnation, in Christmas, then we are to use our bodies and the exercise of them to add our bit of freedom to a world all too at ease with fate that keeps the current captivities of too many people as a necessity for the economic well being of an idea of an economy.