Lectionary Reflection for Advent 4A on Isaiah 7:10–16

PROPHETIC TIMELINES

We have come to the last Sunday of Advent. In Year A, this means we turn to Isaiah 7 with its prophecy of the young woman giving birth to a son whom she names Immanuel. For many Christian believers, this prophecy is proof that Jesus is divine, that he fulfils the “predictions” of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that the religion that carries his name is therefore the only true faith. Flowing beneath these convictions is an assurance that the prophets looked forward through time and ‘saw’ that God would become human in the baby we know as Jesus. For them, the prophetic timeline is linear, beginning in the ancient past with prophets who predicted future events. Some of those events, like the birth of Jesus, have come to pass, while others, like the return of Christ, are still awaiting their fulfilment. The most important aspect of prophecy, for these believers, is prediction. If we can just interpret the prophecies correctly, we can prove that our faith is true, and we can prepare ourselves for future events—or even help to make them happen. As Walter Brueggemann wrote:

The dominant conservative misconception, evident in manifold bumper stickers, is that the prophet is a fortune-teller, a predictor of things to come (mostly ominous), usually with specific reference to Jesus. While one would not want to deny totally those facets of the practice of prophecy, there tends to be a kind of reductionism that is mechanical and therefore untenable.^¹

There is, however, another way to think of prophecy—not as foretelling, but as forthtelling—proclaiming a message of God’s presence, activity, values, priorities, and purposes into the current time, but with the awareness that such oracles almost always speak powerfully into all times. In this view, the story of faith does not play out on a linear timeline, but is experienced in what Brian McLaren calls a three-dimensional time-space, in which “millions of good stories can unfold and be told”.² In a similar vein, Walter Brueggemann writes that the task of prophetic ministry is “to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us”.³

When we read the prophets in this way, it becomes clear that the prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures that are usually said to be “about Jesus” are not about Jesus at all—at least not for the prophets or the people to whom they preached.⁴ Rather, in this three-dimensional time-space, the writers of the New Testament looked back to these ancient prophets and saw wisdom, images, and accounts of God’s activity that helped them to make sense of their own experience of God in their time. And then, based on this prophetically inspired understanding of the present, they could look forward as they sought to discern how God’s timeless presence and activity in the world may unfold in the future. In other words, prophecy operates in a three-dimensional time-space which enables us to learn from the past, make sense of the present, and work toward a better future. This brings us back to the prophecy of Isaiah 7:10–16.

WHEN A CHILD IS BORN

When Israel and Syria demanded that Ahaz align with them in an attempt to overthrow the growing power of Assyria and break free of its control, Ahaz was frightened and undecided. On the one hand, they threatened to invade Judah if he should refuse, and so the safer option seemed to be to join them. But, on the other hand, there was a possibility that asking Assyria for protection against the two smaller powers would be even safer. Isaiah advised the king against these very human solutions and challenged him to trust God that the threatened invasion would not happen. He even offered Ahaz the opportunity to ask for a sign, which Ahaz, feigning piety, declined. In frustration, then, Isaiah gave Ahaz a sign anyway, but it was extremely enigmatic, and seems not to have convinced Ahaz at all. As Anathea Portier-Young puts it, “It [was] easier to sell himself to Assyria than wait for salvation from God”.⁵

The sign Isaiah offered was that “the young woman” (the Hebrew does not say virgin—that word was introduced by the Septuagint), who was almost certainly known by the prophet (hence the definite article), would become pregnant and would give birth to a son who would be named Immanuel (God is with us). By the time this child was weaned and old enough to reject evil and choose good, the threat would be gone. The problem with this sign is that it wasn’t much of a sign at all. As Daniel Harrell notes, women have babies every day.⁶ In addition, Ahaz was being asked to exercise faith before the sign could be proved true. He would have to choose to trust Isaiah’s word, and then wait and see if the sign would indeed be fulfilled as Isaiah predicted. Perhaps the significance was that the king would be able to watch the child grow at the same time as he kept his eye on his enemies to see if the dreaded attack would come. As interactive as the sign may have been over time, it did nothing to bolster faith before the fact and Ahaz was unconvinced. He joined forces with Assyria, with disastrous consequences in the end for Judah.

Nevertheless, the sign Isaiah offered was significant for a number of reasons. The name of the child was ambiguous in the sense that God’s presence, especially in those traumatic times, could be seen as both good news—God would rescue the faithful—and as bad news—God’s presence would bring judgment on faithlessness. This sense of God’s presence being both a comfort and a confrontation is a constant theme in the Scriptures, and one that is often lost in Christian proclamation (especially in the Christmas season), or twisted into a caricature of itself in “hellfire-and-damnation” preaching.

But the other significant feature of this sign was its character. This was no dramatic, supernatural event that the prophet promised. Nor was it a destructive attack on Judah’s enemies. Rather, the sign that was given was natural and creative. God’s presence, said Isaiah, was known in the natural, ordinary rhythms of life, and through the creativity that brings new life into the world. Where the powers of the day were threatening destruction and death, God called Ahaz to trust in the greater, creative power of life. However, like so many of the world’s leaders today, Ahaz believed more strongly in domination, force, and death, and so he made choices that ultimately brought death and destruction on his nation.