A God who participates

There are those who think God started the world, spoke it into being, then stepped away and did nothing the rest of time. Just sat there. He does not help. He does not answer prayer. He does not step in. He does nothing supernaturally. He does not heal. He does not do, well, anything. This philosophy is called humanism. In my view, Humanism is a philosophy of life that considers the welfare of humankind - rather than the welfare of a supposed God or gods - to be of paramount importance. Humanism maintains there is no evidence a supernatural power ever needed or wanted anything from people, ever communicated to them, or ever interfered with the laws of nature to assist or harm anyone.

The middle of Isaiah 18 seems to agree with that, at first. Then it quickly withdraws from the argument as God enters in.

For here's what God told (Isaiah): "I will watch quietly from my dwelling place — as quietly as the heat rises on a summer day, or as the morning dew forms during the harvest.”

For many, that's enough. God is watching. God is quiet. God is somewhere ... distant and foreboding, but never interacting, never being involved, never moving.

The problem with that is that's not the God of the Bible. It just isn't.

The rest of the 18th chapter of Isaiah is more attuned to who he is. It reads, "Even before you begin your attack, while your plans are ripening like grapes, the Lord will cut off your new growth with pruning shears.
He will snip off and discard your spreading branches. Your mighty army will be left dead in the fields for the mountain vultures and wild animals. The vultures will tear at the corpses all summer. The wild animals will gnaw at the bones all winter."

The Lord will snip off and discard your spreading branches. He will move. He will step in and prune. He will hack off those branches that offend him. He'll leaved them piled on the ground for birds and animals to feed on. He will act. He will take part. He will have a say.

We have this notion that free will somehow overrides what God can do. If that's not true, then we say that it's only in the Old Testament that God moves and acts and goes to war in favor of. Certainly in this country we've decided that separation of Church and State must mean that God is put in his little corner never to be let out, particularly in schools and anywhere children might be. We couldn't want to have little minds affected by his holy nature, now would we?

In this section of Isaiah's prophecy, God tells all these nations they will soon come to an unpleasant end. Egypt will be like a hysterical schoolgirl. Assyria will be a joke. His prophet, Isaiah, will walk about naked and barefoot for three years as a warning sign to Egypt and Ethiopia (and I thought the insurance was bad for ministers today; at least we get clothes). Edom will be warned. On and on we go. Judah is coming back, God says, so the rest of you get out of the way.

A God who starts things and gets out of the way, who only listens quietly can't do any of this.

God said, "let there be light." And it was.
God said, "let my people go." And they were free.
God said, "let my people return home." And they were let go.
God said, "confess your sins, believe Jesus was raised from the dead, and you will be saved." And we were.

God is involved in my life, your life, in all our lives from the closeness of a parent-to-child relationship to the separation of deity to created entity. As much as we allow him, He participates.

He participated so much, he died for us. That's a God who does, not watches; a God who became incarnate so that we wouldn't have to live apart from his eternally.