He Comes Wearing Red

Who is this who comes from Edom, With garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, This One who is majestic in His apparel, Marching in the greatness of His strength? "It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save." -Isaiah 63:1

Translations of this verse from Isaiah are various, but there is no question that Edom is the geographic point of origin for this mighty One who speaks in righteousness while wearing garments of scarlet.

Edom is a quintessential designation for the enemies of God. For the ancient people of Israel, the Edomites proved especially nettlesome and provocative, not unlike the unbelievers of today who mock and scoff at God's people.

The prophet Isaiah, like all the prophets, bespeaks truths that are universal yet play out in history. This is no different. A vengeance is wrought upon God's enemies, and this is done by one wearing garments of scarlet, dripping with blood. The vengeance is carried out with great might, being wrought by God Himself.

For you, dear Christian, this vengeance was placed upon Christ Jesus for your sake. Where your blood should have been spilt His was instead, upon the bloody Cross.

It is a mighty spilling of blood because it avails before God for all of time and eternity and for all people, even the Edomites past and present.

His speaking in righteousness takes place as the Holy Gosepl is preached and administered, so that the hearers may comprehend and believe the breadth and depth of His mercies, and thus live out their days with thanksgiving and rejoicing while serving their neighbors.

Who is this Who comes to you? It is Christ Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilte, and now risen from the dead to reign for you both in might and through humble means.

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Waiting in Silence

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from Him. -Psalm 62:5

Whether you do so out loud or do so in silence, you talk to yourself. Here the Psalmist is speaking to his soul, which is very much the same thing.

It is not weird. It is not a matter that needs to be taken up by psychology or psychaiatry. You are a creature of God, made in His image, and He is one God in three Persons.

Here the Holy Spirit while inhabiting the human flesh of the Psalmist, which Psalmist is incorporated into Christ by faith already, cries out to wait in silence, which is somewhat ironic, because in crying out the silence is broken.

For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. -Isaiah 62:1

So which is it? Silence or sound? It is both, and it can be both without contradiction.

The soul experiencing distance from God can do nothing but wait for Him in silence. The soul in close communion to God can do nothing but speak. It is the condition of sinful man that he is both apart from, and joined to, the Creator in and through Christ Jesus.

At any rate, here the urging is from the innermost being: be quiet. There is nothing from inside that will help. The hope that satisfies must be delivered from the outside.

That Hope is Christ crucified and risen, of Whom the soul speaks and sings, yet for Whom the soul waits.

Life in this world is like that. The Psalmist knows. Jesus knows. Jesus is the Psalmist Who carries your soul from one day to the next until you are made complete.

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Sundered by Circumcision

And when eight days were completed so that it was time for His circumcision, He was also named Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. -Luke 2:21

Of all the practices that seem out of touch, circumcision seems to be the most peculiar. Given as a command to the people of Israel through Moses, the foreskin of the male member was to be removed eight days after birth as a way to mark that male child bodily and place him into a covenant between God and man.

To be sure, this practice calls to mind what the LORD said through the Prophet Isaiah, "My ways are not your ways." The idea of shedding blood at the very location on the male body wherewith the pleasure of procreation are associated seems wildly contradictory.

Yet procreation takes plain within the painful reality of sin. This reality is one of no escape without bloodshed; innocent bloodshed. So it happens, when the Holy Son of God reached the age of eight days - a number filled with fulfillment in terms of sabbath rest - His holy, innocent blood is shed for the first time.

It was indeed painful physically, but it was not nearly as painful as being forsaken of God upon an accursed cross of shame in the midst of mockery and sheer bandonment by men as well.

Yet this is what it took, and what it takes, to fulfil the Law of God. Jesus, Whose Name is above every name, Whose name literally means "He shall save His people."

The other reality that attends to circumcision is a separation of the circumcized from the uncircumcised. The people of Israel were to be unlike any other nation. The practice of circumcision was a way of marking them as separate from all other nations, because from them and through their seed, despite sin, the Christ would come in the flesh as God come to save.

Today it is you, the Christian, who are separate from the rest, sundered from them by Holy Baptism into the circumcized Christ Jesus, Whose body and life avail before God on your behalf, and upon Whom you may rely as a High Priest, tempted in every way for you, but victorious for you.

It is His blood and His name alone, that save you.

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