And That’s The Truth

In another lifetime, the late 60’s—early 70’s, there was new and different entertainment on television: “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” zany, sometimes shocking, it was a surprisingly popular light comedy. One character, Edith Ann, was played by comedian/ actress Lilly Tomlin. Edith Ann was a little girl with a lot to say, seated on her gigantic rocker. Her stream of consciousness rolled on, spilling her perspective of life. Hearers have to listen well to bridge what she is saying to what they know of life. Most sketches started with, “My name is Edith Ann, and I am five and a half years old.” They always ended with, “And that’s the truth.” (With her tongue out she added a sassy little “raspberry” sound).

I recall one bit with Edith bemoaning that an adult had accused her of making things up. Edith said, “I do not make-up things. That is lies. But you can make up the truth if you know how to. And that’s the truth.” I’m afraid we have all learned to make up the truth to one degree or another. We do not mean to play fast-and-loose with our epistemologies, but it is an insidious tendency.

In the Holy Scriptures, we discover the material of the Hebrew prophets preserved for us. Prophets operate in the work of truth-telling. It is never self-evident and always requires the hearers to do some interpretation. I want to look at a passage we will hear together this Sunday from Isaiah. I will say some things in general about biblical prophecy and touch on the meaning from the appointed passage.

It is common to think of prophets as predictors of future happenings. We think of them as prescient figures, foretelling things to come. Sometimes we indeed find pronouncements about what will come to pass. These are along the lines of, “If you would-be followers of God do not start following truly, you will not like the outcome.” Other times prophets are interpreting what has already happened. Frequently, prophecy is telling the way things are and how they should be. By and large, prophets are not foretellers of things to come as they are “forth-tellers” of the truth about God, and how those who love God can best respond.

Think for a moment about the concept of the fulfillment of prophecy. When a prophecy has been fulfilled, it means what has happened is truly connected to what has been delivered by God through the prophetic word. We see instances in which the word comes and has layers of fulfillment. There might be one fulfillment in the time of the prophet, and another fulfillment comprehended at a much later time.

When Hosea is telling of the nature of Israel’s calling, he speaks of how these people came out of Egypt. He speaks of the collective people of Israel figuratively as God’s “son” saying, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of “Egypt I called my son.” (Hosea 11:1) This is the prophet looking back in history to when the people of Israel, the offspring of their ancestor, Jacob, came out of bondage in Egypt under Moses. The prophet of the eighth century BC is looking back to the fifteenth century, speaking of the Exodus. Writing from the first century AD Matthew adopts that passage from Hosea and applies it as fulfilled in the days of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. (Matthew 2:15) Hosea did not mean it as something that was to happen in the future. He meant it as a fulfillment of God’s will 700 years before his time, not 700 years ahead.

Was Matthew slow-witted, unable to discern Hosea’s reference? Was he being slippery, hoping the readers would not look up the passage and catch him at sloppy reporting? No, he just knows something profound about the nature of prophecy. Let’s think about this: are the verses from Hosea about the people of the Exodus, or are they about Joseph and Mary bringing Jesus out from a time of hiding in Egypt, to make their home in Nazareth? Being aware of the workings of prophecy, we can answer: it is about both. There are layers of fulfillment. The truth of God’s agency bringing his “son” the people of Israel out of Egypt once, was recapitulated in a subsequent prophetic way. This time, God’s Son, Jesus, once safe from the murderous Herod, was called out of Egypt, and on to Galilee.

This is an important understanding as we look at the servant songs of Isaiah, because for the faithful through the ages, they reveal truth applied to the historical context of Isaiah and his contemporaries, even while they reveal the truth about what Jesus endured in his suffering and death. Let’s soak in the third servant song:

The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens—wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?   —Isaiah 50:4-9a

This passage applies to the prophet Isaiah, himself; it is fulfilled in his experience. Christians look at it and see, it applies as well to the experience of Jesus; it is fulfilled in the abuse he endured. There are multiple fulfillments taking place. Isaiah had good news to convey to the exiled people in Babylon. It has to do with their coming release and return to Judah. The people are wearied by their predicament and now doubly wearied by the prophet’s talk of its conclusion. They are living this oppression and seeing no sign of its ending, so they are beyond frustration: they are angry. Scholar, Robert Alter, explains Isaiah means to offer hope and consolation. Many in Isaiah’s audiences, however, see it “as an outrageous pipedream, an insult to their continuing plight as exiles, and some would have responded by mocking, insulting, even roughing up the prophet as he tried to address them.” The prophet offers good news; the people are having none of it.

Jesus brought the best news of all: the news that God loves and is redeeming the whole cosmos. We all will be in union with God. Many reject this message. Its fulfillment does not run consonantly with their version of restoration. They get angry to the point of heartless cruelty. We find Jesus in the lines of the suffering servant who gives his back to the floggers, gives his cheeks to those who pluck the beard. We see Jesus hiding not his face to abasement and spittle. We see him setting his face like flint knowing he represented the truth of God, with no disgrace or shame. The prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus. So even now, fulfilled for us, the skilled, trained tongue of the Teacher “sustains the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens our ears to listen as those who are taught.” And that’s the truth!