Believing our Beliefs, a reflection on Isaiah 52:7-10 and Hebrews 1:1-12

Isaiah announces to Jerusalem that they are saved. Paul will use this passage to encourage missionaries (See Romans 10:15). As did Handel, in a passage in his Messiah, How beautiful the feet. (There's several downloads of this aria available for MP3 players, if you want to invest 99 cents.)

Notice the tension underlying the passage, a tension that exists on into our time. God is king; yet, we don't always live like it.

Their ancestors had seen God act in their lives at the Red Sea. Was God absent during their captivity?

What holds us captive? What hides the presence of God from us?

Lectio Divina: Isaiah 52:7

Frances Taylor Gench in her Hebrews and James reminds us that the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote to a rather jaded bunch of Christians.  Their enthusiasm and commitment to living out their faith had waned. their attendance at worship had fallen off. Sound familiar?  Gench asserts that "Hebrews speaks a word of grace to all who find themselves in need of encouragement and renewed commitment to faith".