Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 7:1–9
Jerusalem was afraid.
The northern kingdom of Israel had joined Aram against the great empire of Assyria.
Judah refused to join them.
So Aram and Israel came against Judah, planning to remove King Ahaz and place another king on the throne.
The house of David trembled.
Isaiah says:
“The heart of the king and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.”
Fear had entered the city.
Fear had entered the palace.
Fear had entered the heart of the king.
Then the Lord sent Isaiah with a word of calm:
Do not fear. Do not lose heart. Their plan shall not stand. It shall not come to pass.
But Ahaz had already chosen where to place his trust.
Not in the Lord. Not in the promise given to David. Not in the God who holds history.
Ahaz turned to Assyria.
He called himself the servant and son of the Assyrian king.
He paid tribute. He emptied the treasures. He looked for safety in the empire’s shadow.
And little by little, his politics reshaped his faith.
He even brought into Jerusalem the design of an altar he had seen in Damascus.
The fear outside the city became compromise inside the sanctuary.
This is the tragedy of Ahaz.
He was not an atheist.
He still had religion.
But when history became dangerous, his trust moved elsewhere.
Isaiah’s final word is sharp:
“Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm.”
The Septuagint renders it differently:
“If you do not believe, you shall not understand.”
Faith is not blindness.
Faith is a way of seeing.
Without faith, fear becomes wisdom. Compromise becomes prudence. Empire becomes salvation.
It is easy to judge Ahaz.
But are we different?
We print “In God We Trust” on money.
We place religious words on public buildings, on banners, on speeches, on T-shirts.
We say that God rules history.
But when nations are afraid, they often trust more quickly in weapons, alliances, borders, armies, and the protection of stronger powers.
Abraham Heschel saw the wound clearly.
We are encouraged to trust God in our private lives.
But in politics, faith seems too much.
There, it feels safer to become servant and son of the king of Assyria than servant and child of the invisible God.
The name of the empire changes.
The temptation remains.
Ahaz still lives where fear writes policy, where faith becomes decoration, where the altar is redesigned to please power.
Isaiah still stands before us.
Do not fear.
Do not lose heart.
Trust is not a slogan.
Trust is holding fast to the Lord when fear tells us to bow before another power.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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