PsalterMark

This is the final collection of Isaiah tweets. I have found journeying through Isaiah day-by-day, tweeting a chapter a day, a refreshing and illuminating experience. I would strongly others to try this as a modern spiritual discipline. As with tweeting the Psalms it remains a challenge to work within the 140 character limit. Yet, in a way this limit is so constraining, it constantly reminds the author that the tweet is a fleeting engagement with a permanent text. The tweets vary in style and include attempts at summary, thematic pointers, prayers or simply key verses or part verses.

Isaiah 37:
Idolatry is a major theme of Isaiah.
What are our modern equivalents?
What distracts us from Yahweh?

Isaiah 38:
The Lord will save me, and we will sing with stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the temple of the Lord.

Isaiah 39:
The book hinges on this chapter.
A heady mishmash of exile, return and future hope now follow.

Isaiah 40:
Tidings of comfort and joy.

Isaiah 41:
No matter how much effort we put into bolstering our idols they are still made by us and prone to topple over.

Isaiah 42:
The Servant of The Lord is a beautifully polyvalent poetic truth.
Judah, Jesus, Church and disciple.

Isaiah 43:
I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; don’t you perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
& streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 44:
Humankind, all too often, turn creation into idols.
A day approaches when humanity and all creation acknowledge the Creator.

Isaiah 45:
Gather together and come;
assemble, you fugitives from the nations.
#Ecclesiology

Isaiah 46:
Remember the former things, those of long ago;
I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me.

Isaiah 47:
With literal Babylon long gone, but metaphorical Babylon all around, let’s learn how to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.

Isaiah 48:
Lord, as we walk in the desert, sustain us with your river of peace;
irrigate our communities with streams of life-giving water.

Isaiah 49:
Yahweh has our name engraved on the psalms of his hands.
Where is his name visible in our lives?

Isaiah 50:
Servanthood and discipleship are characterised by taking up a cross.

Isaiah 51:
The New Heaven and Earth will make the wonder that was Eden look like an allotment.

Isaiah 52:
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.

Isaiah 53:
This chapter was the subject of the very first Bible Study I attended.
#PersonalParadigmShift

Isaiah 54:
Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.

Isaiah 55:
Hungry we eat God’s Word.
Thirsty we imbibe God’s Spirit.
Hallelujah for sweet honey and living water.

Isaiah 56:
Though we were foreigners you welcomed us into covenant.
Hallelujah.

Isaiah 57:
Some of today’s idols are as dangerous and unpleasant as those described here.
Lord, grant us wise eyes we pray.

Isaiah 58:
Lord, help us cultivate rich spiritual disciplines that deepen our care for the poor and marginalised.

Isaiah 59:
Collective wrongs and identification with unjust world-views can both distance a nation from the living God.

Isaiah 60:
Gates that are never closed – now that’s God’s vision.

Isaiah 61:
We join Isaiah and Jesus in continuing the announcement of the year of the Lord’s favour.

Isaiah 62:
Prepare the way for the people.
Build up, build up the highway!
Remove the stones.
Raise a banner for the nations.

Isaiah 63:
Mighty to save and robed in crimson.
Judgement and mercy established by the Father and the servant.
#intertextuality

Isaiah 64:
Our Father in heaven,
we are the clay,
you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.

Isaiah 65:
The wolf & the lamb will feed together,
& the lion will eat straw like the ox,
& dust will be the serpent’s food.

Isaiah 66:
Each pilgrim builds for God – home, church, a life and community.
Each is a foretaste of Isaiah’s ultimate vision.