Crooked roads.

SCRIPTURE:  The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace. Isaiah 59:8 ESV

THOUGHT: The first seven verses of Isaiah 59 describe a nation that has turned away from God, running toward evil, lacking justice in the court systems, swift to shed innocent blood. And by verse 8, a culture that doesn’t know the way to peace anymore. Look at all the metaphors: the way, their paths, their roads, their treading. No peace. No justice. Crooked roads. Stumbling people. It’s not like they’re trying to find the way of peace, it’s that they literally don’t know it anymore. Something has been destroyed.

I suddenly picture Jesus weeping on the way into Jerusalem for the last time before his crucifixion. “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace (Luke 19:42)!” A city and a culture that doesn’t know the things that make for peace. Peace with God. The way to human flourishing. Peace that passes understanding.

In Jeremiah 6:14 we find the priests and prophets offering a balm that puts people to sleep basically: “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” As I survey what is happening around us in culture, I don’t suppose anything disturbs me more than hearing of something wacky like a Texas church hosting a drag queen show this past week, a “family-friendly event,” claiming there is peace when in fact there is not. A “family-friendly” band aid on a rupturing culture, a church offering to put people further to sleep by twisting up right and wrong and bitter and sweet and good and evil.

God forgive us! God help us!

PRAYER: Oh God, I don’t want to say these things. I don’t want to see these things. But I surely don’t want to heal the wounds of your people lightly, saying ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace. Help us, God. Help me, God.