Tag Archives: Isaiah

Check Engine

3 Replies

Are you getting tired of all this talk about what makes God angry?   You might be thinking, “Alright already! I get it; let’s get on to something more pleasant!”   If that is how you feel, imagine how God feels!  Fact is, God wants us to get on with the good stuff.  That’s why He gave us the Bible!

When your check-engine light comes on,

Check Engine light on a 1996 Dodge Caravan.

Check Engine light on a 1996 Dodge Caravan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

you can either get upset about it, or you can think, “Wow! My car just informed me of something I can do to get it running better.”   Sure you can  also be bummed out about the cretin who just serviced the thing and who probably left a wire unplugged…   But the point is, Isaiah 5 is a “Check Engine” light.  Ignore it to your own peril.  Here’s what lies ahead for those who do:

So man will be brought low and mankind humbled, the eyes of the arrogant humbled.  (Isaiah 5:15)

The problem, at its root, is arrogance, the attitude that presumes it knows better than God how to live in His garden.  The opposite attitude, humility, is held by those who really do know they need to pay attention to God, the Creator and Designer of all this and to submit to the ways He has said work best.  If you are only recently reading these posts, go back and read about the key verse in Isaiah, the one that reveals the message of the whole Bible.  The short version is this: God will dwell in the souls of the humble, will forgive them, restore them and bring them to full life (Isaiah 57:15-19).

Here is what lies ahead for the humble:

But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness. Then sheep will graze as in their own pasture; lambs will feed among the ruins of the rich. (Isaiah 5:16-17)

The “sheep” in those verses are the humble who pay attention and submit to God.  And to His Son, Jesus.  Here’s what Jesus said lay in store for His “sheep”:

Therefore Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.
(John 10:7-9)

God’s Hot Buttons

1 Reply

If you want to know what makes God mad, there is a pretty clear list in the 5th chapter of Isaiah. Each one is marked by the word, Woe! That’s Biblespeak for “Beware! Bad, bad things are coming unless big, big changes are made. When God says “Woe,” He’s upset about something.  God is angered by human behavior that, if left unchecked, will destroy His Creation. He says “woe!” with the same tone of voice that a homeowner uses when he sees termites destroying his home.  And for the same reason.

The first “woe!” in Isaiah 5 had to do with unchecked greed (See: “What Kind of Termites Anger God?”.)  The next one reads like this:

Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine. They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the LORD, no respect for the work of his hands.  (Isaiah 5:11-12)

Perhaps you are thinking, “It’s official: God is a killjoy and hates it when people party.”   No way!  If that’s what you think, you will be surprised as you read through the Bible.  God loves celebrations. Jesus provided the wine for one.  No, the problem here is that this drunkenness is constant (from early in the morning until late at night), it has become the new normal.  Beyond that, it has obliterated their capacity to appreciate and respect God and the wonderful oasis He created and provided.  

Imagine that you had inherited a beautiful mountain cabin that was carefully and lovingly built by your great-grandfather. It is nestled among pine trees, alongside a crystal clear, spring-fed lake. From childhood, you have forged deep and satisfying memories at his cabin and you consider it to be a precious and sacred refuge. Can you picture it?  Now, how would you feel if your kids hold a party up there, inviting their friends, who proceed to get drunk and wreck the place?  They break the windows, smash the plates and park their old and leaky pickup in the garden. Mad yet?  That’s how God feels when He sees insensitive, drunken louts trashing His garden.

But let’s look at the nature and extent of the damage:

Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; their men of rank will die of hunger and their masses will be parched with thirst.Therefore the grave enlarges its appetite and opens its mouth without limit; into it will descend their nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers. (Isaiah 5:13-14)

This warning was written to a people God had given special, privileged treatment.  He intended to use as the Jewish nation as a model, to show others how much better life could be if you loved God and lived according to His design and principles. He had set them up with their own land, and promised to provide for them and protect them.  But these privileges would only continue if they cooperated.  Their irresponsible behavior wrecked the place.  Consequently, instead of being protected in their own place, they were exiled to a foreign land. Instead of being physically and spiritually satisfied in God’s presence, they drank to find satisfaction and wound up with an unquenchable thirst.  Instead of finding life, they fell into death. Woe!

This warning, specifically written to the people of Israel and Judah, was tragically fulfilled in their history.  But it contains a principle that pertains to us all.  You and I live amid God’s amazing and beautiful Creation.  The more you pay attention, the more you seek to appreciate it and harmonize with the One Who gave us all this, the more wonderful life will be.  The key to living like that is given to us by Jesus.  Find Him and find real life.

Or, you could just get drunk and miss it.  Woe!

What Kind of Termites Anger God?

3 Replies

If that question doesn’t make sense, go back one post and read “On the Other Hand, God Really is Angry“.  When termites threatened to destroy my house, I exterminated them.  In Isaiah 5, God explains that He is going to eradicate the “termites” that threaten to destroy His garden.  He doesn’t use termites as a metaphor but, rather, a vineyard that does not produce good fruit because of people wrecking the place.  What kind of behavior does wreck the vineyard, so to speak?  What kind of termites does God see?  Before we answer that, have a look at verse 7, to see what “good fruit” looks like to the eyes of God:

And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.  (Isaiah 5:7)

What does God desire for this world?  Justice and righteousness.  Not what we think of as justice, but perfect justice.  A world where a person’s position and wealth does not change what rules apply to him or her.  A world where corruption of any kind is non-existent.  A world full of people who intuitively do the right thing in a harmonious way.  (For more on righteousness, see “Jamming in God’s Band.”)  God desires a world in which there is no bloodshed – none.

But if that was all He said, it would resemble a vacuous speech at a beauty pageant (“I want world peace!”).   Specifically, what kind of human behavior does God see as termites?  He gave Isaiah several specific examples, beginning in verse 8.  These are representative examples of things people were doing in that time that wrecked God’s vineyard.  Many of these sound pretty contemporary.  Let’s just consider the first one:

Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.  (Isaiah 5:8)

When God sees wealthy people gobbling up vast tracts of land for themselves, building themselves house after house, not because they need a place to live but just because they have the money to do it, God sees termites.  Think about it:  God designed the Earth as a perfect garden and invited humans to live in it and enjoy it.  Whose garden is it?  How is it that some of the guests in God’s garden think they should fence off hundreds of thousands of acres, saying to everybody else, “Keep out! This is mine?”  It is not that God is opposed to holding property in a family in trust and passing it along.  What God sees as termites is the people who greedily attempt to own and control much more than they could ever need and who wind up isolating themselves from everyone else in the process.

I could be wrong about this, but I believe God sees termites when He looks down on how much of this country is “owned” by so few – not because they need to but simply because they can.  I think God sees termites in places where huge conglomerates make it impossible to make a go of a family farm.  It’s not just agriculture; I see similar things going on with the decline of “Mom and Pop” stores and restaurants, too.  I’ll bet that there are aspects of the forces behind enormous conglomerate corporations that God sees as termites.  Just sayin’

Of course the argument for those who do such things is that they do it to be successful.  Listen to what God says will be the outcome:

The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing: “Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine, a  homer of seed only an ephah of grain.”  (Isaiah 5:9-10)  (Note: the words, bath, homer, and ephah, all refer to an extremely paltrey amount for such big places.)

God says, “What you think is success will lead to utter ruin.  Mark My words!”  Why?  Termites!  Living like that wrecks the place.  That’s not the way God designed for the world to work.

That’s just the first example.  Next time we will go further

On the Other Hand, God Really Is Angry

3 Replies
Worker termite

Worker termite (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the termite guy, there is only one colony of those nasty things that exists in my town, but it was centered right under my house. When he heard my address, he started making pessimistic noises. I hate that, when some repair guy takes his hat off, rubs his forehead and says, “Oh man…. Oh man…”

I looked under the porch of my house one day, shone a light in under there, and discovered that termites were tearing my house down and eating it! I asked them nicely to knock it off, but they ignored me. I sprayed them with water, and then cans of nasty aerosol stuff I had sitting around. It made sitting on the porch pretty unpleasant, but it didn’t faze those termites a bit. They didn’t even notice. They just kept on working in an organized way, with whole work teams (tiny little hard hats and lunch boxes…), harvesting my home!

Once I knew they were down there, it seemed like, no matter what I was doing, I could hear them, chomping and chewing, destroying the place. That house wasn’t the nicest one in the neighborhood, but I was pretty attached to it and all. It didn’t take long before I’d had enough. It may have seemed unreasonable to the termites, but eventually they experienced my wrath. I called in the termite guy and he knew what to do. He had a special suit, some big drills and special squirtem stuff. He wasn’t fooling around.

God’s anger is partly about trying to keep us safe (See: Why Does God Seem so Angry?). But there is another side to God’s wrath, the part where He zips up His hazmat suit, adjusts His goggles and becomes the “Termite Guy.” When God cannot get us to stop wrecking His garden, destroying His home, so to speak, eventually He puts a stop to it. He has been doing this in measured ways since the beginning – always with warnings, so folks have a chance to turn around. But eventually, He will clean house for good. You have to understand that final day is coming; it may seem unreasonable, but it’s not pretend. Jesus warned His disciples that God’s wrath would be terrifying (See: Matthew 24). But He offered a way out, for anyone who would believe in Him.

God made up a story to try to explain His wrath and the “why” of it. It’s found in the 5th chapter of Isaiah. Read the whole thing if you can. I’ll spend more than one post on it. But start with this: Listen to God as He pours out His heart…

The Song of the Vineyard

I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.
“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?
Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it.”
The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah
are the garden of his delight.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Isaiah 5:1-7 (NIV)

Why Does God Seem So Angry?

1 Reply

For some reason, it seemed like a good idea at the time: get a few of my toys together and spread them out to play with them – – – in the middle of an intersection near my home. Who knows why? For that matter, who knows why toddlers do most of the strange stuff they do? As you can imagine, my mother was pretty upset when she discovered me, happily sitting and playing out there. Probably heard the squeal of brakes before she saw what was going on. Can you understand why she might have hollered and screamed at me, might have sounded pretty angry? But at the time, it was a mystery to me. Why would a good mother get so furious?

When you first start reading Isaiah, God seems pretty cranky. He sounds pretty worked up:

Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. (Isaiah 1:4)

Whoa… This sounds like fodder for the angry, pinch-faced, bony-fingered, fire and brimstone preacher, thundering and screaming with flecks of spittle flying off his beard. Why would a good God get so furious? People make the mistake of thinking that God has changed. The God of the New Testament is pretty nice, but back in the old days, He needed some anger management counseling. Not true. God is not bipolar. God was angry for the same reason my mother was. Continue reading:

Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil. (Isaiah 1:5-6)

God hates it when He sees us doing things that endanger or hurt ourselves. Think about it: He originally created a perfect garden for us humans to live in. That is His desire for us. Unfortunately, gardens degenerate pretty quickly if you don’t what you are doing, if you don’t follow the rules. I’ve had some gardening experiences that would have frightened Maurice Sendak.

We humans turned away from God and tried to run His garden by our own ideas. We wrecked the garden and wound up hurting ourselves. But God yearns for His people (that’s us…) to turn back to Him and do things the way they work best. He hates it when we keep getting hurt. God’s plan is to ultimately restore the garden, making it available to everyone who will learn from Him and live in it peacefully and productively – and safely.

If you keep that understanding fully in mind, Isaiah is a fascinating and wonderful read. God loves to see us playing – just not in the middle of the street.

The Hidden Jesus

Leave a reply

Jesus has been hidden in plain sight, by those who distort His message and co-opt it for their own purposes. Christ has become obscured by Christianity. But that is the way it has always been for God’s Truth. That is why God told Isaiah he would be preaching to people who would:

“Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” (Isaiah 6:9) His teachings, teachings coming directly from God, would “Make the heart of this people calloused; … their ears dull and close their eyes.” (Isaiah 6:10a – excerpts). People would hear what Isaiah said, but not understand it, see it but not perceive it, because they would have their minds made up! People want to make up their own ideas instead of submitting to God’s ways. People are much more comfortable with religion than they are with Truth. By “religion,” I mean a set of rules – do’s and don’ts – so they can measure how well they are doing as they try to measure up.

The ironic thing is this:

    God’s Truth sets us free, while religion ties us up with rules.
    Religion tells us to try harder; God tells us to find the place where we rest, in tune with His Truth.

Consider what Isaiah was told to convey to the priests of his time. The priests had distorted God’s truth, making it sound as though it was for little children:

“For it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule, a little here, a little there…” (Isaiah 28:10) But God had said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest” and “This is the place of repose” – but they would not listen. (Isaiah 28:12b excerpts) “So then, the word of The Lord to them will become: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule: a little here, a little there – so they fall backward, be injured and snared and captured.” (Isaiah 28:13)

People would rather live by rules than by God’s Truth. Religions made up of rules give some people authority over others. People have made up religions based on Jesus, and have hidden Jesus behind them. Jesus came to earth with “grace and truth.” (John 1:14) If people had “eyes to see and ears to hear” Jesus told them, “If you hold to my teaching (literally: if you make your home in my understanding of reality, my ‘logos’) you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31)

Here’s the urgent deal: If all you know about Jesus has come to you from a religion, get to know Him from His Word! Seek to understand His “Logos,” His understanding of what is real and true. Pray to have eyes that see and ears that hear. A great place to start would be in the Gospel of John.

Now You See it; Now You Don’t

Leave a reply

My wife has a can of aerosol wonder spray that causes spots on the carpet to vanish.  No, I don’t know what it is – deliberately, so I don’t have to use it.  We each have our own gifts: my gift is putting the spots on the carpet…  Anyhow, it’s amazing stuff. You should get some.  Now you see it; now you don’t.  

In Isaiah, God said this:

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall  be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)

Most of us have sins we hope nobody ever finds out about, the ones that, whenever they come to mind, cause our toes  to curl up in our shoes.  We’d like to forget them but they won’t go away.  They are like bloodstains on the carpet.   But God says He will cause those to vanish.  Not just forgive them but take them away entirely.   Literally.  Isaiah knew this from first hand experience.  When he cowered before God and confessed that he, like everybody else, was a man of “unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5) God arranged a weird, supernatural ceremony of atonement to happen:

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:6-7)

I cannot explain all the bizarre details described there.  But God (literally His angelic beings) did something to cause Isaiah’s sin to disappear.  The Hebrew word behind the phrase “taken away” means to drag off, or cause something to vanish.  Now you see it; now you don’t.   The reason that is possible is explained in the Hebrew word behind the phrase “atoned for.”  If you wanted to purchase freedom for a slave, you would pay the going rate to his master, making atonement for him.   Jesus made that kind of payment to free us from our guilt.   If you are willing, God removes it.

In the verse we began with above, God says, in effect, “Be reasonable and I will cause your sin to disappear – not just the common ones, but the whoppers, too – the ones that seem like bloodstains on your memory.”   What does He mean by “Let us reason together?”  We see it in the next two verses:

If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.  (Isaiah 1:19-20)

Free Food! Free Drink!

1 Reply

Years ago I worked for a couple of days at a fundraising concert for the US Ski Team.  Among the perks for the workers at that event was free skiing and free gourmet food and drink, served at a large, covered pavilion, halfway down one of the ski slopes.  We would ski up to this big tent, show our passes, go in and chow down on some of the tastiest food I’ve ever eaten.  Here’s a question for you:  If you could get invited to that, would you go?  Me too!    Here’s another invitation.  This one is not hypothetical; it’s real and your name is one the card:

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy  and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on  what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.”  Isaiah 55:1-3a

Isaiah gave advance notice of that party; Jesus delivered the invitation:

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.   John 6:35

Can this be for real?  God said it again:

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.  He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.   Revelation 21:6-7

Okay, then – how do I sign up?   Isaiah included the instructions for your RSVP:

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.  Isaiah 55:6-7

Accepting the Gift

3 Replies

Unemployed, you have missed the last several mortgage payments on a house worth less than you paid.  You are about to be foreclosed.  A registered letter comes to the door.  You sign for it and tear it open:  “This is to inform you that someone, who would like to remain anonymous, has offered to pay off your mortgage obligations.  If you choose to accept this gift, the bank has agreed to suspend all foreclosure proceedings.”  Nice letter, eh?  Nice gift.

God’s gift to us wipes out the obligations we owe for sin – completely – if we accept it.  His Son, Jesus, Who never sinned and therefore had no personal punishment due, willingly died a brutal and tortuous death to cover what I owed.  And you.  If you accept His gift, God suspends His foreclosure on your life.  God told Isaiah He would do this and told him to write it down:

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.  (Isaiah 53:4-5)

If someone offers to pay off your mortgage, your first response might be something like, “What? Does he think I’m in poverty?  Does he think I can’t do this on my own?  Give me a bit more time and I will get this fixed…”  But if you hang on to that attitude, you won’t accept the offer.   In a sense, accepting his offer involves a willingness to acknowledge that you really do need his help.   In the same way, accepting the gift of Someone Who went to His death on your behalf requires a change in attitude, acknowledging that such a gift is absolutely necessary.  Most of us would rather hold to the notion that, “I got this; I’m doing pretty well on my own; I’m a good person.”   But if you do continue to believe those things, you cannot accept the gift. Do you remember how Isaiah responded when he caught a glimpse of God’s glory?

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”  Isaiah 6:5

Isaiah knew a humbling truth:  compared to God’s perfection, he was just as sinful as his neighbors.  We humans are all in the same boat of sinful imperfection.  We all deserve the same punishment.  We tend to compare ourselves with others and think, “At least I am not as messed up as that guy…”   Somebody illustrated the fallacy of such comparisons like this: “If the requirement to get to Heaven was jumping up and touching the moon, there would be no significant difference between the contestants for ‘Biggest Loser’ and a member of the Celtics.”   The requirement for going to Heaven isn’t touching the moon, it’s having spiritual life.  And everyone who has ever sinned – that’s you and me – is spiritually dead.

God is willing to correct that condition, to give us His life, His Holy Spirit to live in our souls.  But first, because He is perfectly just, He must require that your punishment for sin be paid.  Because you cannot pay, because, even if you could pay you would sin again the next day, He paid.  He allowed His Son, Jesus, to pay your sin mortgage in full – forever – if you accept.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the (punishment for the) iniquity (sin) of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6 – my explanations in parentheses)

Accepting this gift begins with understanding the words, we all.  It requires acknowledging your own personal sinfulness and complete helplessness to fix your own spiritual deadness.  That’s what being “lowly and contrite” means in Isaiah 57:15 (See “In a Nutshell”). God said He will revive (bring back to life) the soul of the lowly and contrite. He will forgive and restore a person who is lowly and contrite.   That is, He will do so once the bill is paid.  And He offers to pay the bill.  Accepting this gift is like what you would do with the mortgage letter example we began with: – you say, “Yes.”   If you understand that there is no way you can fix yourself to become perfect, no way you can pay what you owe for being imperfect; if you understand that you really need God’s forgiveness, then say “yes” to Jesus.  Probably want to say, “Thank You,” also…

The Gift

2 Replies

A friend told me of an elderly woman who spoke a brief but powerful message at his church.  She stood at the pulpit and said, “I would like to read a verse in the Bible you have probably never heard –  It’s John 3:16.”  Everyone laughed, since that verse is one of the most well known verses in Scripture.  Sunday school children can rattle it off by memory with lighting speed.   The people thought, “She’s joking; John 3:16 is the verse held up behind the goalposts, for heaven’s sake; of course we’ve heard it.”  Undeterred, the woman began to read: “For God so loved the world, that He gave…”  But at that point in her reading, her throat became constricted, there was a catch in her voice, and she had to stop to pull herself together.  She inhaled that jerky breath of intense sorrow.  Her eyes rimmed red.  She started again: “For God so loved the world that He….  (sob)…   that He gave…   (silent pause, clearing of throat)…  He gave His one and only Son…”   At that point she could not go on.  Her chest was heaving as she tried to take control of her emotions.  A tear snaked its way down her cheek.  She leaned over and fiercely glared at the text in the Bible, unsuccessfully willing herself to stop weeping.  And then, one by one, people in the congregation began to weep with her.  They began to “hear” this verse and to understand the profound generosity and the horrible cost represented by those simple words: “He gave His one and only Son.”  Soon the whole congregation was gripped by the shocking enormity  conveyed in that verse.  Tears flowed, noses were blown.   The old woman just waited.  And then, she closed her Bible and sat back down.  They had “heard” it.

How can God be loving and forgiving and at the same time be perfectly just?  How can He forgive our sins without also demanding the just punishment for them?  He gradually revealed to Isaiah what He would do to reconcile the apparent conflict between perfect love and perfect justice.  He told Isaiah:

“…For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given…” (Isaiah 9:6a)

The word, given, means given over.  Like a mother who stands by the bus and gives her son over to basic training.   In the marriage ceremony, the pastor asks, “Who gives this woman…”   The parents let go of their child and give her over.   Young women make the heroic choice to bear a child, and then, knowing their own inability to provide for that child, give him over for adoption.   Gifts, in the truest sense, have no strings.  They are given over, forever.  In giving His Son, God takes His hands off, removes His shield of protection.  He gives Jesus – to us.  

God gave Jesus over to whatever would happen to Him in this world.  You know what happened.  In that Gift, God accomplished love and justice.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:5-6)