Behold with Reverence - The Rev. Brooklin Taylor

Sunday - April 6, 2025

It is into that place of fear and uncertainty of weariness and of longing that God speaks through the prophet Isaiah. And invites its readers and us in the way only prophets and artists can into the practice of beholding into the practice of paying attention. If we look back at this whole chapter, the first half of it remembers who God has been.

 

It points to the God of exodus and liberation. It remembers the God who made a way and parted the seas of the past. Then right in the middle of the chapter, Yahweh says, forget all that. It's nothing compared to what I'm gonna do. Behold I'm about to do something new. See, I've already begun. Do you not see it?

 

I will make a pathway through the wilderness and I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. Behold, I'm about to do something new. The word behold in the original language of the text is sometimes translated as look. But the Hebrew word here is closely connected to the word Hein, which means here I am.