Perspective Revisited - Overview of Isaiah 2-14

For those of you who read this blog before I took a 2 year break, or any of you who have been in a class I taught, this picture might look familiar to you.  (See “Back to the Beginning” December 31,2009) 
But if this is the first time you’ve seen it take a minute to think about what is going on in the picture.  At first glance, the essence of what is happening seems pretty obvious. One young man is assaulting another.  There is a villain and a victim who is very aware he is being attacked.  Imagine yourself on a jury to which this picture is presented by the "victim" as evidence against the "villain."  How do you find? 

I've presented this picture and those questions to a variety of classes over the past 14 years, and received a variety of responses, including the possibility of mitigating circumstances, but they all have one thing common- the "villain" is guilty of an unkind act.

But take a look at the exact same picture, with more expanded perspective: It really changes things to get a wider perspective.  It came in a packet I received the first year I taught seminary as a visual to inspire the learner to consider the difference between our mortal perspective and Heavenly Fathers eternal perspective. Over the years I have looked at it many times and felt so grateful that it fell into my hands.  I have often thought of the "victim."  What happened to him the moment after the shutter snapped?  His expression shows surprise, shock, perhaps pain.  My experience tells me that generally when I am surprised by something unexpected and uncomfortable, the easiest and most natural route is anger and, in my view, justified accusations, against those who have wronged me.  What if he, terrified of this unprovoked attack, continued to flee to his nearby house, never realizing that his "attacker" was really a savior?  What if his attacker was never found and he lived in fear of another attack?  Or worse yet, what if he knew his attacker?  What if it was a neighbor from down the street, and he felt duty bound to report and prosecute the assault?  What if the car, after missing both of them, disappeared and there were no witnesses- only the "villains" flimsy excuse that there had been a car?  After all, if a car was there the "victim" would have seen it!

Or perhaps, the "attackers" push sent them both rolling to the sidewalk.  As soon as he gained his feet he turned to confront his "attacker" only to see the car wiz by, missing them both by inches.  He realizes that without the kind, and unselfish act on the part of the other young man, who is busy checking his bleeding elbows, he would have suffered serious injury.  His heart fills with gratitude, and wonder that another would put his own life in danger to save his.

Which brings us to the great question- the great test of each life:  Do I honestly believe that my current perspective is best and has all the details correct?  Or do I honestly admit I lack wisdom-that my limited perspective isn’t sufficient to figure it all out on my own.  Am I willing and do I desire to once again, in this new and advanced course of mortality, take my place as a student of my Heavenly Father, and his appointed instructor, my Savior, Jesus Christ.  Or will I use this opportunity to set up our own school.  To in essence built in my own mind and estimations a seat of equal perspective from which I can critique His teaching, work and wisdom?  I simply cannot be doing both at the same time. 

It is a critical decision because, as the Savior so eloquently taught:

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.  (Matthew 7:24-25)

This imagery translates so well across cultures and generations.  A firm foundation is key to any lasting building.  And as this rather recent mishap from China shows, if the foundation is faulty, nothing can save the rest of the building- no matter how well built it is. (Just FYI, this building was still under construction when this happened so it was not occupied.  Tragically, one construction worker was killed.)

But, the listeners in Christ’s time would have heard so much more because before Moses left the Children of Israel he taught them a song and told them to memorize the words and teach them to their children.  Near its opening words it proclaims:

Because I will publish the name of the Lord…He is The Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are judgment; a God of Truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. (Dueteronomy 32:4)

Christ’s listeners knew Jehovah called Himself The Rock.  They knew he had contrasted Himself with the unreliability (sandish) quality of other “rocks” or “gods” with which they would be tempted to replace Him.  They knew The Rock claimed only His power could truly redeem them. The Rock not only made a firm foundation to build upon, but He was a truly impregnable fortress and protection.  The Rock could crush the most fearsome army of would be conquerors.  And amazingly, The Rock was also, against all we know through experience, a source of living water in the harsh dry desert, as well as a source of food and the sweetness of honey.   But perhaps most incredibly, The Rock declared that He had the power to truly avenge (make right on behalf of another) and even restore life. Yes, Christ’s listeners knew in an intellectual sort of way all these things about The Rock, and yet when He stood before them, and did miracle after miracle to provide concrete evidence of His divinity, for the most part, they rejected Him.  They did no better than their forbears had done in Isaiah’s day.  The test is the same for me today.    

So, how does this all relate to an overview of Isaiah 2-14?  Two words: Infinite Atonement.  Those are the words Jacob uses in trying to help his people see the significance of what Isaiah taught. (2 Nephi 9:7)  Those are the words Nephi used when trying to help us see the importance of these very chapters, so laboriously rerecorded in 2 Nephi 12-24. (2 Nephi 25:16)  It is faith in, and allowing the Holy Ghost to indelibly impress on our souls the reality of a truly infinite atonement, that gives us the power to stay and build upon The Rock.  It is the power we can rely on when our own limited mortal vision doesn't comprehend the whole picture.  We are given Isaiah’s words with the promise that if we will study them we will be “more fully persuad(ed) to believe in the Lord (our) Redeemer.” (1 Nephi 19:23)  And Jacob tells us he delights in the words of Isaiah because he delights in “proving unto (his) people the truth of the coming of Christ…and all things which have been given of God from the beginning of the world, unto man, are the typifiying of him…that whoso… shall see these words may life up their hearts and rejoice for all men.”  (Jacob 11:4,8) 

I appreciate Jacob’s words.  I used them to adjust the perspective of the lens through which I read these words and saw a remarkable pattern emerging.  If you take the section as a whole, including Nephi’s commentary directly relating to Isaiah prophecies (2 Nephi 12-30), it begins and ends with the promise of the latter-day restoration leading to the Savior’s millennial reign.  And forming an incredible centerpiece are the prophecies of the Saviors first coming and the unseen and rejected power avialable to all of mortality.(2 Nephi 17-19, Isaiah 7-9)  Isaiah recognizes in the awful circumstances of his time a pattern common in humanity and every chapter thrums with descriptions of the obviously irreparable mistakes and tragedy we repeatedly make. Interspersed along the way like shining jewels are repeated proclamations that what seems so obvious does not take into account that the Lord doesn’t work in mortal impossibilities, only infinite eternal possibilities.  But he won’t force His ways upon us. We are invited to liken ourselves, recognize the sand in our foundation, so to speak, and learn to “stay” upon the Lord. 

He then goes on to illustrate how difficult the last days will be by pointing to common things between them and the conquests of Israel and Judah.(Isaiah 10-14, 2 Nephi 20-24)  Again, like shining diamondswe are given information about the restoration of Israel- how even the great, horrible, evil power of the devil himself (or any of his minions) cannot stop it. To me, Isaiah has become an illustrative, perspective expanding gift of immense value.  A personalized invitation from my Savior to understand and do exactly what another Book of Mormon prophet, Helaman, instructed his beloved children to do:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.  (Helaman 5:12)