And they suffered them without benefit of antibiotics or anesthesia. Their only social security, or insurance or any kind, was the number, prosperity and charity of their children. Call them primitive if you will but do not image for one moment they were naive. They say this not denying stark reality but in the face of it, in the midst of it, in spite of it, staring it straight in the face. It is a peculiarly religious hope.
Religious people are the ones celebrating when no one else sees anything to celebrate.
Like all the Christian virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable. There they dwelt, oppressed by a people far more powerful than they, exiled to a pagan city more magnificent than Jerusalem had ever been. And the people believed him because he was speaking the word of God himself. An encounter with God has its fearsome aspects, as last Sunday's lessons made clear. Isaiah spoke to people who, like millions of prisoners of war before and since, had been mercilessly driven up hill and down dale by their conquerors across hundreds of miles of rough terrain to their captivity.