April 18: Monday in Holy Week

"I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness. I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon…” - Isaiah 42:1-9

I am a slave of the news cycle. I get my first hit in the morning on the radio, consume a newspaper before breakfast, get pinged with email alerts of breaking news throughout the day on my computer, iPad, and so-called smartphone, and then allow myself to be yelled at by TV pundits in the sacred hours before bedtime. You have noticed there has been a surplus of news lately. My rate of premature aging has sped up considerably.

And it’s all for nothing. Isaiah called this, quite some time ago. God is with us, even if the known world seems to be upending in front of us. Not only is God with us, God knows how this story will end and has already told us. I can let go of this compulsive need to know the latest developments, this pitiful attempt to feel somewhat more in control in an era of seismic change, because the end of the story has already occurred. “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness. I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon…”

Even though we don’t know all the ways any story may develop, or if it will take months or years or decades to become more clear, surely we can have confidence in how it will ultimately end. The Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I will try to remember that this Lenten season, amid the clamor of voices. Perhaps I might even turn off my incoming alert bell on my devices. Do I really need Twitter if I have Isaiah? See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.

—Kim Malcolm