Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Wednesday, January 30, 2013 Read – Isaiah 62 Isaiah’s glorious vision of the Messianic Age continues in chapter 62. Again Luke does not quote from this chapter; however, it is likely that he had the whole series of chapters in this part of Isaiah in mind as he quotes from chapter 61. It is likely that Jesus also had this whole section of the OT in mind. We need to ponder these wonderful words spoken so long before Jesus was born and ponder the wonder of Isaiah, the prophet of God who God called to speak a word of hope to the people of his day – those who languished in Babylonian exile – and yet a vision that reaches far into the future to hope for a day when the Messiah would come. Actually, Isaiah’s hope still reaches into our future. The Messianic Age dawned in the coming of Jesus, but it final fulfillment still awaits completion in God’s good time when God will bring his creation to the glorious new age God is creating. Christians have understood that new age in all its fullness to be heaven and that it is. However, it is important for us to know that the Messianic Age has already dawned – it is already now and still not yet. Remembering that helps us not to become so preoccupied with heaven that we are of no earthly good!