Come and Argue

God does a strange and generous thing in Isaiah. He invites his people to reason with him, to bring their case into the open rather than slink away. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. He knows exactly what color your record is. He names it scarlet, crimson, the deep dye of something soaked all the way through, and then he tells you what he intends to do with it.

What strikes me is that he asks you to come and talk it out. He is not waiting behind a closed door for you to grovel at a distance. He calls you near, sins and all, and lays his offer on the table before you have cleaned yourself up. The stain you think disqualifies you from the conversation is the very thing he is proposing to make white.

For a man who has learned to hide his worst, this is almost hard to receive. You expected an interrogation and got an invitation. You brought scarlet and he is speaking of snow.

Lord, I have been hiding the reddest parts of me. Today I bring them into the open with you, and I trust your promise to make what is scarlet clean.