If you are reading this, unlike Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., you survived the Ides of March. Plutarch first wrote that a seer warned Julius Caesar about March 15. Shakespeare put the thought in dramatic form in his play Julius Caesar: “Beware the ides of March.” Perhaps you read it aloud in tenth grade English as my class did.
How well do you act things out? Are you good at the game Charades? I was never an actor unless you count Hansel and Gretel in the fifth grade. I like playing games where we act out words, but I would not say I excel at them. Our text reminds us that God sometimes asked his servants to act out his message. Jeremiah did that putting himself in stocks (Jer 27-28) and buying land in Anathoth and recording the deed as an act of hope before Jerusalem fell (Jer 32). Likewise, Ezekiel acted out God’s words, lying on his side (Ezekiel 4). But did you remember this short chapter in Isaiah? God told him to disrobe and take off his shoes to show people what would happen to the people of Egypt and Cush when Assyria took them prisoner. One would want to be sure they heard God clearly before they acted!
Isaiah apparently obeyed, but the Hebrew does not perfectly explain his state of undress. He could have gone without a shirt and shoes as far as the Hebrew confirms. But his behavior raised questions which allowed him to teach the Israelites that just as the people of Ashdod would trust in Egypt and Cush and be disappointed, so would Israel. There was not and there still is no substitute for God.
American coins say, “In God we trust.” Is it true or are we just acting? Do we put our full trust in God, or are we hedging our bets? Put another way, do we have a plan B in case we don’t get what we want from God? How then should we act? Beware any day that we do not put our trust in God. Like March 15 for Julius Caesar, that day will not go well for us.
