Reflection for Holy Tuesday
03 April 2012
Isaiah 49:1-7
"YOU DISGRACE THE FILIPINOS"
In a recently concluded thread here in my post about my narration and analysis of the answers to my questions of the visiting Philippine VP Jejomar Binay in Seoul, a commenter on my post wrote that my analysis of the answers were disgraceful of the Filipinos. By defintion according to Meriam Webster Dictionary, disgrace means: 1. to humiliate by a superior showing, 2 : to be a source of shame to
I don't think I disgrace the Filipinos by sincerely asking questions related to the plight of migrant workers in particular and the dire economic situation of Filipinos in the broader perspective. Reminded of the definition of disgrace in view of Isaiah's articulation of the servant, I realized that the servant that is being referred to in the chapter 49 is both referring to Cyrus the rising Persian king in the 6th century BCE who was foreseen as the liberator of the Israelites from bondage in Babylon. Secondly the servant is as well referring to Israel itself, the nation in slavery in Babylon . Thirdly the servant is the foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, with which the suffering, death on the cross and the resurrection perfectly fit into the imagery of the servant.
WHO HAS BEEN DISGRACING THE FILIPINO NATION ?
Second Isaiah has to say about the nation Israel:
Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, youg peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.” (49: 1-3).
The Filipino nation was birthed through the struggle of the ancestors but any nation for that matter can be considered as a struggle for respect for the humanity of the individual and of the community. Based on the history of struggle of the Filipino nation, the succession of colonial and semi-colonial goverments have had disgraced the Filipinos through the centuries, including the present government.
The servant is the suffering people who have knows its identity and pursues the direction towards the new exodus, when the oppressed will be set free. Whether the people believed in the personal, external, supernatural God or the highest goal toward humanity of the people, what matters most is that the Filipino people has to act on the life of the servant.
Furthermore, Isaiah declares:
And now the Lord says, who formed me in nial n the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the sight of the Lord, and my God has become my strength—
He says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
This says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the slave of rulers, “Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”++
Photo: winterskies by Drew Hopper
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