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Nearly all of our texts are forward-leaning to a new and better day in this week’s lessons. The two Isaiah passages look to a future time when sorrow and premature death and crop failures and danger will be done and a new age will dawn. The epistle lesson grinds out a specific mode of behavior as Christians await the "second coming," and the gospel lesson provides us with upheavals in cosmic and global proportions, yet with a narrower view of the believer’s response during the time of trials.

ISAIAH 12—ON THAT DAY

The writer looks forward to a time in the future when people will exult in God for the deliverance and salvation that have come to them. Though angry, yet now has God become their comforter and savior. On that day too, will be a change in attitude and emotion, for people will be joy-filled and thankful for the great deeds that God has wrought among the people.

ISAIAH 65:17-25—O HAPPY DAY

This lesson is similar to that of Isaiah 12, though much more expanded and idyllic. In this passage the prophet Isaiah foresees a time of new things—a new heaven, a new earth, a renewed Jerusalem, a new spirit of hope among the people, a lasting peace, and a new season of prosperity in field and hearth and home. Gone is harm and danger when this day dawns—even the wolf and lamb will live amicably side by side, causing no harm to anyone.

2 THESSALONIANS 3:6-13—FINAL INSTRUCTIONS: DON’T LOLLYGAG

This lesson falls on the close of the epistle and offers straightforward instructions concerning the work ethic among the Christian community. Everyone works. Everyone eats. Everyone shares the mandate to imitate the apostle Paul and his missioners, who apparently made themselves examples of how Christians should be industrious and as willing to work as they are to eat. The instructions conclude with an encouragement to "not be weary in doing what is right" (v. 13).

LUKE 21:5-19—END TIMES

We have here Luke’s inclusion of the eschatological sayings of Jesus. The sayings are introduced by an exchange between Jesus and the disciples concerning the beauty and doom of the temple in Jerusalem. Following this, Jesus instructs the bewildered disciples about the future, specifically, clues or signs about the temple’s impending doom. Jesus further moves from global and cosmic signs to the treatment of the disciples by those who will arrest them for their allegiance to Jesus. Yet even when on trial, Jesus will be beside them and will give them the courage and words to say—though many will be martyred for their inspired testimony.