Blood stained hands

It is funny how you remember things from your school days - weird things sometimes! For example, when I was reading through Isaiah 59, I was immediately reminded of MacBeth. We did this Shakespeare play during my years at High School, but I vividly recall watching the scene from the MacBeth movie where Lady Macbeth can't seem to get the blood off her hands (they had just murdered King Duncan). Do you remember her words?

"Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then
'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow'r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?"

This is how Isaiah viewed the people of his day...

 But your iniquities have separated
    you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you,
    so that he will not hear.
³ For your hands are stained with blood,
    your fingers with guilt.
Your lips have spoken falsely,
    and your tongue mutters wicked things.
⁴ No one calls for justice;
    no one pleads a case with integrity.
They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies;
    they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.

It seems that blood stained hands appear in every generation. However, there is still good news for us this Advent - the Lord has come to offer us hope and redemption.

“The Redeemer will come to Zion,
    to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,”declares the Lord. - v.20

Living in Grace
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