Bosses and Taskmasters
Isaiah 60 begins, "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of God has risen upon you." God here describes what will be when Messiah (Isa 59:16-17) comes to deliver them and to fulfill God's Will, as promised.
Isaiah 60 includes many descriptions of what that joyful experience will be like—all of which point to Jesus.
But one in particular stuck out to me:
I will make your overseers peace and your taskmasters righteousness. (Isa 60:17)
What are Overseers? What are Taskmasters?
The Overseer is the Big Boss—the person everyone is trying to please. They sign the checks. The buck stops there.
What they want is what is done. What they say is what goes.
The Taskmaster is the foreman, the job-site boss. They direct us to do the Overseer’s good-pleasure. They point and yell. They motivate and direct.
What they want is what we work at. They tell us what to do.
Overseers and taskmasters are part of life. All of us have them. All of us—to some extent—are them. We all have people we look to please, and people who direct us, and we are all someone some others want to please and look to for direction.
But all overseers and taskmasters—you and me and everyone—exert that influence and give those directions in ways shaped by our selfishness and sin.
Some overseers and taskmasters give themselves wholly to selfishness and sin—they might even say that injustice and threats, manipulation and violence, is how the right things get done right. Hopefully you don’t work for them or with them. But even if you don’t, you’re probably still not a big fan of your boss or your team-lead…and your clients and team aren’t probably big fans of you either.
See, our sin-shaped standards enslave us all, some to a frantic, fragile, sense of having "arrived," and others to a crushing sense of never being enough. And by our sin-shaped motivation and direction we offer each other only mirages, ever further off and utterly empty when found. This is what we do and have done; this is the best the world can offer; this is where we live and what we put each other under.
But with Jesus, under Jesus, all of this changes. Now the Big Boss is named, Peace. And the job-foreman is named, Righteousness. Jesus has changed everything.
Isaiah is saying that the Peace which Christ obtained is now our final authority. (cf. Col 3:15, Phil 4:7). And that the Righteous way of living that looks like Christ is now our directing motivation. (cf. Mat 5:6)
Used to be that we were measured by various standards—how much money we make, made, or have, how many friends or likes, how pretty, how strong, how smart, how hard-working. We get ranked—better than, worse than—and by these assessments and comparisons, we find our value and even our identity.
Some of those standards appeared to be constructive—“Way to go! You sold the most XYZ this month! Here’s a pen!”
Some of those standards were destructive— “What’s wrong with you! You’re never going to be as good as XYZ…”
Every heart has a mirror, and every heart’s mirror is distorted. Every mind has a cassette deck and the tapes played there are always off-key. And so we live by standards, judgments, assessments, that are too heavy and crush us, or are too far and we quit.
And these never quite go away. Not while sin keeps carving insecurity and desire in us.
But there’s a new Big Boss in town. And the badge says, Peace.
Used to be that we were driven by hunger, greed, fear, anger, shame, insecurity, anxiety, control, perfection.
We tried to be smarter, funnier, stronger, prettier, nicer, more compliant, more reliable, harder working, never making mistakes.
Maybe we moved up the ladder. Maybe we tried a different ladder. Maybe we fell off.
Just like with the standards, some of these directions, these ladders, were well-regarded and others were not. Some professions, some neighborhoods, some hobbies, some family-types, were good. And others were not good or less good. Because the taskmaster said.
But whichever we way went, whatever it was we found, wherever we found ourselves, it wasn’t enough, we needed more, we were lost, yet again.
And these twisting motivations never quite go away.
But there’s a new Director in town. And the badge says, What’s the Right you want to see done?
Next week we’ll consider what this means to live under this new Boss and with this new Foreman, but for now, let’s give thanks.
Father God, You have freed us from the curse of the law—all the curses and all the laws. And so we are free. Jesus has come and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who belong to Him. Thanks be to God for this inexpressible gift!
Help us to learn what it means now to live under Your peace and to live for Your righteousness.
Draw us ever closer to Your heart, into Your life, through the Spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord. In His Name, Amen.
Photo by Artem Balashevsky on Unsplash