Reflection on Isaiah 35:1-10

 

Isaiah 35:1-10 (NRSVue)

 ¹ The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
  the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
 like the crocus ² it shall blossom abundantly
  and rejoice with joy and shouting.
 The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
  the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
 They shall see the glory of the Lord,
  the majesty of our God.]]

 ³ Strengthen the weak hands
  and make firm the feeble knees.
 ⁴ Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
  “Be strong, do not fear!
 Here is your God.
  He will come with vengeance,
 with terrible recompense.
  He will come and save you.”

 ⁵ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
  and the ears of the deaf shall be opened;
 ⁶ then the lame shall leap like a deer,
  and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
 For waters shall break forth in the wilderness
  and streams in the desert;
 ⁷ the burning sand shall become a pool
  and the thirsty ground springs of water;
 the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp;
  the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

 ⁸ A highway shall be there,
  and it shall be called the Holy Way;
 the unclean shall not travel on it,
  but it shall be for God’s people;
  no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
 ⁹ No lion shall be there,
  nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
 they shall not be found there,
  but the redeemed shall walk there.
 ¹⁰ And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
  and come to Zion with singing;
 everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
  they shall obtain joy and gladness,
  and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Reflection

“If you want to understand who Isaiah is preaching to in Isaiah 35, take a visit to any of our military or VA Hospitals,” the army chaplain said. 

And what would you see if you visited military or VA Hospitals?  You would see men and women who cannot see because of the explosion of a roadside IEDs.  You would see those who cannot hear because the intense pressures of bombs on delicate ears.  You would see women and men without limbs, learning to do the simple task of walking all over again.  And post-traumatic stress disorder will have led some men and women to turn away from the outside word, rendering them mute …unable to speak…unable to cope with life.  You would see all these wounded heroes and more.  You would see those who were once strong but are now feeble.  You would see those who struggle to walk.  You would see those who drop to the floor out of fear whenever a loud noise bursts through the peaceful scene.  You would see people whose bodies and memories have been deeply wounded by an enemy.

“And once you have seen these brave souls, read Isaiah 35:2b-6 again, and you will understand.”  And so, the Bible is pulled out, and the words start to preach their good news.

“They shall see the glory of the Lord,

  the majesty of our God.

 ³ Strengthen the weak hands
  and make firm the feeble knees.
 ⁴ Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
  “Be strong, do not fear!
 Here is your God.
  He will come with vengeance,
 with terrible recompense.
  He will come and save you.”

 ⁵ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
  and the ears of the deaf shall be opened;
 ⁶ then the lame shall leap like a deer,
  and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” (Isaiah 35:2b-6).

In a world that speaks highly of the warrior, but simultaneously forgets them with hands, hearts, and money, Isaiah has a message for those who have been wounded by trauma and war.  “They shall see the glory of the Lord” (Isaiah 35:2b).  The Lord “will come and save you” (Isaiah 35:4).

The Lord does not forget.  The Lord does not betray.  The Lord does not walk away.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

  and the ears of the deaf shall be opened;
 then the lame shall leap like a deer,
  and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy” (Isaiah 35:5-6).

The chaplain explained, “All of the talk about waters quenching parched lands and talk of straight roads leading home only make sense if you have been thirsty in battle, searching for relief, wandering across blood stained fields, and wishing for a road that can finally deliver you from that hell and take you home.  Would it not be nice if the Lord sent waters to cleanse lands and wounds at the same time?  Would it not be nice to finally see a path that leads back home?”

Before my conversation with the military chaplain, the imagery simply struck me as beautiful poetry, which it is.  But it had never really struck me just how much these words are a vital promise from the Lord to very real, battered and broken people, who desperately need to hear good news.  They are promises that God gave to people who actually existed back in the ancient world who were beaten down, battered, and broken by an enemy.  And they are promises that God gives to us still today when we are beaten down, battered, and broken.  They are promises that ring clearly in the ears of those wounded warriors from battles past.

In Jesus, we see that ^“the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matthew 11:5).  It is Jesus who promises: “Everyone who drinks [normal, well water] will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).

Our parched lands, parched bodies, and parched souls will be restored again.  A spring of water from Jesus will rush into our hearts, flooding it with love and restoration.  On that day it will be said of all healed and restored heroes that “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).

Reflection on Matthew 3:1-12

 

Matthew 3:1-12 (NRSVue)

1 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

 “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

 ‘Prepare the way of the Lord;

  make his paths straight.’ ”

4 Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.

  7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance, 9 and do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

  11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Reflection

Fire dramatically alters life.  From fires that destroy all you have to fires that burn within your soul, fire dramatically alters life.  And the power of fire is ablaze within John the Baptists imagination as he declares that “every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown in to the fire” (Matthew 3:10).  He talks of fire as if it is some sort of tool used by the Holy Spirit to clear out the dead branches and useless weeds of our lives.  He says that the powerful one who is coming separates the wheat from the chaff, and the useless chaff “he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12).  John expects that fire will be used to dramatically alter people’s lives.   

Fire changed a woman’s life.  I read about her a few years ago.  I read that fire changed everything about her.  Not only did she lose her home to an arsonist who set her home ablaze, but she also lost her face. 

Before the fire, she was beautiful.  She was beautiful in the ways that models are beautiful.  She was make-up commercial beautiful.  But after the fire, when she looked in the mirror, all she saw was misaligned, plastic textured skin, filled with scars.  All she saw in the mirror was the woman who kids pointed at, and around whom mothers steered their children, as if she were able to spread the devastation to their little ones like a disease.  She rarely went out after the fire.  When she did go out, it took so long to get ready.  She caked on makeup and even needed to draw eyebrows on her face because they had burnt away for good.  The fire was devastating.  It changed her life.

Still, she discovered that there was a life after the fire.  It was a life that she had never known before.  She discovered that there were people who did not look away or walk away when she came near.  There were people who were drawn to her.  There were people for whom her face was an invitation to get closer, both physically and emotionally. 

These people were those who the Bible would describe as outcasts.  They were the people for whom connecting with others was hard because they too were not beautiful, or they had a disease, or they had an odd tick, or they just did not know how to relate to others in the same way as everyone else. 

They were the people with whom Jesus hung out.  There were the people with whom Jesus poured his attention and care.  They were the blind, the sick, and the lame.  They were the socially awkward and the chastised.  And they were the first people to invite the woman over to their table at the coffee shop, so that she would not have to enjoy her tea alone any longer.  They were a gift from Jesus Christ to her.

Life after the fire seemed to be so much more…authentic than life before.  It was less about looks and glamour and more about love and laughter with faulty but lovable people.  The fire had taken so much from her, but on the other hand the fire ended up providing so much more.  It provided the people of God.  It provided love.  It provided a seat with Jesus Christ at the table in the Kingdom of heaven.

Fire does that.  It burns away all that you have previously known.  And that either drives you into complete hopelessness, or it shows you what this life that God has given us, is truly all about.  It is this purifying fire, where all of the impurities are burned away until all that remains is pure and good.  John the Baptist talks about this fire when he says, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11).

This fire, which stands as a kind of wall between the common and the divine, is a reality that is very, very ancient.  Way back in Genesis, at the beginning of creation, after the first man and woman had been thrown out of the garden, removed from the presence of God because of their failure to trust God, there was a sword of fire stationed between them and God.  The fire separated them, and if they ever dreamed of returning, they would have to walk through the deadly fire.  (Genesis 3:24).

Some have walked through the fire and stood with the Divine.  Moving in a reverse direction, back toward the Garden of Eden, stepping through the cleansing waters of the flood, and then stepping through the all-consuming, purifying fire at the gate of Eden, Moses steps through the fire when as he climbs God’s holy mountain.  He survives.  He encounters God.  He is given wisdom, the Ten Commandments, all because he steps through that dangerous and holy fire.

Job also encounters fire.  It falls from the sky and destroys all that Job once had.  Job goes through a fiery ordeal, much like the woman with the burned face.  Only after the fire, only after refusing to break his trust in God, does God restore Job to a new life. 

God comes to give wisdom to Job, but only after he had gone through a fiery ordeal. 

And only after the fire did the woman with the transformed face find the community of Jesus’ beloved outcasts.  Only after the fire burned away her idealized life of beauty did Jesus give the woman a real, authentic community of love, all drawn together by the Holy Spirit.

“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matthew 3:11).

I have something to admit to you.  I do not find stepping into fire to be all that comfortable.  In fact, I tend to avoid stepping into fire and teach my children the same.  Fire is uncomfortable.

Yet, John the Baptist is out in the wilderness preaching a fire-filled word that is similarly uncomfortable to hear.  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” John shouts (Matthew 3:2).  He screams that it is time to change your mind completely.  It is time to prepare a highway for the Lord to come.  It is time to clear out everything that is getting in the way of the Lord’s arrival. 

“Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” John shouts at the Pharisees and Sadducees.  “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matthew 3:8-9). 

He wants us to learn not to put our faith and trust in the things and in the people that we have trusted before.  We do not put our trust in Abraham!  We do not put our trust in governments!  We do not put our trust in our beauty or success! 

God can take it all away or replace it any time that God wants!  “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10). 

This fire seems threatening and fearful, because it is.  This fire seems full of death and destruction, because it is.  And this fire seems like it will change everything for good, which it will.  It will change everything for the sake of all that is good.

It is God’s fire, after-all.  It is the fire that Jesus carries with him and pours over the heads of those he loves, just like John pours water over the heads of those who desire more than anything for life to change. 

It is the fire of the Holy Spirit which destroys all that we have previously known but is also the purifying flame at the gate which allows us to pass through the door, back into the garden, to walk and talk with God. 

It is the fire that God uses to open the gate of the kingdom to us.  It is the refining fire that burns away all of the injustice, hatred, unfaithfulness, violence, apathy, misdirected loyalties, cold, unforgiving hearts, and sin which keeps us from life in the kingdom of heaven with God.

It is an uncomfortable fire.  It is a devastating fire.  It is not what you sign up for if you are looking for a day at the spa.  But, the Bible seems to be saying that the only way that Jesus has to draw us to him, to draw us away from the kingdom of this world into the kingdom in which he stands, is to drag us through the cleansing water and pull us through the purifying fires so that we can finally be cleansed of everything that tugs at our trust and love.  After we are pulled through the fire, we can trust in his love. 

Only then, stripped of the old, can we live in Jesus’ new kingdom of love and peace, where “the wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).  Children will be able to play near snakes and not get hurt because, in God’s kingdom, on the mountain of God, in the land of Eden, there is no attacking one another and there is no destruction.  There is just the peaceful life that the Lord our God has given as a gift by his own blood on the cross.

This purifying fire is what death and new life in Jesus Christ is all about.  All of this is what faith and grace looks like when we encounter it.  All of this is being loved by God and then shaped into the person we were created to be.  All of this is being given the gift of living in the kingdom of heaven…the kingdom which has come near.

Reflection on Isaiah 11:1-10

 

Isaiah 11:1-10 (NRSVue)

 ¹ A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
  and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
 ² The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
  the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
  the spirit of counsel and might,
  the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
 ³ His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

 He shall not judge by what his eyes see
  or decide by what his ears hear,
 ⁴ but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor
  and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;
 he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
  and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
 ⁵ Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist
  and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

 ⁶ The wolf shall live with the lamb;
  the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
 the calf and the lion will feed together,
  and a little child shall lead them.
 ⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze;
  their young shall lie down together;
  and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
 ⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
  and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
 ⁹ They will not hurt or destroy
  on all my holy mountain,
 for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
  as the waters cover the sea.

  ¹⁰ On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

Reflection

“Cut down.”  “Cut off at the knees.”  “Cut down to size.”

The people of God were once the great tree that God planted.  The people of God, together, were once a great cedar tree planted on the mountain of God upon which all eyes could look for guidance and inspiration. 

But the people of God forgot they were that tree.  They forgot that the fruit of their branches were for the benefit of all, so that all people could eat and find shelter; especially the poor, oppressed, and forgotten.

And when trees bear no fruit, they get cut down.  Assyria, and later the Babylonians, attacked and that kingdom was no more.  The once mighty tree was left as a stump. 

Has shame and guilt ever cut you down to size?  Have your past mistakes cut you off at the knees?  Do you feel cut down in life, unable to walk properly?

“Where do I go from here?” the woman asked after being abandoned by family and friends because of her lying and stealing.  “What am I supposed to do now?”  The woman felt utterly cut off, literally and figuratively.  She did not know how to live life without the support of the family and friends that she once had.  She wanted some wisdom that could just fix it all.  She wanted some way to gain everything that she had lost back.

There is hope.  “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots,” Isaiah promises (Isaiah 11:1).  Maybe, the first thing to do is simply acknowledge that you are a stump.  Martin Luther put it this way as he gazed at his own life and action in his last moments, “We are beggars.  This is true.”  We are beggars.  We are unable to help ourselves.  We are stumps.  Stumps cannot grow fruit.

Or can they?

Have you ever seen a tender shoot sprout out of the side of a stump?  Just because the tree and fruit became bad does not mean that the roots are rotten.  The roots of love and righteousness, the roots of trusting in the Lord and following the Lord’s ways, are still below, holding firmly to the ground, and they can send out a new, tender shoot that can grow into a full-sized tree.

Isaiah envisions a new leader of God’s people who will grow from the roots.  This leader is the one who we beggars can cling to.  This leader is the one who will be what we often fail to be.  Isaiah says that “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:2-3).

This spirit filled, tender shoot will trust in the Lord’s ways.  “He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth” (Isaiah 11:3-4).  This new savior will care for those who are poor, oppressed, and forgotten.  This new savior will open the eyes of the blind, feed the hungry, preach good news, and welcome the outcast and forgotten.  This new savior will take the sin and failures of stumps and beggars like us and bring them back to new life.  Even stumps will not be forgotten.

Jesus Christ is our tender shoot.  He is the new life for old stumps.  He is the one to whom we look for peace and life.  He is the one who can create a kingdom in which “the wolf shall live with the lamb” and in which it is safe for a child to “play over the hole of the asp” (Isaiah 11:6-8).

When Jesus comes to dwell with us, to stand with us, to hold us upright so that we are no longer cut off or cut away, all people can look again upon the mountain with that mighty cedar tree and find life!  On that day all people “shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious” (Isaiah 11:10).