Isaiah 65: 17-25
A sermon preached by Charles J. Tomlin, DMin;
August 8th, 2021, Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Series: The Way of God’s Justice 18/20
17 For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity;1 for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD -- and their descendants as well.
24 Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent -- its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD. (Isa. 65:17-25 NRS)
A famous gospel song was written by the renown black gospel composer, Thomas A. Dorsey in 1937 for Mahalia Jackson. The song would go on to be a major hit on country/western charts and with Elvis on pop charts in the 1950’s. I remember it well because of a recording my parents loved by Tennessee Ernie Ford.
Dorsey wrote as a Christian composer. He dreamed of a time when sadness and sorrow will be no more. He dreamed of a Peaceable Kingdom, like that foreseen by Isaiah in today’s Scripture. For Dorsey, this plays out as a future moment, perhaps after death, when a personal “peace” of the valley comes to the soul that now struggles. As he writes in his chorus,
“There will be peace in the valley for me, some day.
There will be peace in the valley for me, oh Lord I pray.
There'll be no sadness, no sorrow, oh my Lordy, no trouble, trouble I see. There will be peace in the valley for me, for me.”
This message of ‘peace in the valley’ obviously still communicates across time – from the Great Depression to right now in the pandemic of 2020 and 2021. It also speaks to the oppressed poor, but faithful African-Americans and impoverished or otherwise struggling white Americans too, especially to the rural cultures that so many of us, or our parents, came from.
This image also communicates to us now. A very public display of Isaiah’s dream--- quoted from Isaiah 2, where the prophet spoke of ‘plows turning into pruning hooks’ and ‘swords becoming plowshares’, are written on a public plaque, located just outside the United Nations. Isaiah’s vision of peace was a living, abiding, but still unfulfilled dream for Isaiah, as it still is for us. We all dream of ‘peace’ in our valleys.
I AM ABOUT... Who stands behind this transformation?
Unlike the song Peace in the Valley, Isaiah 65 is is much more than a vision of ‘rest in peace’ after death. It is vision of a transformed world, and a new Jerusalem too. This vision is about the time when the Israelites were returning home from long exile, filled with the great hope of rebuilding their country, the city of Jerusalem and their temple, which was the center of their life and hope. We can remember that this was the exciting time of Ezra and Nehemiah in 5th century BCE.
This grand vision was so altered , so different from the present reality that in Isaiah’s vision, it was as if God was ‘about to create new heavens and a new earth.” Everything here, echoes earlier visions in Isaiah 2 and 11 but now, Isaiah takes this hope a step further. Now, God is not just saving a “righteous remnant” but God is transforming everything and everyone.
This renewed vision involves everyone living long, abundant lives. It also involved building homes, establishing families, planting and eating your own, home-grown vegetables and fruit. People will “enjoy the work of their hands.” They “shall not labor in vain.” This points to having hope, purpose, progress, and meaning in all the people do. And children too, the most valued, humanly produced fruit, will not die in childbirth. That’s something that was very common in that world and in most of human history, until recent generations. It’s still all too common in the undeveloped world.
In this vision, Isaiah is so hopeful that he dares to say that even the people’s ‘offspringshall be blessed by the Lord – and their descendants as well.’ With this promise we begin to move back to underscoring that this is what only God can do—the complete transformation of the ‘heavens and the earth.’ Notice again that Isaiah envisions a ‘new’situation that is completely different, and only enabled by God. This is something beyond human ability—-beyond their current reality—-something only God could do. This is clarified by the final image of ‘the wolf and the lamb feed ing together, the lion eating straw like the ox, rather than the lion eating the ox. The serpent is included too, because it will no longer bite people, but will be bitting dust! Now, you know where that saying comes from—-bitting the dust. In other words, the serpent will no longer be a threat.
The words, both at the beginning and at the end of this vision, function like bookends of faith in God’s creative power, reminding us again that the ‘new’ situation Isaiah is envisioning is what God is about to do. While Isaiah’s vision includes the human dimension of what God’s people shall do, this is a vision only realized through the will, power and redemptive creativity of Israel’s God.
NO MORE... What kind of transformation is this?
Since this vision depends on God’s power, you can already tell this is no small vision. This prophet sees big. He envisions not only God transforming Israel’s situation, but this vision is as big as the whole earth. This is why lines like this, found in another one of Isaiah’s vision, are on display outside the United Nations. This hope, this vision of the new earth becoming fully renewed, like the Garden of Eden all over again, is a vision so large, so beautiful, that it can’t even fit into our current reality. And its’ precisely because it’s not yet fully realized, that still remains forever open to us too.
However, here’s important point we must not miss. Even though Israel doesn’t yet experience this, and even though the world still doesn’t yet experience this yet either, both they and we can still envision it. We can, all of us, any of us, still visualize this hope of world transformation in our minds. And who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t hope for a world like this? Who hasn’t hoped for a world like this, where, as the Christmas Carol says, both ‘heaven and nature sings’ of a brand new situation, and possibility for life, based on life we visualize through the life we have now?
This transformed, but still ‘natural’ situation based on life, as we can visualize it now is very important to Isaiah’s vision. He doesn’t want us to miss this. He wants us to see how God’s new creation isn’t simply something taking place in our hearts, in our heads, or in just heaven above. This is unmistakably an earthly, worldly, and natural change that works from the inside, but effects change and transformation on outside, working in ways that are both spiritual and physical which are also irreversible and forever.
We mustn’t miss here, that the images Isaiah chooses like Israel ‘being glad and rejoicing forever’ (18) and that God will also ‘rejoice’ and ‘be glad in my people’ while pointing to a whole new situation, it isn’t entirely new or otherworldly. Again, what is natural, like what is human, is being renewed, restored, and ‘put to rights’ as the British theologians say. This is not an entirely new reality, but it is a renewed situation of what is already real and known, which is the cause of both heaven and earth rejoicing.
Isaiah envisions Israel, his people, God’s people starting all over again, except this time, even the ‘snake’ in the garden will have no poisonous bite. This means that although Israel is still human, living within natural physical limits, the people won’t die prematurely and even people who sin will be able to go unpunished because their sin will be unintentional and do no harm. You didn’t see that coming, did you? As in verse 20 it says, ‘the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.’ In other words, the world is transformed, the situation will change, but people are still people, Israel is still Israel, and the world is still the world. What’s different, is that now the blessing of the LORD shall fully dominate and fully determine Israel’s hope and give God’s people a new a ‘peace’ for living their lives.
Perhaps this is what is still mysterious, but also most promising about Isaiah’s vision. It isn’t only other-worldly, but it’s also for now. It’s not only future, but it’s the hope for a new future breaking into and transforming the current situation, inviting God’s presence and God’s promise into the world and into their daily lives too. As Isaiah expressed it, ‘Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear’ (24).
This is, of course, a picture of people still needing God and desiring God in prayer, but the way and results of human prayer has changed because there is a new closeness with and in God. ‘I will be glad in my people’ (19), God says. Their offspring, God are no longer cursed, but are now living as ‘the blessed of the LORD.’
What is most mysterious here, is that not only does Isaiah see a greatness that can only be possible in God, he also sees a greatness that must come to be realized, ‘on earth, as it is in heaven’. This is a heavenly vision, yes; but it’s also a prayer about God’s rule, God’s kingdom, and God’s power that and will transform the earthly and daily reality of God’s people’s, coming into the very difficult realty of their own current, desperate situation.
THEY SHALL... How we benefit from this transformation now.
Wouldn’t we all want this kind of ‘peace’ in our own valleys, too? It is this kind of hope for a future, that could break into life now, as a transformation of our lives in this world, that keeps us coming to church, to this holy space, worshipping God week after week, believing and hoping for the best that is still to come.
Most interestingly, this vision of both world and personal transformation is where exactly where Isaiah’s was pointing. God’s people aren’t just being invited to hear and to dream with God about their future, but they are also being invited to participate in that future too—to work with God in both praying this transformed world into being and in living this new vision of life into reality—-their reality. But what about ours? Isn’t this what the plaque on the United Nations is hoping for—that Isaiah’s great vision has something to say to us too?
Unfortunately, hope for personal or world transformation isn’t where we always end up. Where we often end up is similar to where Jesus’s own disciples were when they asked him about God’s coming kingdom, but were still stuck in the greatness of all that had been. Looking at Herod’s great Temple, they commented to each other: “Do you see how it isadorned with beautiful stones and gifts” (Lk. 21:5). Notice how they were only seeing what was right in front of them, and they still couldn’t see what God could yet do in and through them. That’s when Jesus pointed to the beautifully adorned temple and very surprisingly responded: “Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down” (Lk. 21:6).
Why did Jesus interrupt such a beautiful sight? Well, these disciples were enamored by what already was, but not yet seeing all the new spiritual possibilities of God’s kingdom. Jesus was pointing them to the truth and to hope too, beyond all the present realities. They also didn’t even understand the current disastrous political situation. In 70 A.D., about 40 years later, Jerusalem would be, and was completely destroyed by the Romans. Still today, that temple is still not rebuilt. The only part of that temple left today, in the so-called foundational ‘Wailing Wall’.
Besides the destruction of the temple, in Luke 21 Jesus went on to forewarn the disciples that they would suffer persecution because of his name, but he added: “by your endurance you will gain your souls” (Luke 21:19). Fortunately we aren’t suffering persecution at this moment like a lot of Christians are around the world. But there is still plenty room for us to join with our persecuted siblings in hope for a restored creation. We need to join with Isaiah, with Jesus, and with the disciples too, of seeing what is really going on around us, but not giving up hope, but of seeing how God wants to work in us and through us not only to keep our souls, but also to join with God in His kingdom work.
We are not only to dream and wait for the kingdom, but also to pray for and work toward this kingdom reality. We are to both envision, but also to put ourselves by faith, into this world—God’s world—where there will one day be no destruction, no hurt, no violence, no war, no death. We are not only to long for Peace in Our Valley, but to answer God’s call in our own world to work for peace in The Valley . We long TO BE change from the frail and fallible creatures we are, which in Christ is indeed already possible, but we are also working FOR change, both through our attitudes and our actions through our hope and our working faith in Jesus Christ.
There is a popular quote, attributed to the popular late T.V. pastor, Dr. Robert H. Schuller that goes: “tough times never last, but tough people do.” What is implied in this quote is that no matter who we are, where we are, or what we are going through in life, we still have a choice, a God-given power over and in our own situations. I think it was exactly this kind of ‘toughness’ that Isaiah wanted God’s people to have in the difficult situation they were about to come through. He wanted them to realize, even if things were still difficult now, the future was already in their favor; for those who continued by faith to partner with God and each other, were guaranteed to be blessed by the Lord in God’s new day, as part of the world God is still bringing about.
Richard Lischer, preaching professor at Duke, knows a Duke oncologist who specializes in some of the worst kinds of cancer. He is a world-class physician with a string of degrees and fellowships after his name. Like all professionals, he has a card. It has his name on it, but where you might expect a list of his degrees and even “I’ve been on ‘60 Minutes,’” he has only this in boldface type: “THERE IS HOPE.” That’s what keeps his patients going, he says. It’s the card that people back to his little clinic again and again. It’s the card that lifts their spirits when nothing else can. It’s the message on the card that keeps all of us marching forward and climbing upward. It’s a hope that brings peace into our valleys even when they are still valleys. They only thing more you need written on that card is that in the name of Jesus THERE IS HOPE.
That Isaiah vision and promise still being fulfilled in Jesus applies to all of us, any of us too, by faith. We must never fail to dream God’s dream of a more peaceful, productive, and promising reality, not only for us, but for all those who come after us. God’s dream is still bigger than that world, and our world. It not only includes Jews and Christians, but any who will partner and join with Jesus in realizing God’s dream. Amen.
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