Last week’s scripture reading from Isaiah 11 left us with a vision of the natural order transformed; a vision in which natural enemies of the animal kingdom and human beings live together in peace and harmony. Today’s lesson complements that one, but now it is about humanity and the land, especially the wilderness, the Judean desert. God promises to reclaim and transform all of creation and make all things new by the coming of God into our lives.
When the new immigrants to the modern state of Israel began showing up in droves in the late 1940s, they didn't find a promised land flowing with milk and honey, as their ancient Israelite ancestors had discovered in the former land of Canaan some 3,000 years before.
What they found instead was a land full of encroaching sand dunes along a once-fertile coast, malarial swamps and limestone hills bare of rich topsoil that had been swept into the Mediterranean Sea by erosion, turning the regularly blue sea brown as far as the eye could see.
The settlers immediately set out to begin reclaiming the land. During the tenth anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, an international convention brought 485 farmers from 37 countries to see what had been accomplished. Here's how Scientific American described what they saw in 1960:
"They found a nation of two million people, whose numbers had doubled in the decade, principally by immigration. Yet Israel was already an exporter of agricultural produce and had nearly achieved the goal of agricultural self-sufficiency, with an export/import balance in foodstuffs. It had more than doubled its cultivated land, to a million acres. It had drained 44,000 acres of marshland and extended irrigation to 325,000 acres; it had increased many-fold the supply of underground water from wells and was far along on the work of diverting and utilizing the scant surface waters. On vast stretches of uncultivable land it had established new range-cover to support a growing livestock industry and planted 37 million trees in new forests and shelter belts. All this had been accomplished under a national plan that enlisted the devotion of the citizens and the best understanding and technique provided by modern agricultural science."[1]
In the years since, Israel has become the world's expert in making the desert bloom. In the Negev Desert in southern Israel, for example, agricultural specialists have learned how to use brackish underground water to irrigate crops that are genetically altered to grow in a saltwater environment. Israel has exported its technology and expertise to places like sub-Saharan Africa, where famine is being pushed back in some areas because desert sand is being turned into farmland.
The coming of the Messiah will profoundly transform a troubled creation; one that is in pitiful condition, desperately yearning for rescue and incapable of saving itself from itself. If you have ever traveled to Israel, then you know how dry and arid the climate is, especially the further inland you go. The wilderness, that is the desert, is a wound of creation where all life suffers. But rain is promised, for God is coming, and the whole of the discouraged wilderness will blossom and flourish, restored to full function (v.2). God’s power and passion work together to make utter newness possible; it is the transformation and renewal of creation wrought by the coming of God into the world. “He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” (35:4). There will be rushing streams traveling along cracked, dry land; springs well up in the midst of wilderness desolation. God’s intention and purpose is to save and restore. God will make reparations and give good gifts as well as defeat the powers of death. God comes to do good work and eliminate any threats.
God has come in the person of Jesus Christ to reclaim us as his own; for we like sheep have gone astray, we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53:6). It’s an extreme makeover for our lives guaranteed to transform and reclaim us. He addresses those with “weak hands” and “feeble knees” (v. 3) as well as those with “fearful hearts” (v.4). It includes all those whose lives are overwhelmed by fear, timidity, vulnerability, lack of courage, lack of capacity to live a full life: essentially anything that prevents you from living effectively and joyously. Nothing that is skewed and distorted will remain as is: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dumb sing (vs. 5-6a; cf. Luke 7:22)! People are given back their lives. Humanity returns to its original state.
God is in the middle of this tremendous reclamation project through the work and person of Jesus Christ; a project designed for the reclamation of the whole world; a reclamation project that was initiated in Israel but would soon be shared everywhere; a reclamation project that not just restores the land, but the people, too. God will provide a road in the desert, a way home for all those who have been far away and separated from God.
In his life, death and resurrection, Jesus lived out God's project and taught his disciples to do the same. He called the project the kingdom of God and proclaimed it as the already-and-not-yet completion of the restoration of God's people and God's good creation. And, he promised to return and complete that work, ushering in a new creation where all of God's people will be at home.
Advent reminds us again and again of the promises that only Jesus can fulfill. The season also invites us to think about how we can participate in God's total reclamation project for his creation. Jesus gathered the disciples around himself and taught them to do the very same things that he had done, training them to be workers for God's kingdom. We know that the kingdom isn't all the way here yet and won't be until Jesus returns, but in the meantime we are called to make the world around us look more and more like his kingdom so that when it comes it won't be such a culture shock!
If we take that mission seriously, we can begin to see some of the ways we can take on God's project every day:
- We engage in projects that care for the basic needs of people through good stewardship of the earth's resources. We can help those in desert areas find clean drinking water and discover ways to promote sustainable food production.
- We look for ways to be involved in the lives of those who are physically limited and often pushed to the margins of society. Jesus spent time with those people and validated them, and so should we.
- We create a "Holy Way" for people to come to know Christ and his kingdom through ministries of evangelism and hospitality (Isaiah 35:8).
- We determine every day to help people attain "joy and gladness" and make "sorrow and sighing" flee away (v. 10). [2]
If you've ever been to Israel you know that some of that desert-grown produce is some of the tastiest in the world. It takes skill and persistence in order to grow great fruit in places where it shouldn't be possible to do it.
It takes skill and persistence to grow God's kingdom in the world as well. The text is a healing alternative to the church’s despair and our modern sense that no real newness is possible. Isaiah invites us out of our comfort zones to affirm that God does what the world thinks is not possible. Advent is getting ready for that impossibility which will permit us to dance and sing and march and thank and drink and eat --- and live! May we join him in making this promise a reality!
[1] "50 years ago: The reclamation of a man-made
desert." Scientific American Website, February 23, 2010.
scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=reclamation-of-man-made-desert. Retrieved
December 10, 2013.
[2] Bob Kaylor, Senior Writer and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.
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