Future Glory
At this time of the year, I think a lot of people are looking forward to something. What are you looking forward to in the coming weeks? Time off from school, visits from loved ones, family members going back where they came from, special programs, concerts, worship services, presents, celebrating the birth of Jesus – there are many things we look forward to in December. Tom Petty wrote in a song, “the waiting is the hardest part.” That often feels true whether what we’re waiting for is something we’re looking forward to like a child looks forward to Christmas morning or if we’re waiting for something less exciting, like for surgery and physical therapy to be over. Other people look forward to the whole Christmas season just being over because it is painful.
December 12, 2010: Isaiah 35:1-10, Romans 8:18-30, Future Glory
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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While many of us look forward to something we view positively like Christmas, I don’t know anyone who looks forward to suffering. Most people naturally dread suffering, pain, physical problems, desolation, loneliness or grief. Whether because of disease, accident, violence, persecution or war suffering is something most people would gladly avoid whenever possible. As Daffy Duck says, “I’m not like other people, I can’t stand pain. It hurts me!” Just as Isaiah had a vision of God coming to redeem creation Paul argues in Romans 8 that the future glory and joy we will share with Christ far outweighs any present suffering we may have to endure. These verses from Romans are dense with images and meaning so you have to concentrate as you read or hear them. Romans 8:18-30,
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For by hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
Both the passage from Isaiah 35:1-10 that we heard earlier and Romans 8 speak to people dealing with a difficult present by encouraging them to look to a future of joy and glory that God will bring about. These passages are filled with encouragement. Joy pulses throughout Isaiah 35. Isaiah 35:1-4, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. 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. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.”
“They will be glad or rejoice” is the focus of Isaiah 35. The time is the future, exactly when we don’t know. The place is named clearly and repeatedly: it is the wilderness. This detail is important. It locates God’s promise within every human need, every loneliness, every desolation. Isaiah locates God’s promise within a history of slavery and redemption, failure and faith.
Wilderness (Hebrew – midbar) has many meanings for Israel. It is a place of flight and of freedom (Genesis 16, 21; Exodus 3, 13). It is populated by deadly animals (Deuteronomy 8:15). Water is scarce (Exodus 15, 17), and crops do not grow. It is dangerous (Exodus 14:3). It is wide (Deuteronomy 1:19). And it is easy to get lost (Num 32; Psalm 107:4). The wilderness is where God’s people learn to trust. In the wilderness God carried them (Deut 1:31), fed them (Exodus 16), and gave them improbable water (Exodus 17). In the wilderness God found God’s people, guarded and cared for them, and lifted them up (Deuteronomy 32).
The wilderness in Isaiah also sings. “And it will shout with joy – joy and joyous song” (35:1-2a). The prophet declares the joy of an earth that was wrung dry – wilderness, dry land, desert – and then shows us the reason: a profusion of blooms, shoots of new growth budding toward fruit (Isaiah 27:6). Earth’s joyful response swells into an echoing chorus, celebrating the gift of life. The God whose glory they will see in the wilderness, declares Isaiah, is our God (35:2b).
The focus of Isaiah’s vision then shifts from the earth to people, from dry land to weak and frightened bodies, from green growth to courage and strength. Isaiah describes a pair of hands that have grown weak, soft and slack from disuse. They can hold nothing and no longer do the work they were made for. Make them strong. The prophet describes a pair of knees that give way to staggering and stumbling. Who can walk like this? Make them firm (35:3). The prophet shows us people whose hearts and minds are racing, gripped by anxiety and worry. Isaiah says to them, “Be strong, do not fear.” And the prophet gives the reason, drawing attention to our source of strength and salvation. If you open your eyes and look, you will see that right here is your God (35:4a).
What difference can it make if we believe that God is coming to be with us when our hands and knees are growing weak and fear is trying to get a grip on our heart? Isaiah asserts that God will act for the people to reverse oppression and deliver them. God “will come and save you” (35:4b). God’s arrival brings something more. When God shows up amazing things happen; things we often don’t think possible. “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 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;“ (35:5-6). Isaiah says there will be a time when God’s arrival transforms every inability into ability and every need into miraculous abundance. God’s coming brings the capacity to see and hear to those whose senses are starving for light and sound. Nerves heal and grow and send and receive signals, atrophied muscles grow strong and limber. What are these capacities for? They are for worship and celebration. They are for the open expression of joy in what God can do and what God has done. The man who could not walk will have strength in his legs to walk. But he won’t walk. He will jump. He will leap and bound like a fool for God. The woman who couldn’t or wouldn’t speak will find herself able to talk. But she won’t talk. She will shout. She will sing. She will praise God at the top of her lungs.
Even now before God’s future fully comes, we can experience transformation like this on a smaller scale. Willa Cather writes in one of her books, “Sometimes in the morning, if her feet ached more than usual, Mrs. Harris felt a little low. (Nobody did anything about fallen arches in those days, and the common endurance test of old age was to keep going after every step cost something.) She would hang up her towel with a sigh and go into the kitchen, feeling that it was hard to make a start. But the moment she heard the children running down the uncarpeted back stairs, she forgot to be low. Indeed, she ceased to be an individual, an old woman with aching feet; she became part of a group, became a relationship. She was drunk up into their freshness when they burst in upon her, telling her about their dreams, explaining their troubles with buttons and shoelaces and underwear shrunk too small. The tired, solitary old woman Grandmother had been at daybreak vanished. Suddenly the morning seemed as important to her as it did to the children, and the mornings ahead stretched out sunshiny, important.”
Being in relationship with God and with other people can be transforming when we are in the wilderness. In Matthew 11:2-6, we learn that what Isaiah saw happening when God would come is taking place through the ministry of Jesus. “When John (the Baptist) heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
In Isaiah 35 there is still one more miracle the Lord has in store: the road home. There, in the place that once was wilderness, once a place of wandering, will be a clear road. There will be no more wandering (35:8) and no more danger (35:9). The people God has redeemed and ransomed will walk on it, and they will turn, and they will come home (35:8-9). As they walk homeward, upon their head, like a canopy, a garland, or a crown, will be a joy not bounded by time. Rejoicing and gladness will meet them on the road. Sorrow and sighing will flee (35:10). It is a beautiful vision of future glory.
Isaiah wrote for a people who had been scattered far from home and who needed hope for the future to help them get through the present. While we are not scattered geographically as were the Israelites, many people today are living fragmented lives in a fractured world. Where are our parched desert places? What do we sigh for, what sorrows have brought us to tears? If we believe that God is able to come into our lives at any moment, how might that change us if we are in a desert, wilderness time in our life?
According to Romans 8 Paul the fact that the future is in God’s hands and not our own gives us confidence, hope, and even joy, rather than fear or anxiety. All creation groans and yearns for that moment of divine deliverance, like a mother in the pangs of birth yearns for the delivery of her child. Just as a woman endures the short-term pain of child birth for the sake of the future glory of being a mother and bringing a new life into the world, so Christians are to endure suffering or hardship for the sake of the glory we’ll share in God’s future which will last much longer than any temporary wilderness or desert condition we now face. Paul wrote, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” This doesn’t mean that everything that happens to us or those we love is good, but that God can use all things that happen to bring something redeeming or redemptive out of it.
Yesterday morning I was at the Brewster Transfer Station mostly standing in the old container filled with bottle and cans and some garbage sorting through it all with the Boy Scouts. It was a very Romans 8, Isaiah 35 kind of moment for Troop 77. Something redemptive was literally coming from what looked like garbage or waste or refuse. Bags and bags of cans and containers of bottles will one day be transformed into a joyful experience like a campout.
Perhaps one of the things we can work on in our own lives is training ourselves to look for signs of God’s presence and activity everywhere we are, not just when we’re in worship or reading the Bible. Often time there is beauty and power right in front of us that we don’t even notice because we’re so preoccupied with the wilderness that we miss the flowers that God is causing to spring up.
In January of 2007, The Washington Post videotaped the reactions of commuters at a Washington D.C. Metro subway stop to the music of a violinist. The overwhelming majority of the 1000+ commuters were too busy to stop. A few did, briefly, and some of those threw a couple of bills into the violin case of the street performer. No big deal, just an ordinary day on the Metro. Except it wasn’t an ordinary day. The violinist wasn’t just another street performer; he was Joshua Bell, one of the world’s finest concert violinists, playing his multi-million dollar Stradivarius violin. Three days earlier he had filled Boston’s Symphony Hall with people paying $100/seat to hear him play similar pieces. The question the Post author and many others since have asked is simple: Have we been trained to recognize beauty outside the contexts we expect to encounter beauty? I would ask, are we training ourselves to recognize signs of God breaking into our life and world with grace and beauty and music and joy? It may be present even when we’re on the way to work if we open our ears and eyes.
When we are in those wilderness and desert moments in our lives when God seems distant, hope is merely a glimmer, and faith is hanging on by a thread, we can come back to Isaiah 35 with its the images of glad lands, blooming deserts, all kinds of redemptive reversals, sighing and sorrow fleeing away, and ransomed people coming home singing.
Isaiah invites us to reflect this Advent season not only on God’s coming in Christ, but also as our coming home. The picture is this – God comes. Immanuel is with us and we leap and shout and sing. And together we walk home. It’s interesting that many of the most popular Christmas movies end with leaping, shouting, singing, and coming home. It’s a Wonderful Life does with everyone shouting with joy in response to Harry calling his big brother George “the richest man in town” and singing Auld Lang Syne in the Bayley’s living room. Miracle on 34th Street does with little Natalie Wood shouting with joy over her future new house. Is there a swing? “There is one, there is one.” In Home Alone his family gets back home from France and everyone is glad that little Kevin McCallister didn’t burn down the house. Ebnezeer Scrooge on Christmas morning is overjoyed and shouts “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world!”
Whether they intended to or not, all these stories are tapping into the truth of Isaiah’s vision about the joy we experience when God comes into our life and world and transforms and changes us – and we shout and sing all the way home.
Prayer:
God of Jesus Christ, in this Advent Season, we give ourselves to you. We offer our hopes and visions and successes to you and we give to you our despair and blindness and failures. All of us, nothing held back, every part we give to you. Transform us according to your will for the sake of Jesus Christ in whose name we pray, Amen.