Remember That Time When… Isaiah 35: 1-10

A text – Isaiah 35:1-10

35 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.

³Strengthen 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.

A reflection:

All the bad things will be wiped away and the good things, the longed-for things will take their place. The natural world is transformed. People are healed and also kept from getting lost on the road. Can you read this section of Isaiah and picture in a time-lapse movie all these things being made new and healthy? And who is at the center of the transformations? The second half of verse 4: Here is your God.

By reading the psalms and certain sections of Isaiah like this one, well-known and quoted passages during John’s and Jesus’s lifetime, we can see that what Jesus was doing in his ministry was embodying the verses about healing and alleviating human suffering and taking pity on the forgotten and marginalized people. Anyone who knew the scriptures would see Jesus’s work and recognize bits of these prophesies coming true.

If we knew the psalms better, they would spring to mind for us today, too. The Jewish people didn’t have a lot of other literature at their fingertips, so when something happened that had been described in a psalm, they might remember it and quote it, much the way we do using TV and film references. I often say to my husband, “Hey look at that. That reminds me of that episode of Gunsmoke when…” or “Did you hear what she said? Remember when Princess Leia told Obi wan…” Human beings are designed by God to connect things to other things so that they can learn and integrate them into a wider web of ideas and behavior. So my question for us this Wednesday is this: How often do we connect everyday happenings into our web of what God has done and is doing for us? When have we recognized in a Wednesday afternoon event something that God has been up to? Let’s do that more.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for entering into our world and being with us. Help us to see your creative power at work every day and recognize that you are giving us everything we need. Amen.