Isaiah 35:1-10
December 11, 2022
One of the biggest mistakes I made
as a young minister in my first solo pastorate was singing the carol Joy to
the World at Easter. Before you assume that I had just lost my mind, let me
explain why I did this. I was reading a denominationally approved worship
resource that made the claim that since Isaac Watts, the composer of the song,
wrote Joy to the World more about the second coming of Christ rather
than the birth of Christ, that it was completely appropriate and right to sing
this particular carol on Easter Sunday. After all, weren’t we supposed to be
joyful on Easter, celebrating the rising of Jesus from the tomb, and the conquering
of sin and death?
I read that and thought, “I’ll give
it a try.”
Big mistake. Epic fail.
This was a gracious congregation,
who allowed me to make mistakes. But I was told politely and firmly that I
shouldn’t do that again. Joy to the World was Christmas not Easter. It
evoked visions of snow and Christmas trees and twinkling lights, not lilies, spring
flowers, and Easter eggs. Don’t worry. I’m not telling you this to prepare you
for both Christmas Eve and an upcoming Sunday in April. I knew the minute we
started to sing that Easter morning that I’d made a mistake. Singing Joy to
the World on Easter, no matter how theologically appropriate it might be, didn’t
work for me either. I promised then and I keep that promise today – Joy to
the World is for Christmas only. It was too jarring to hear it at any other
time.
But if Joy to the World was
jarring on that bright spring Sunday so many years ago, this passage of joy
from the prophet Isaiah would have been jarring to those first listeners as
well.
Scholar Barbara Lundblad Taylor asks
this question of the passage,
“What
is it doing here?”
Taken on its own, it is beautiful
and compelling language. It is poetry at its most masterful. The imagery and
the visceral response they evoke are both beautiful and amazing.
“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 … for waters shall break
forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall
become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.”
That is powerful. But hear these
other powerful words from the mouth of the prophet:
“For the Lord has a day of
vengeance, a year of vindication by Zion’s cause. And the streams of Edom shall
be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning
pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever.”
That is Isaiah, chapter 34:8-10; the
chapter and verses just before the one we read today. The chapter after our
chapter tells of King Sennacherib’s capture of the people of Judah. He
challenges them, demanding that they submit to him. So, these eloquent words of
promise, of creation being reordered to reflect the fullness of God’s glory;
words that tell of the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, the
speechless singing, are prefaced and followed by words of judgment, vengeance,
capture, and forceful submission.
What is this passage, this chapter
of beauty and promise, of expectations upended, of miraculous reordering, doing
here; stuck between prophecies and stories that convey the exact opposite? Some
of the scholarship of this passage claims that it is in the wrong place in the
text. It belongs to Second Isaiah – which is considered to begin at chapter 40
and contains words of new hope after the exile of God’s people has finally come
to an end. Our passage, stuck where it is between doom and gloom, must have
been moved by some scribe from its original place to where it now resides.
Again Lundblad Taylor wrote,
“Some things even our best
scholarship cannot explain. The Spirit hovered over the text and the scribes:
‘Put it here,’ breathed the Spirit, ‘before anyone is ready. Interrupt the
narrative of despair.’”
Interrupt the narrative of despair.
Isn’t that what we desperately need right now? Isn’t that what every generation
has needed? An interruption in the narrative of despair. Isn’t that what we are
preparing for during this season of Advent? An interruption in the despair that
seems to not only loom around us but is growing exponentially. How is God
interrupting us right now? How is God speaking words of hope, whether we are
ready for them or not, whether we are capable of recognizing them or not?
How is God’s interruption turning
our expectations upside down? How is God’s interruption like a blooming desert,
like streams rushing through arid land, like waters flowing recklessly out of a
sparse and thirsty wilderness?
This Sunday in Advent is called
“Gaudete Sunday.” Gaudete is Latin and it means “rejoice.” This is the day when
we celebrate joy. This is the Sunday when we turn from the deeper purple of
Advent to a lighter shade of pink. We light a pink candle on our Advent wreath.
We hear Mary’s song of joy after being visited by the angel Gabriel. The last
two Sundays the prophet Isaiah has shared a vision of instruments of
destruction being transformed into tools for life, of predator and prey lying
down together in companionable peace, and today we read that all of creation
will sing forth God’s praises. All creation will be transformed and renewed.
There will be waters in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Burning sand
will become pools of clear water. Thirsty, dry ground will transform into
springs of water.
And
this will not be reserved for the natural world only, but all humanity as well.
Weak hands will be strengthened, feeble knees will be made firm. The blind
shall see. The deaf will hear. Those who cannot walk will leap like deer. Those
who cannot speak will sing for joy. The whole of creation will sing God’s
praises. The whole of creation will reflect the joy of God.
The
narrative of despair will not only be interrupted but rewritten. The joy of God
will be so pervasive, so ubiquitous that sorrow and sighing will no longer have
a place in the story. Everlasting joy shall be upon the heads of the children
of the Lord, of those ransomed and returned. They shall come to Zion singing.
Joy and gladness will be theirs. Sorrow and sighing will flee away. Forever.
Yet
perhaps we are so used to, and so ingrained into the narrative of despair that
these words of interruption, of disruption seem too good to be true. We are
intimately acquainted with sorrow and sighing, aren’t we? The whole world seems
to be full of sorrow and sighing. Despair is written through the whole text,
and joy seems to be just a footnote.
But
if the Spirit hovered over the scribes, over the prophets, and inserted this
text of joy when it was needed most, maybe just maybe the Spirit is hovering
still. Maybe we are being reminded once again that in the final draft, God will
turn our sorrow into songs of praise, our sadness into shouts of joy. In the
final telling, there will be streams in the desert, lions and lambs will lie
down together, swords will be transformed into plowshares, and the world will
be filled with joy.
God
interrupts our narrative of despair with joy. And that joy is not reserved for
one day or one season. God’s joy will be the air that we breathe and the ground
that we walk upon. God’s joy will be in the water we drink and the bed upon
which we sleep. God’s joy will live in us and through us and with us. God’s joy
will transform all of creation, all of us, and sorrow and sighing will flee
away, no longer finding a place in us or in the new thing God is doing.
Joy
to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart
prepare him room. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing. And
heaven, and heaven and nature sing.
Let
all of God’s children shout with joy, “Alleluia!”
Amen.
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