Isaiah 35:1-10
Savoring Old Stories
James Sledge December
17, 2017
I
don’t know about you, but I sometimes find it hard to watch the news these
days. O I’ll watch the network news if I’m home in the evening. And I’m one of
those dinosaurs who still goes out to pick my newspaper from the driveway every
morning. I look at every page most mornings, but I don’t always read all the
articles. It’s too depressing.
I
can only read so much about the latest shooting, or the terrible wildfires and
devastating hurricanes and how both will likely become more common with climate change. I can only
stomach so much information about racial hatred going mainstream, or about
legislation that benefits the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
I
see many online who respond to all this with a visceral anger. I can still feel
anger, but I’m probably more inclined toward despair.
I’m
reasonably certain that others are struggling with today’s news as well. Over
the past year, I’ve frequently seen a cartoon from The New Yorker’s David Sipress posted on social media. A
well-dressed man and woman walk on a city sidewalk, and the woman says, “My
desire to be well informed is currently at odds with my desire to stay sane.”
I
assumed that the cartoon was drawn for our current situation, but turns out
it’s from the 1990s and Sipress can’t even remember what events inspired it. He
did republish it in a New Yorker article
earlier this year about how he’s trying to stay sane these days. A prominent
strategy is rationing his intake of news.
Of
course other people have more personal reasons for anger or despair, from those
facing terrible disease or tragedy to those who constantly must navigate the
institutional racism of our culture to those who’ve been sexually harassed or
assaulted but felt they could do nothing for fear of losing their jobs,
healthcare coverage, and respectability.
A
time with the news being troubling and depressing, when people feel anger or
despair, is the setting for the prophecy we just heard. So too, Mary’s
Magnifcat is spoken into a time when Israel was under the thumb of Rome, when
being poor or disabled or widowed or orphaned was often a death sentence, when
hope for the future seemed grim.
The
words from Isaiah seem to be from a different prophet than the one we’ve heard
in previous weeks. The scene has shifted from Jerusalem and the hope for a new
and better king, to exiles in Babylon. Jerusalem has been destroyed, Solomon’s
great temple no more. The people now live in a foreign land, in a foreign culture.
And no doubt many of them despair, wondering if their God has abandoned them.
Into
this despair, the prophet speaks of a way in the wilderness upon which the
ransomed of the Lord will return
to Zion. It is reminiscent of Israel’s foundational story, the journey through
the wilderness from slavery in Egypt to freedom, from despair to a land of milk
and honey. But though the story of journeying through wilderness is familiar, this
journey will be different. The barren wilderness of the Exodus is replaced with
one that blossoms and rejoices, where streams and water flow in the desert. And
God comes to set things right.
Every
year in Advent we bring out these old promises uttered to people who despaired,
who wondered if God had abandoned them, who longed to see God moving in
history. We hear of swords beaten into plowshares and wolves living with lambs.
We hear of deserts rejoicing and blossoming and a child born who is called
Prince of Peace.
And
every year attendance goes up at worship and swells even more on Christmas Eve.
It’s partly because of special music and familiar carols. It’s partly because
of nostalgia and the warmth of remembered Christmases of long ago. But it is
also because we need these promises, these stories of hope.
We need to remember that exiles did go
home from Babylon, and that a child was born who is called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God. We need to be reminded that God has acted decisively in the past so
that we can trust that there will be a day when weapons of war will be
converted into implements of life, when the poor and hungry will be lifted up,
when life will burst forth from what had previously been desolate and barren.
_____________________________________________________________________________
In
the midst of all the frenzied, hectic activity that our consumer culture has
heaped onto the season, I hope you will take some time this week, and again
after Christmas, to sit and read and savor some of these stories, some of these
ancient promises. Dwell in silence with them; let their imagery come to life in
your imagination; and remember that God has moved, has acted in history and
will move and act again.
There
is a portion of our Isaiah passage that I especially want to sit with for a
while. 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; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds
and rushes. 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.
Not
even fools can get lost. I like that. I could use that. Our world could use
that. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!
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