St. Aidan’s Sermons
Winnipeg, Manitoba
The Rev. Canon Dr. Brett Cane, December 12, 2010
Advent 3; 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. Holy Communion
Isaiah’s Visions of Christ’s Coming #3:
“The Coming Deliverance”
Isaiah 35:1-10 (Matthew 2:2-11)
Opening Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you have come to be our redeemer; help us now, by the miracle of your Holy Spirit living us, to strengthen our feeble hands and weak knees, that we might walk your highway of holiness now and in your kingdom to come, to the glory of our Father in heaven. Amen.
Introduction
If you are like me, it is easy to allow Advent to get overshadowed by Christmas. I am so preoccupied with organizing my Christmas cards, buying gifts and going to Christmas parties that I end up observing Christmas all December long! What is valuable about Advent is that it allows us to prepare for Christmas by looking behind and beyond it. The scriptures we read in these four Sundays help us examine the reasons Christ had to come and impact of that coming on us both in the present and the future.
So, to take advantage of this arrangement, this Advent we have been looking at “Visions of Christ’s Coming” from the prescribed Old Testament readings from the prophet Isaiah. We have already looked at “The Coming Kingdom” and “The Coming King” and today we catch a glimpse of “The Coming Deliverance” from Isaiah 35. This chapter gives a magnificent picture of the impact of Christ’s coming upon us now and into the future.
How to Read the Old Testament
Before launching in to the passage, I want to remind you of what I said last time about how we are to read the Old Testament in the light of the New. I said first, that we are to look at it through a “Jesus Lens” – in other words to see what is spoken of in the light of the One who is the Light of the World. Secondly, I said that, especially with prophecy, we can use two devices to decipher its meaning for us today. One is “prophetic perspective” and the other “typology.” With “prophetic perspective” we see many possible layers of interpretation to describe events to come. I used the analogy of looking at the Rocky Mountains from Calgary. At first sight, it appears as if all the peaks are together, but when you get nearer, you realize there are valleys and gaps in between various ranges. From the New Testament we learn that God’s Kingdom comes in different stages and we will apply this to our passage today. We apply “typology” in a similar way. Typology has to do with models God uses or patterns of how he works – “types”. A type could be a person, event or institution that God uses as a picture of how he is going to work things out on a broader scale. For example, in Isiaah 35 we will see that the return from exile in Babylon is an event that can be expanded from its original senses in the 5th century BC to include both a spiritual return from spiritual exile to God now as well as a picture of God’s ultimate deliverance when he establishes his kingdom in all its fullness in the life to come. All these are ways of illustrating the old saying: “In the Old Testament, the New is concealed; in the New, the Old is revealed.”
Isaiah’s Vision
Let us now turn to Isaiah’s vision in Chapter 35. This chapter with its magnificent promises of deliverance and restoration comes right after a dramatic description in chapter 34 of God’s judgement and anger on all nations for their injustices: “The LORD is angry with all nations; his wrath is upon all their armies. He will totally destroy them, he will give them over to slaughter” (Isaiah 34:2). It then goes on to speak about “the starry host” falling. This allows us to see that this is both a judgement near the time of writing on the nations who have caused Israel harm and also the great judgement at the end of time when there will be “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). With this example of “prophetic perspective” we are thus able to see what follows in Chapter 35 as being fulfilled in different phases.
We also see a great use of typology here in chapter 35. In the first sermon, we saw Isaiah describing the coming kingdom as the “Mountain of the Lord’s Temple (which) will be established as chief among the mountains” (Isaiah 2:2). In this passage, he uses two more pictures to describe the coming deliverance God’s kingdom will usher in: the restoration of the land and people and the “Highway of Holiness.” [1] We will unpack these two images or types, and using “prophetic perspective,” see how they can give encouragement and challenge for us today.
A. The Restoration of the Land and People
The restoration of land and people is found in verses 1-7.
1. The Land is Restored: The first image of restoration begins with environmental recovery.
The desert and the parched land will be glad; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; the splendour of Carmel and Sharon.
(Verses 1, 2)
God is in charge of the earth once again! The threefold “before” picture of intense barrenness: desert, parched land and wilderness; is mirrored by the threefold “after” picture of areas of rich fertility: “Lebanon, Carmel and Sharon.” Creation is personalized and breaks forth into singing God’s praises! We are told that restored creation “will see the glory of the Lord and the splendour of our God” (verse 2).
Here we see affirmed the great truth of Biblical faith – it is not anti-material but rooted in the physical world. What we do with our environment and what we do in our bodies does matter. Contrary to other religious views, we do not see our physicality as something “less spiritual” – even evil – to deny and shed, but an aspect of our existence to be redeemed and restored. Jesus confirmed this by becoming fully human – not just a spirit in a body that he shed when he left us but a true human being –- a union of body-soul-spirit. When he rose again, he had his new resurrected body – restored, renewed and transformed – but still physical! We spoke about this in the sermon “Are You Clear about the Afterlife” last month.[2]
The resurrection of the body is paralleled by the the picture we have here of the restoration of the rest of the physical world. Now what is the timing of this image? There was somewhat of a physical restoration when the Jews returned from exile in Babylon in the fifth century BC and we have also seen it in recent times with the establishment of the State of Israel. I have been told that every tree we now see in the Holy Land has been planted since 1947 – before that the land had been deforested due to endless warfare. But there is also a fulfillment yet to come. Paul speaks about the restoration of creation as part of the salvation Christ has made possible: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:19-21). Linda spoke of this when she preached on Isaiah 11 (6-9) last week.
What does this say to us now? We must prepare for what is to come by taking care of what we have now. This not only means what we do with our physical bodies but what we do with the creation God has given us to tend (Genesis 2:15). Just as we decry personal rape so we are to decry environmental rape. In some way, the good we do now, not only in spiritual matters, but also in physical, goes with us into the life to come. An example of making a difference in the physical world came to me this week in the “McGill Reporter.” The article is entitled “Jonathan Glencross spearheaded the implementation of the Sustainability Projects Fund at McGill.”[3] It caught my eye because Jonathan is the son of one of my clergy colleagues from Montreal. It states that “Few undergrads have had a bigger impact on the University than Glencross, a fourth-year student at the School of the Environment” and goes on to describe how Jonathan helped move the administration and student body away from adversarialism on these issues to team up to finance environmentally-positive projects across the University such as composting and providing food grown locally by students to university cafeterias and residences. Jonathan is quoted as saying “This is proof of principle that is big and meaningful and hits everything that the University is supposed to be doing in terms of teaching, learning and working together. This is something to feed the sceptics who say these are just lofty ideas.” Here is a young man who is making a difference in the emotionally-charged field of environmental concern.
But there is another application for this imagery of a restored physical world. In verses 6 and 7, the environmental theme is picked up again: “Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs.” We are drawn forward to Jesus’ declaration centuries later that “‘Whoever believes in me…rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive” (John 7:38-39). Here is a deeper picture that within our hearts “what was dry and useless before becomes well-watered and fruitful.”[4] God in Christ wants to move us beyond our “dry times” and fill us with his Spirit. The word “burning sand” here apparently means “mirage” – so we can add that what may seem to us an illusion and far-off at the moment can become a glorious reality – beginning now and to be completed in the life to come.
2. People are Renewed: This personal encouragement and challenge is taken up in verses 3-6 where we see the personal renewal and restoration that God is going to bring about:
Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
In the face of the tumult around and within us – producing in us “fearful hearts”, we can get discouraged; but in the light of what God is doing and the glorious restoration that is to come, we are told to get strong and get going! This is no time to have weak hands or feeble knees. Our hands are what we work with; our knees take us where we need to be. The prophet is told to encourage those who feel like giving up on what they are doing for God or afraid to move out in new ventures for him based on the sure promise that God is going to act. He may seem to be absent, but he is not. This would have been true for the Jews in exile – they were redeemed after 70 years but it also true for us in our daily struggle in the exile we sometimes feel we are in due to the challenges we face within and without. What’s more, Hebrews 12:12 quotes the verse “strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees” in the context of God’s discipline of us which has as its goal our growth in righteousness. When we are in a “period of exile” we can think God has abandoned us but it is not so. God is in the reconstruction business. See God at work through the difficulties and be encouraged by his promise that “he will come to save you” (verse 4).
Hebrews 12 goes on to say “Make level paths for your feet so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed” (Hebrews 12:13) and in Isaiah 35 the prophet goes on to speak about healing:
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy. (Verses 5-6a)
When God comes, it will be with miraculous power. We see this fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus. In our Gospel reading, when John was discouraged, Jesus sent this message to him, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy bare cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me” (Matthew 11:4-6). The miracles of Jesus show us that this new age of God’s restoration has begun amongst us. We see a continuation of that ministry in our own congregation today through the physical healings we experience. What’s more, there’s is a spiritual application, too. Jesus spoke much of people needing “ears to hear” (e.g. Mark 4:9, 12, 24); in order to receive his salvation they needed their “spiritual ears” opened and we are to pray for this.
The coming deliverance involves restoration of the land and people. Receive this and move forward in it.
B. “The Highway of Holiness”
How we move forward is taken up in the last few verses (8-10):
And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
No lion will be there,
nor any ravenous beast;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
and those the LORD has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away. (Verses 8-10)
The very fact that the highway is given the name, “The Way of Holiness” shows that we have moved from the literal in any time to the spiritual for every time. It has obvious parallels with Revelation 22 at the end of time but, as with the environment, we need to begin walking this way now, in this life. This “Way” has five characteristics:
- First, it is a journey. There is no sense of “having arrived” – the life of holiness involves continual learning and moving ahead in our intimacy and relationship with God. We walk hand-in-hand with the Lord.
- Second, it is exclusive. The unclean and “wicked fools” (i.e. people with mistaken ideas about God) will not be on this road. I had a letter this week criticising me for being “exclusive” in saying that certain kinds of behaviour were not acceptable to God. I was then told that I should leave the Anglican Church of Canada – so much for “inclusiveness”! God has rescued and redeemed us so that we might be restored to the life he designed us to live – a holy and wholesome life.
- Third, those on the road have been redeemed. We are on this road because someone else took action to rescue us. This is the Lord’s doing – Jesus has paid the price and lived the life that we might be on this road. We can not save ourselves – so don’t try!
- Fourth, we are protected on this road. Absent are the “lion and ravenous beast.” Peter tells us that “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). God will deliver us from the evil one and all that seeks to destroy us and divert us from this road. Take encouragement and do not be fearful.
- Finally, the road is a place to be joyful. There is singing, joy and gladness. Echoing Revelation 21:4, sorrow and despair are removed. Holiness is not dull and drab but full of delight and ecstasy. The fact that we are “crowned” with joy reminds us that we, like the children in Narnia, are Kings and Queens in the blessed Kingdom.
Conclusion
Using the images we have been given in this chapter, “we come to God barren, dry, blind, deaf, weak and crippled. Then the miraculous power of Jesus comes to change us, heal us and provide for us. That isn’t the end of God’s work though; he then goes on to make a Highway of Holiness that the transformed…can walk on.”[5] Begin to experience this Coming Deliverance at every level of your existence now so you can fully engage it in the life to come. This is why Jesus came at Christmas.
[1] I am very grateful to David Guzik for the structure and inspiration for some of what follows; his exposition can be found on http://www.enduringword.com/commentaries/2335.htm
[2] See sermon for Nov., 7th, 2010 found on www.staidanswinnipeg,.ca
[3] Article by Neale McDevitt in “McGill reporter” Nov. 5, 2010, found on http://publications.mcgill.ca/reporter/2010/11/forces-to-be-reckoned-with/
[4] David Guzik, op. cit.
[5] David Guzik, op. cit.
