vss. 1, 10 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom... 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 sadness shall flee away.
As an encouragement for the people in slavery in Babylon to return to Jerusalem through the inhospitable Sinai Peninsula, Isaiah tells of his God-inspired vision that the wilderness will be transformed to accommodate their travels through it back to freedom. This poem that describes the blossoming of a barren place and ordering of a an unsafe place for the sake of home-coming and freedom is beautiful. And as Christians, we look back at this beautiful, hopeful poem through the prism of the New Testament and claim it as a promise being fulfilled in Christ.
Read this whole chapter and ask yourself, how can I be a part of this transformation of creation that God promises? How can I be a part of this blossoming and ordering process?
It is perfect that this text falls on Human Rights Sunday. Just as the Jews were enslaved in Babylon, many are enslaved today. Some are enslaved for sex, some to produce goods, some for soldiering and some to work off debts. Estimates for slavery in the world are between 27 and 50 million people. Many slaves are children. There is slavery in our own country.
How can we as the church witness to the transformation of creation by "setting the captives free?"
In Isaiah 35, the author talks about encouragement and preparation to face the unknown. The Israelites may not have had a comfortable life in Babylon, but after generations living there, they did not know any other life. So to think about taking a long and possibly dangerous journey to a place, Jerusalem, where they knew nothing about, was very scary, at best.
ReplyDeleteIsaiah gave the people God's promise to protect them, but they had to also prepare for the journey. “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.” They also needed to support each other in this decision to travel to Jerusalem. At the end of the poem, the promise when they reach Jerusalem, is that all their hardships will be but a memory.
In this season of advent, we prepare to take this journey to a place we know nothing about. “To set the captives free” we might have to face our fears and prepare ourselves for the messiness that comes as we witness the transformation of God's creation.