A Vision to Restore our Hope

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom…they will see the glory of the Lord…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 (Isaiah 35:1,2,8-10). "You transplanted a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. Its branches reached as far as the Sea, its shoots as far as the River" (Psalm 80:9-10). So sings the psalmist attempting to capture God's relationship with Israel. This is no legal contract but a dance of lovers. However, the beloved perpetually dances away to find other partners. Yet, God pursues Israel to win her back, lavishing her with gifts, causing her to flourish. As she flourishes, Israel is to be generous, passing on the gifts of God. She is to "act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with [her] God" (Micah 6:8). Yet she rarely does. In exasperation God asks, "When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?" (Isaiah 5:4). Isaiah is comparing Israel to a vineyard that God has lovingly and tenderly planted and cared for. He concludes, God "looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress" (5:7). Because of her propensity to go after other lovers, God determines to use those same lovers to strip her bare. They will ruin and plunder her and carry her into exile. The vineyard will become a wasteland, a wilderness. She will be dry, harsh, and dangerous. Travellers will go around her rather than face her hostile conditions. Yet, God will not abandon her. Instead, he will punish these so-called lovers for going too far, for taking a perverted joy in plundering and demeaning Israel, God's beloved. As they laid Israel waste, he will lay them waste. This is where our text picks up the story. Both Israel and her lovers, turned enemies, have been laid waste. What hope is left? Now Isaiah pictures the desert bursting into bloom. God has once more come to the aid of his people, his beloved to deliver her, to restore her (5:4). Israel is pictured returning to Zion, the city in which God dwells with his people. As she travels, the desert returns to life, discouraged people are lifted and the broken are healed. They will all see the glory of the Lord. Judah was heading towards exile. They needed a word of hope to sustain them, so they would not give in to despair. As a TV character recently said, "Hope is never mere, even if it is meager." To bolster Israel's meager hope, God offers this vision. And John echoes it when he writes, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). As we trace Jesus' ministry on earth, we see elements of Isaiah's vision fulfilled: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the hungry are fed. The wilderness blooms. Yet, when we look around at our world, it seems more desert like than a flourishing vineyard. When our hope flags, we need to return to Isaiah 35, to remember that hope is never mere. As God promised to redeem Israel from exile, Jesus promised that he would return. And even as he tarries, the Holy Spirit whispers in our hearts, "All will be well."