God's Creative Imagination

Isaiah 65:17-25

 

By my calculations we are inside 40 shopping days left till Christmas.  For you Biblical scholars the number 40 has great theological significance. Noah was on the Ark for 40 days, the children of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years, and Jesus spent 40 days in the desert before beginning his ministry.  The number forty is not to be taken literally. It is the Biblical way of saying, “a long time”. But for those of us who have children and grandchildren, forty days will be here in no time at all.  There are so many decisions. Do I buy practical gifts? Would the children rather have money? Should I spend the same amount on each grandchild? Most importantly, do I dare make any decision without first checking with Deb?

There are 40 shopping days left till Christmas.  What sort of dreams and visions do you have for the coming days?

        The writer of 3^rd Isaiah is very much aware of the number 40.  His generation had spent 40 years in exile, roaming the streets of Babylon, waiting for that precious moment when God’s grace would allow them to travel back to Jerusalem.  The writer was familiar with that marvelous song of hope that serves as the eloquent prelude to Second Isaiah.  “Comfort ye, Comfort ye my people.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.  Cry to her that the penalty has been paid for all her sins.  Through the wilderness the Lord has prepared a way.  Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain shall be made low and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.”   This song gave him and his generation optimism for the coming years.  They traveled west with the excitement of building a new city, starting new lives and living in the light of the Lord. The exiles made a perilous trip across the desert, gleefully expecting the transformation of Jerusalem to be the simple task of reassembling a few bricks.

But hope gave way to reality.   The exiles discovered a disaster.  The walls around the city no longer existed. Not a hand had been lifted to restore the temple.  The Jerusalem of their dreams quickly turned out to be a nightmare.  Optimism turned to pessimism. It was hard to imagine anything rising from the ashes of Jerusalem.   Yet the voice of third Isaiah would not be silenced. In a vision, our writer encountered the very imagination of the Almighty.  “God is in the process of doing a new thing.  God is creating a new heaven and earth. The former things shall not be remembered.  God will transform Jerusalem as a joy.”

  The poet spoke of a time when peace would reign, a time when the inhabitants of the city would be righteous and a time when good tidings would lift even the poor and the broken hearted.    The poet declared, “One day everyone will own a home and harvest fruit from their garden.  One day, children will live to be adults and the elderly will be respected.” 

Imagine being born in slavery. Imagine witnessing your children slaughtered by your enemies. Imagine seeing the elderly cast aside. This was reality for the exiles. They had suffered, they had experienced grave disappointments, and they were not about to be swayed by fancy words.

  Hope can be a dangerous mistress.   Let’s face the facts.  We don’t have to pick up a newspaper to know that many folks feel they are slogging their way through complicated and difficult days.  Some find it impossible to see the world as anything other than a survival of the fittest.  Yet this passage from Isaiah serves to remind our weary and suspicious minds that God has always encouraged us to strive to create for beauty, and goodness and holiness, even in the midst of our chaos.

Please note the words I used. “God has always encouraged us.” That is a far cry from saying, “God will do it for us.”  It would be so easy to judge God based on the desires of our hearts. If I were God there would be no wars, no hurricanes, no school shootings, no poverty, no disease, no madness. What about you? If you could be God for a day what would be first on your priority list.  Knowing that you are a compassionate people, I suspect your wishes mirror everything God desires for humankind. So why do we know we will soon wake up to another tragedy?

You know the answer before it leaves my lips. God has placed us in charge and we are driven and derailed by memories. We remember the Alamo, we remember the Maine, se remember Pearl Harbor, we remember 911. Tucked deep in our psyche is the idea there is someone out there trying to get us. It might a terrorist; it might be a politician; it might be a stranger that lives in the neighborhood; it might be our brother-in-law. Regardless who it is I believe our level of trust toward other humans is not great enough to create a society based on God’s desire for justice and compassion. We have memories and those memories are not easily reconciled.

When the exiles from Babylon arrived in Jerusalem the first thing they did was kick out all the current residents. They believed only those who had suffered captivity could be trusted. They believed the ones left behind must have collaborated with the enemy. Those memories fueled distrust, this distrust forced long time residents from their homes, and this expulsion left the city with too few folks to build a wall in a timely manner. Memories derailed the task at hand.

So God announced, “Together we will build a society where children are treasured. The elderly will be honored. Folks will live in the homes they build. Each family will eat from the gardens they cultivate. But in order for this to happen, you are going to have to forget the past and embrace the opportunity of today.”

So how did that workout? Not so well. As long as there is no trust, there can be no peace. Look at our divisions today.  Forget our political impasses. Forget Liberal and Conservative. Forget Palestinian and Jews. Forget North Korea and Iran. Forget Global Warming. Just think of one personal issue you believe cannot be resolved. You know what it is. It boggles your brain and rips out your heart. You can’t let it go because you don’t want to let it go. That memory has become a permanent part of your psyche. You feast on it not realizing you are the one being devoured.

 How can we move toward healthy resolutions if we refuse to place our memories aside? You can quote until you are blue in the face, “Those who forget the past end up repeating the past,” but fixating on the past seldom leads to new and creative ways to mend a broken relationship.

Christmas is less than 40 days away.  Maybe this year God desires us to do a new thing. The next 40 days we are probably going to spend a boat load of money on children, grandchildren, spouses, and even ourselves. Why not spend some time on examining our memories? Keep the good ones. But let go of the ones that hurt and destroy your inner peace. Trust in what tomorrow can bring.  If the past controls your future, then your past is probably controlled by your fears. For the next 40 days, imagine a world where the lion and the lamb lie down together. Imagine the possibility of working toward God’s peaceable kingdom in your little neighborhood. Imagine letting go of your hurtful memories in order to create a better future. Imagine restoring just one relationship in the next 40 days. Imagine what kind of Christmas you might celebrate if you forget the past and welcome an old advisory into a new future.                                         

There are less than forty days until Christmas. What kind of dreams and visions will you work toward in the coming days?

To God be the Glory.   Amen.