“Overtaken by Joy”
Isaiah 35:1-10
Some years ago, when our two youngest children were still in grammar school, we took our first and last big trip out west. It was a marvelous time and there was one area that we traveled through that made more of a lasting negative impression on me – Death Valley. It was easy to see how it got its name as I pictured the pioneers of old trying to ride through with a horse and wagon. What a lifeless environment, a God-forsaken place to my mind. However, when this area gets a 6-inch rainfall called a “New Mexico Monsoon”, the change is magnificently dramatic. Suddenly, there’s an eruption of lavish growth. The whole landscape becomes a carpet of brilliant colors. A glorious sheen blankets the normal barrenness. To me this transformation borders on the miraculous, and it well describes what the prophet Isaiah is portraying in today’s lesson when he declares:
The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus it will burst into bloom. It will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.
From a desert to a garden. That’s what Isaiah was promising to the faithful of God in his day, and the focus of this prophecy went far beyond the dramatic proliferation of plant life. Moreso, it pictures God showing up at a critical moment in Israel’s history to bring about radical positive change. The nation of Assyria was knocking at the door and soon would turn Israel into a wasteland as they would strip all the vegetation – and for good reason. The corruption and idolatry within Israel resulted in God’s judgment. It was going to be Death Valley days in their land turned to waste by the Assyrian oppressor. Things were going to get worse before they got better, but through that image of the desert transformed, freshly alive with lavish growth, the prophet instills unshakeable hope into the lives of God’s people. The faithful were urged to believe that God would bring about a Death Valley transformation out of the oppressive bondage of slavery and into the abundance of the transformed promised land freshly alive with lavish growth.
That’s the encouragement of Isaiah in our lesson. Light at the end of the tunnel. In God we trust. Someone other than us, our loving God, has things under control. Indeed, such hope is a precious commodity we can take for granted because it makes a world of difference compared to those who view what’s happening in this world from a pure secular perspective. For them this life is all there is and the outward indicators make the future look grim. It can negatively tint a person’s life with a sense of gloom, and over the last ten years there is one who for me takes it to a more personal level. Her name is Greta Thunberg.
Greta Thunberg was the ardent 18-year-old Swedish Environmental Activist. You may remember how she achieved prominence around the globe by challenging world leaders to take immediate action for climate change. Through her straightforward speech Greta pushed for the elimination of carbon coal fossil fuel burning in favor of a green new deal that we’re hearing more and more about on the political scene. Greta became a force and coined a new term, the Greta effect, describing her influence in uniting millions to embrace her cause. But I was not one of them, instead more critical of this poster girl of the ecology movement. Why? I saw her as a pawn of the climate change establishment, and that she was simply parroting the ideas of others including her father, an activist, to push forward a socialist political agenda. But then one day I remembered growing up in the 1950s and 60s when the launching of the Russian Sputnik caused an atomic bomb scare. A classmate’s father built a bomb shelter out in a farm field. It all came back. Personally, palpably, I felt again the emotional climate which was one of insecurity, anxiety, dread.
Reminded of my distress, I thought about today’s youth. How are life and the future being perceived through the eyes of kids today? At school and on cable news their minds are constantly being bombarded by graphic imagery of wars and oppression along with all of the troubling examples of climate change – the melting at the poles, the endangering of species, air pollution, more erratic weather, etc. etc. No wonder Greta draws thousands of youths to her gatherings with her urgent pleas for action before it’s too late. They’re thirsting for that light at the end of the tunnel.
With all of that in mind, it’s no wonder there’s so much unrest in our land. Millions of preppers are collecting foodstuffs and guns in case things really get bad. Then there’s the green new deal talk who want to eliminate fossil fuels because of global warming. Overall, doesn’t it seem like there are any easy answers. It’s complicated, and as the people of God how can we best navigate all this? Can we trust in our political institutions to get us into a better place? I think many of us have grown disenchanted with what’s going on in local and national government. Or what about the religious institution? Wouldn’t spiritual revival have a tremendous impact to change our nation’s fortunes? But do any of you see this on the horizon? I like many have been praying for years. I know it can happen, but I’m more like the man who told Jesus: “I believe but help my unbelief.”
So, how should we as faithful believers look toward the future? I yet remember Dr. Brighton at seminary picturing the world on a downward slide with upturns from time to time until the return of Christ. Wouldn’t most of us agree that things could get worse before they get better in our land and in this world? Yet, there’s a wonderful promise from God in our lesson that can lead us to be cautiously optimistic and even more. It’s because of the promise of streams of water that are able to transform the desert wilderness. Yet, it’s a promise that finds its application in the lives of people who are experiencing their personal Death Valley days in the wilderness of a world under the curse of sin who suddenly experience those streams of water flowing into their lives with transformational power.
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.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
Water gushing forth – an artesian well. In truth didn’t Jesus fulfill personally the promises of God in our text? Jesus coming is the full and overflowing fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision. Wherever He went, He was like a bubbling artesian well breaking forth upon withered souls. Through the course of His ministry, He opened the eyes of the blind, He unstopped the ears of the deaf. He enabled the mute to speak, and the lame to leap with gladness. He raised the dead and enabled people paralyzed by despair to be enriched by gushing streams of renewal, healing, and hope. Wasn’t there a massive transformation in the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 – the loaves and fishes multiplied in the baren wilderness?
But that was Jesus, you may be saying to yourself yet what about now? In the midst of this world where things could well get worse before they get better, there is the consolation I mentioned that we can be cautiously optimistic? For me a precious answer comes from what Jesus cried out to the soul weary pilgrims at the Feast of Tabernacles:
If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said,
Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
St. John tells us that Jesus meant the Holy Spirit. So how can we be cautiously optimistic and even more in this world of pollution, extinction of species, natural disasters, global warming, terrible diseases, horrible violence, and gender confusion? It’s because the potential for an artesian well to burst forth is in you, me, our children and grandchildren. We have the Holy Spirit, and be assured there are places in this country and in the rest of the world where the Holy Spirit is powerfully turning Death Vallely desert lives into places of restoration as hard hearts and barren lives are made receptive to the saving message of forgiveness and grace through Christ Jesus. I’m trusting that the artesian well is flowing through the ministries of this church, and in ways we will never be aware of this side of heaven as lives are touched and changed. May we increasingly believe and pray that there would be great Spirit-led outpourings upon our languishing nation. Unwaveringly, all of this starts at the fountain of the cross as God’s sacrificial love continues to be manifested through the promise of sins forgiven washes guilt and shame away. Here life changing love and grace flow into receptive hearts. Yes, it’s the living water than enables us to be part of the joyful throng on the last day when the words of our text are perfectly fulfilled:
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.
What marvelous words for us to cling to by faith! Gladness and joy will overtake us. Sometimes we can feel ourselves haunted by a grim future. Yet, rather than being haunted by some wild animal, we are being pursued by gladness and joy. Not only are they after you, they are upon you through the present blessing of salvation that comes by faith in Jesus. Through church, Bible study, singing, praise, meditation, Word and Sacrament, we are enabled to partake of the Living Water. God's Kingdom breaks in as He gives us guidance and then power to do deeds of lovingkindness. They're after you, gladness and joy. Be patient until that day when the trailing will be complete and you will be overtaken and life never the same again! Sorrow and sadness will be no more!