From the Daily Lectionary for Monday in the Fourth Week of Lent
Isaiah 65:17–25
I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat;
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain,
or bear children for calamity;
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord–
and their descendants as well.
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent–its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
This reading is from what’s commonly called among scholars “Third” Isaiah. The Book of the Prophet Isaiah spans some two hundred and fifty years of biblical history, so obviously there are at least three, probably more, scribes who contributed to its writing. The first twenty-five or so chapters cover the decline and fall of Judea culminating in the deportation of the Judean people to Babylon, and the beginning of their exile there. To put an exclamation point on their conquest, the Babylonian captors razed the Temple in Jerusalem, the heart and soul of the Judean people. It was no less than a fatal blow to the nation. For some sixty years the exiles of Judea would live in captivity in a foreign land, “planting crops for others to eat,” Isaiah laments.
“Second” Isaiah chronicles the life of captivity in Babylon emphasizing the obsessive desire of the captives to practice their religious, dietary, and purity traditions in an effort to maintain their social and ethnic identity in a foreign land. And of course the scribes eloquently and poetically describe the captives’ incessant pining for home.
There is a remarkable turn of events in the latter third of the Book of Isaiah (third Isaiah). Cyrus of Persia and his formidable army have conquered Babylon, expanding their resourceful empire. And Cyrus had his eye on Palestine and the Levant. He knew that it is far easier to govern a people using their own leaders, than to send his own lieutenants. Later, Alexander the Great, and the Caesars of Rome would follow the same strategy, setting up local vassal overlords to govern their own people on behalf of their captors. So, ironically, in “third” Isaiah the hope of repatriation began to materialize, albeit under the auspices of a foreign ruler. Cyrus is named by the scribes of third Isaiah as the Messiah, the one who will reestablish the nation of Israel, such as it would be.
So here in our reading, the exiles have been given dispensation to return to their homeland. The writer is understandably beside himself, exulting in this new found freedom. His words are a song of resurrection, of unbridled joy. But such has always been the story of Israel; such has always been the story: There is suffering and death; and there is new life, redemption, and joy. It is a pattern at the heart of the mystery of creation. We see the pattern in the seasons of the year. We know it is true given our own experience. But we, despite our illusions to the contrary, have no control over the cycle. It just is. The truth of the matter is this: There is no birth without the pangs of birth. Suffering, it seems, is the midwife to a life restored. Call it Love’s alchemy if you will. But to be sure, the pattern holds, and therefore the suffering of the present day will give way to the ecstasy of renewal. Take courage, good people, because Love will have its way. It always has.
A Collect for Fridays (BCP p. 99)
Almighty God, whose most dear Son, went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen
