Peace and Joy in the Desert

“Even the wilderness and desert will be glad in those days. The wasteland will rejoice and blossom with spring crocuses. Yes, there will be an abundance of flowers and singing and joy! The deserts will become as green as the mountains of Lebanon, as lovely as Mount Carmel or the Plain of Sharon. There the Lord will display His glory, the splendour of our God. With this news, strengthen those who have tired hands and encourage those who have weak knees. Say to those with fearful hearts, ‘be strong and do not fear, for your God is coming to destroy your enemies. He is coming to save you.’ And when He comes, He will open the eyes of the blind and unplug the ears of the deaf. The lame will leap like a deer and those who cannot speak will sing for joy! Springs will gush forth in the wilderness and streams will water the wasteland. The parched ground will become a pool and springs of water will satisfy the thirsty land. Marsh grass and reeds and rushes will flourish where desert jackals once lived. And a great road will go through that once deserted land. It will be named the Highway of Holiness. Evil-minded people will never travel on it. It will be only for those who walk in God’s ways; fools will never walk there. Lions will not lurk along its course, nor any other ferocious beasts. There will be no other dangers. Only the redeemed will walk on it. Those who have been ransomed by the Lord will return. They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Sorrow and mourning will disappear and they will be filled with joy and gladness.” (Isaiah 35:1-10) (Also read Psalm 146:5-10; Luke 1:46-55; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11) I have to tell you, I’ vet never cared too much for the phrase, “Everything will be all right.” It has sounded too Pollyannaish in the face of cancer and sudden death and divorce and war. I want to believe it to be true, but sometimes it’s just so hard to do.

I.) Isaiah, it seems, is holding up a sign in the middle of Israel’s despair and the sign reads: “Everything will be all right.” One day, Isaiah says YAHVEH is coming and is among us even now, to put things right and redress all wrongs and all creation will rejoice and sing. He says the wilderness will rejoice and so will YAHVEH’s people. Springs of water will burst forth in the barren wilderness and streams will flow in the dry desert; a reminder to Israel of YAHVEH’s care for them in the wilderness on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Isaiah talks about Israel being “redeemed” and “ransomed,” again recalling their being brought back from slavery, freed from Egyptian bondage. Now he is speaking of their return from Babylonian exile travelling the Holy Way, a pilgrim highway where no one dangerous or threatening will travel. And Isaiah says that as we make this pilgrimage of peace, we will sing with joy all the way home.

A home where one day all sorrow will scurry into the night. Everlasting joy will be upon us. The eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. The lame will leap like deer and the voiceless will break into song. Nobody sings “everything will be all right” like Isaiah. We want to believe that such a vision of peace is true. So it is necessary for those of us who engage in such work to have the vision to see and believe what Yeshua and Mary and Isaiah are trying to help us see and believe. It will take more than wishing and praying to make peace a reality in our world. But it certainly will not come unless we imagine and envision it. Henri Nouwen offers for our imagination this vision of a community of peace. He writes, “When I think of this new community in our time I think about people from all over the world reaching out to each other in total vulnerability... I see them moving over this world, visiting each other, binding each other’s wounds, confessing their brokenness to each other and forgiving each other with a simple word, an embrace, a touch or even a smile.

I see them walking alone or together in the simplest clothes caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, comforting the lonely and waiting quietly with the dying. I see them in apartment buildings, farm houses, schools and universities, hospitals and office buildings as quiet witnesses of YAHVEH’s presence. Wherever they are they bring peace... [and] they form a new community of hope... They need each other to remain faithful to their vocations as peacemakers. Most of all they need each other to form together the living body of HaMashiach in the midst of this warring world. The work of peacemaking requires a community with a vision as large as that of Isaiah and Yeshua, with a heart strong enough to trust that YAHVEH has come to live among us and courageous enough to believe that the Kingdom of YAHVEH is breaking into our world. Nouwen helps us see what it might look like. And history helps us see that it can happen.

II.) Peacemaking requires a community with vision. It also requires the patience to see the vision break into reality. James provides two examples of people who must live with patience: farmers and prophets. The farmer as an image of peacemaker takes us back to the last couple of weeks to Isaiah’s visions of swords being turned into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks (Isaiah 2) and all of YAHVEH’s creatures lying down in peace together (Isaiah 11). That will take a while. And the patience of a farmer is required. The farmer plants the seed and waits patiently for the rain and then the harvest. The essence of farming is to plough in hope. For those who must have immediate results, farming is the wrong profession. So is peacemaking. The pursuit of peace requires patience. But the prophet also has to be patient, waiting for fulfilment and often suffering for what he has said. The essence of farming is to plough in hope. The essence of the prophetic task is to speak in hope, even if the prophet does not live to see his promises fulfilled. This is often the case.

Prophets who denounce the violence and greed of this world and call for justice and peace do not make it long in this world. Yeshua said of such prophets, such as John the Baptist, that they are more than prophets; they are Kingdom messengers preparing the way for the rule and reign of the Moshiach in the world. John called the king to justice and found himself in jail. And while in jail he grew impatient, waiting for the Kingdom to break into reality. His impatience however, was cut short by Herod’s guillotine. Robert Fulghum offers a third unlikely image of patience: college students. In his latest book, What on Earth Have I Done? Fulghum tells the story of giving two college students a ride. Making conversation, he asked them what was happening in their lives. They said, “We’re eating a chair.” Their college philosophy teacher had given them an extra-credit assignment to do something unique and memorable, not dangerous but creative and instructive and to write it up, explain what was learned and how it might apply to their philosophy of life. So they were eating a chair. They bought a plain wooden kitchen chair.

And using a wood rasp, they’d been shaving away at the chair, mixing the dust into their granola for breakfast and sprinkling the dust on their salads at dinner. They consulted a physician to make sure the wood dust was not harmful. And they said it didn’t taste bad; especially if you mix in a little cinnamon at breakfast and a little lemon pepper at dinner. They were quite pleased with themselves. They were sure they’d astound the professor when they’d be able to tell him, “We ate a chair.” “It will blow the dude away,” said one of the students. They said they’d learned a few things along the way. Things like patience and perseverance. Like how amazing long-term goals can be achieved in incremental stages. They’d learned that some things cannot be had except on a little-at-a-time, keep-the-long-view-in-mind, stay-focused basis. In reflection Fulghum says, “Love and friendship are like that. Marriage and parenthood, too. And peace and justice and social change.” And then he writes: “In the foolishness of my young college friends lies the seed of What-Might-Be, little by little.” Such is the way of peacemaking. Like a farmer planting the seed of What-Might-Be and watching it grow little by little.

III.) Such patience calls for a strong heart of courage rooted in joy. Because as we struggle to see the vision and wait patiently for it to become reality, we must willingly give of ourselves in the work of peacemaking. Mary said yes to YAHVEH’s invitation. In the midst of great fear, there was an even greater joy as she recognized her role in the history of salvation: “My soul magnifies our Adonai,” she sings, “and my Spirit rejoices in YAHVEH my Saviour. Adonai has looked with favour upon me and the Mighty One has done great things for me.” This joy does not necessarily mean happiness. We are often led to believe that joy and sorrow are opposites and that joy excludes pain, suffering and anguish. But the joy of the gospel is a deep joy hidden in the midst of struggle. It is the joy of knowing that evil and death have no final power over us, a joy anchored in the words of Yeshua, who said, “In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).