Isaiah 35 is the inspiration for the title of my periodic letters. Read in the Spirit, it so inflamed and informed my imagination that it lives with me as a road map and living expression of God's love in, through and to all of Creation.
The opening verses communicate a promise to all created things, that which was made by Jesus and for Jesus. "The desert and the parched land will be glad. The wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus it will burst into bloom." (Look around you at the springtime now!) This is followed by the language of gift, of restoration; "The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.” Then the restoration of sight to all created things to see and to know: "They will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.” God's glory coming through and settling upon all that he has made. That which was lost in the garden in the Fall, when the glory of the Lord departed and shame came, the very presence of God is restored in awareness, sight and presence to all created things. It is in the gaze of those eyes, fixed on God's glory, that the transfiguration into beauty, ablaze in living things, comes forth. God's glory made manifest and incarnate as gaze meets Gaze.
Plunked down, then, in the middle of Isaiah 35,which is roughly in the middle of the book, is God's prize creation, a human being. The crown of creation, set above the angels but lost, deceived and shamed in that deception. God never forgets the person, the one, Jesus' way of love directed at that one, is an instruction to those of us sitting across from them and in discipleship of that one person: "Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way. Say to those with fearful hearts, your God will come. He will come with vengeance, with divine retribution, He will come to save you."
Prompting the question then to that person with a heart full of fear: When and upon whom will God's wrath, his vengeance be poured out? This can be one of the most dramatic and telling moments for the wounded, lost and shamed soul, even a believing one. In Isaiah 61 and Luke 4, Jesus uses similar language in declaring the "year of the Lord's favor, the day of the vengeance of our God." The deception of the Fall and the deception of the wounded, the deception and misinterpreting of Biblical truth comes into bold relief right here. Multiple answers come haltingly and uncertainly. At judgement. No. Upon all sinners. No. Upon Satan and the rebellious angels. No. Upon the whole world, Hitler and all the despots included. No. When Moses, standing among his people who were dying of a plague, lifted up his staff, what did it become? A snake. Evil, deception, sin and shame and the people were healed. What did this foreshadow? How can a snake lifted up become the healer? Clearly, one is not saved by God's wrath at judgment, or by torching Satan and his minions, or all the world including Hitler, serial killers, you and me.
What, then, what, the confused and fearful heart wants to know. We all may say we know have known, but time after time this interchange occurs. I am telling you, it is truly remarkable, when the person, a deceived, wounded, confused and trapped Christian soul comes to know this truth for the first time. The trivialization of the Cross, the false Jesus, confused and conceptual understanding are exposed. That Jesus, our Jesus, becomes a snake, becomes evil, becomes shame and that all of God's wrath, divine retribution and vengeance are poured out on him comes as a shock and it still may shock all of us who give a pat answer and it should. For from this place, Jesus cries: "My God, my God why has thou forsaken me?" This, and this alone. The full Reality of it, not the conceptualization of it, is what saves a person and there must be a full encounter with that Jesus for the wounded, broken fearful and shamed heart to be healed and transformed. No one can go around the Cross.
Why then is this so shrouded and lost and confused? There are many reasons that I encounter but I am just going to focus, in closing, on the main one. The holiness of God. God's holiness has been excerpted from much of what is discussed, preached or contemplated concerning who this God is. Nor would I be able fully to examine this subject and attribute in this space. But consider this anew and afresh in the Spirit. The offense against God's holiness, his divine Justice, in the rebellion of the angels and in the Fall, with devastating consequences and effects of sin, killing the hearts of the children from one generation to the next, was so great and beyond that there was only one answer. Jesus would be the one. His blood, known and seen gaze to Gaze by the fearful heart. Nothing short of that. Then and only then will the “lame leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb shout for joy”. More on that later.
Blessings,
Trip