Preached on November 17, 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC
Scripture: Isaiah 65:17-25
For 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.
Sermon
The prophet tells of God’s promise to make new heavens and
a new earth on which there will be no more weeping or suffering or violence of
any kind, and I wonder if it seemed to those who heard it an impossible
mission. The people to whom this vision was first shared were the Israelites
who had survived two generations of captivity after the empire of Babylon
conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, laid waste to their fields and
vineyards, and took the people away into Babylon where they handed down their
grief from generation to generation. And now they returned to the words of this
impossible vision given by the prophet from God. God is about to create
Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight, and no more will there be
weeping. No more will people die before old age. No more will the homes they
build or the vineyards they keep be taken by someone else. No more will they
cry out to God and wonder whether God has even heard their cry because God will
hear before they cry and answer while they are yet speaking.
And what’s more (as
if all of this weren't enough already) God’s peace will be so complete that even the
wolf will stop preying on the lambs, even the lion will change to a diet of
straw, and eat side by side with the ox, and the serpent always biting at our
heels, the very symbol of evil, will no longer be a threat to any breathing
creature. It will get by eating the dirt as it crawls.
Can we believe this?
Is someone putting us on?
