Sunday, November 17,
2019
“I am about to create new heavens and
a new earth,” says the Lord in Isaiah 65.
A new heaven? A new, better,
cleaner, earth that’s more just? Who
wouldn’t want that?
I’ll tell you who would want and want
it right now: you, the people of our church family. Last week, the sermon was about
resurrection. At the back door as people
were leaving, one worshiper stopped to tell me there were times she felt
“homesick for heaven.” Anyone who’s read
Philippians knows Paul felt the same way.
Then midweek, I was talking with another church member who said to me,
“I would love it if Jesus came, the sooner, the better.”
Life can be a real struggle. That’s why so many of us long to be close to
Jesus and relieved of the daily pressures that make it hard for us to
thrive. God’s Isaiah 65 promise to make
all things new in some ways is a return to the ideal of Eden before Adam and
Eve disobeyed God. New creation is this
fallen world remade, made new.
In his book Rumors of Another World, Philip Yancey paints a picture of struggle
as he observes giant leatherback turtles laying their eggs on the beach in
Costa Rica.
The turtle reached
down in the soft sand, one muscular flipper at a time, to scoop out and then
fling the sand behind her. As she worked
her way down, each scoop required more and more effort. The sand got wet and heavy, and she had to
fling it above the rim of the hole she was digging. Eventually she reached a depth of three feet,
her body fully submerged in the sand.
Now, each fling of sand thrust her whole body to the side, and despite
her best efforts much of the sand still fell back in the trench. She scooped it up again and flung it toward
the surface.
Finally, after an
hour’s hard labor, the trench satisfied her and she began to drop shiny white
eggs the size of billiard balls.
Her task completed,
the leatherback clambered slowly out of the nest and began a forty-five minute
process of filling it in with sand. …
Exhausted, she lumbered off, dragging herself toward the sea. She would never see the result of her
efforts. When the 60 or so eggs hatch,
the baby turtles burrow to the surface and make a mad dash to the sea, with
only a third surviving the onslaught of coyotes, raccoons, and sea gulls.[i]
Predators. Two steps back for every three steps
forward. Limited success. Fruit for which we labor but never actually
get to touch or taste. Talking about
turtles, we could be talking about the myriad speedbumps and roadblocks that
make life hard. Should life be this
hard?
Life is hard because of sin – my sins,
yours; the sins of other people; our ancestors’ sins. Humanity’s collective cruelty, jealousy,
selfishness, and greed shows up in your life and mine in small ways, in our
little cruelties, jealousies, selfish words and thoughts, and greedy
deeds. God can see that life is tough
and promises something better for us.
I don’t know if in the new earth God
promises giant leatherback turtles will struggle so mightily just to lay
eggs. I don’t know if there will be
giant leatherback turtles in the new earth.
I hope there are. Our daily
struggles and pains won’t be a part of the new earth. Walter Brueggemann writes “this promised
action of [God] [in Isaiah 65] is clearly designed to overcome all that is
amiss, whether what is amiss is caused by [God’s] anger, by [our disobedience],
or other untamed forces of death.”[ii] This is how God makes things right.
Imagine the conditions to which God is
responding in this vision. Jerusalem,
having been utterly defeated by the Babylonians, was a pile of rubble. The city walls were torn down, and the temple
was burned and smashed; completely destroyed.
Picture a city like Beirut after a bombing campaign or the trash-strewn
underbelly of the poorest sections of the world’s most densely populated
cities. To this wretched condition God
says, “I am about to create Jerusalem – the city – as a joy, and its people as
a delight. … No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of
distress” (Is. 65:18b, 19b).
Because of disease, poverty, lack of
education, and lack of access to healthcare, many places in the world have high
infant mortality rates. This is
intolerable and God is more offended and heartsick by this than we are. So, in the new earth he says, “No more shall
there be in it an infant that lives but a few days” (v.20a). In fact all babies in new creation grow up
healthy and life spans will be long.
“One who dies at a hundred” will be considered a youth. Recall the crazy old ages of the patriarchs
mentioned in the early chapters of Genesis.
Isaiah reaches back to that era.
Also think of places and times when
people, perhaps indentured servants or coal miners or migrant pickers and
farmers, work but see little to no fruit for their labor. In unjust systems, the wealthy grow fat off
the backbreaking labor of powerless peasants.
Not in the new earth. “They shall
build homes and inhabit them. They shall
plant vineyards and eat the fruit. They
shall not build and another inhabit.
They shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall
be the days of my people, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their
hands” (v.21-22).
The new heaven and new earth is a
reversal of the pains plaguing humanity.
God hears every prayer. Even the
natural violence between predators and pray will cease. “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together.
…They shall not hurt or destroy on God’s holy mountain” (v.25).
Philip Yancey talks about living in
Colorado compared to the time he spent living in Chicago. First he describes his wilderness home where
he routinely sees all manner of animals and birds outside his window. He has a front row seat to the pristine
purity of nature. Then he writes,
In downtown Chicago,
my day proceeded very differently. Most
mornings began with a run through the park.
I saw few animals, other than squirrels and pigeons. … I saw instead
winos and homeless people sleeping under newspapers and smelly blankets;
prostitutes sleeping in doorways next to discarded condoms; well-dressed
yuppies standing in neat lines at bus stops; foreign-born nannies pushing the
carriages of those yuppies’ children; garbage collectors, janitors, street
sweepers, sewer workers, and others who perform the undesirable jobs that keep
a city running.[iii]
Aesthetically, the Colorado wilderness
holds more appeal than the grimy inner city streets. But the image of God is not in the red
squirrels, gray foxes, and brown bears Yancey admired from his warm home. The image of God resides in the yuppies,
nannies, prostitutes, and sewer workers.
God created nature’s most spectacular beauty to be enjoyed and admired
by each of those millions of city dwellers, his image-bearers.
We know that out of His great,
grace-filled love for us, God will eventually restore the world. The wretched underclass will enjoy creation’s
splendor. That new creation will come at
the end of history when Jesus returns and we join him in resurrection. How does God begin now the work of ushering
in His eternal kingdom? God works
through His body, the church.
We are the tellers of the redemption
story - God in human flesh, Jesus; his tragic but necessary death on the cross,
and his spring morning victory at the empty tomb; Easter! We are God’s story-tellers.
We are the inviters. In Isaiah 60:3 God declares that the nations
will come to Israel’s light. The world
will be drawn to the gathering of the people of God, which in our day is the
church. But for the world to know that
God can be worshiped and loved and know, we need to invite. We need to tell
God’s story and actively,
energetically, invite people to hear our telling of it.
We are the point of contact where a
lost and dying world meets the Savior God.
Jesus’ final command to the disciples and continuing commission to us is
“go and tell.” Obeying this command, we
help people see beyond the temporary world as it is to the eternal world of
God’s blessing so many are currently unaware of even when they get little
glimpses. We are where the lost world
meets the Savior God.
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright
thinks of it this way. In an attic, a
collector finds a faded manuscript of music written for piano. He contacts a dealer who sees it and then
contacts another expert. They all put
their heads together pondering this score, sure that what they’ve found is a
previously unknown work by none other than Mozart.
How wonderful! A new work by greatest composer ever. Yet, as they study it, they realize it seems
incomplete. There are long periods of rest,
and it dawns on the collectors and dealers that what they have is indeed by
Mozart, but it is written for more than one instrument. They only have the piano part. What’s the other instrument or instruments?
Cello? Violin? Flute?
“If those other parts could be found they would make sense of the
incomplete beauty contained in the faded scribble of genius now before them.”[iv]
When God finishes re-making the world,
his earth and his heaven made new and brought together, we, his image bearers,
his church, the body of Christ, will become His completed beauty. Until that day comes, we lean toward it, pray
for it, anticipate it, and invite each other and those outside the church to
imagine it and find hope in it.
Until that day comes, we work for
justice and help one another with the struggles of our day. They are real but so too is God’s promised
new creation. It makes sense that we
would long for it. God placed that
longing in us. That longing drives us to
look to God constantly and reflect his hope to the world.
AMEN
[i] P.
Yancey (2003). Rumors of Another World: What on Earth are we Missing? Zondervan (Grand Rapids), p.47-48.
[ii]
W. Brueggemann ((1997). Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony,
Dispute, Advocacy. Fortress Press
(Minneapolis), p.549.
[iii] Yancy,
p.53.
[iv] N.T.
Wright (2006). Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. HarperOne (New York), p.39-40.
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