ISAIAH 65:17-25: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue

by
Rev. Dr. Paul A. Lance, Pastor
Los Altos United Church of Christ
5550 Atherton Street, Long Beach, California  90815
January 2, 2011

     Most of you probably know the phrase I use as my sermon title this morning as something a bride should include on her wedding day: “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue.”  Old may be something like the wedding ring your grandmother used to wear, put in a new setting and worn in a new generation.  Something that ties the past generation into the present occasion.  Something New would include the first-time-ever-seen bridal gown, perhaps, which in turn might become an heirloom for a future bride.

    I don’t know why something should be “borrowed” for the bride’s party to be complete, but most weddings do have a lot of “rented” things: tuxes and tables and sound systems.  I guess you could say they had been “borrowed” for the day in order to make it a special occasion.  But it’s the fourth item that strikes me as particularly peculiar… “something blue.”  Maybe the florist tucks a blue-toned blossom in the bridal bouquet, or uses blue ribbons to tie the white bows to the ends of the pews.  Maybe the groom wears blue socks with his tuxedo for fun.

I only brought up the parts about “something borrowed and something blue” in order to get all four pieces of the saying into my sermon.   I really only want to focus on something old – namely, the Book of Isaiah – and its bold promise of something new.  God’s announcement: “Behold, I am about to create something new”  strikers me as a great topic for a New Year’s sermon.  And today’s text, as we read it responsively (line-by-line) this morning, speaks of a promise that ought to be as significant in one’s life as the decision to be married, or to embark on a particular career, or to move one’s family to gain a new future.

Isaiah begins with the announcement from God: “Behold, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth!”  Now, I’m tempted to make that the entire focus for this New Year’s Sunday: God is “about to create new heavens and a new earth!” That’s what our blank calendars hanging on our walls might indicate: something new is breaking forth… and we’re not sure where it will take us.  Who knows what this New Year 2011 has in store for us!

         But before we look to the revolutionary, radical new-ness of what’s coming, let me remind you that we are, in fact, looking at a text that is very OLD.  The career of Isaiah, the official Jerusalem prophet (working for the Temple and addressing the princes and kings), stretched over the period of four kings: King Uzziah (at whose death, Isaiah received his call and commission), Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.  Generally the dates of Isaiah’s active career are from 746 BC to 701 BC, that is, 45 years.  And it all happened 2,700 years ago!  That’s old!!

    Those words we sing (or say) so often in worship: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of God’s glory” is Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 3.

    Human history, according to Isaiah, is the area where God’s holiness works in the actions of people.  “God will lift up a sign to the nations from afar,” said Isaiah (5:6). It is in fulfillment of this promise, that nations shall come to worship the God of Israel, that is cited every Christmas to explain the coming of the Magi.

    And although all the nations of earth are part of God’s world-wide holiness and righteousness, it is the people of Israel and Judah who owe God a special obligation.  You see, God had chosen them to be a blessing to all the nations.  God had involved God’self in their ancestry and had saved them from slavery in Egypt.  God had given them the Law through Moses and had expected them to be obedient.  Isaiah opens his book by saying of the Israelites & the Jews: “These children [God] reared and brought up, have rebelled against [the Lord].” (1:2)

    In Chapter 5, Isaiah describes Israel in a love song, as God’s “vineyard,” carefully prepared and protected.  And because Israel has been especially loved (tended, rescued, and nurtured) and the Jews were the first to know God’s Holy ways explicitly through the Commandments of Moses, its failings (its sins) are especially grievous and deserve greater punishment.  Isaiah understands his essential function as a “prophet” to be the voice of God’s rebuke to Israel.

    The bulk of his 66-chapter book emphasizes Israel’s relapse from the ways of God to the customs of people who are not led by the Lord.  In some cases it has to do with idolatry, following “foreign gods” or simply going along with the religious whims of the powerful elite.  But that was not Isaiah’s central message.  To him, the chief evidence of Israel’s treachery against the God who had formed them as a people, was not in the field of worship, but in the field of social justice.  The injustices that Isaiah denounces (in colorful, memorable language), are primarily behaviors of the upper ruling classes who either ignore or outright oppress the poor by perverting the processes of law:  “What does it mean, that you crush my people and grind the faces of the poor?” he asks in chapter 3 (:15).

    “Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless with equity, and plead for the widow.” (1:17)  Isaiah denounces the riotous living of the ruling classes: “Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephriam” (28:1) and “Moreover, saith the Lord, because the daughters of Zion are haughty…therefore the Lord will smite…” (3:16)  The callousness and self-indulgence of the leading families makes their religious observances a mockery.  According to Isaiah, God says: “I delight not in the blood of bulls… it is an offering of abomination to me.” (1:11-13) “When ye make your prayers, I will not hear.  Your hands are full of blood!” (1:20) “When ye come to appear before me, who has required this, at your hand to trample my courts?” (1:12) 

Repeated rituals -- a ceremonial pattern learned by rote (even when followed “to the letter” and on schedule!) which does not reach the heart of the worshiper -- cannot be pleasing to God.  “With their mouths, and with their lips, they do honor me,” says God, through Isaiah (29:13), “but they have removed their hearts far from me!  And their fear of me [their respect and wonder and awe of me] is a commandment of men learned by rote.”

    Isaiah advises the worship leaders and the princes of the people: “Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes.  Learn to do well; seek justice, and relieve the oppressed.” (1:16-17) This kind of clarity (& rebuke of the people for not keeping God’s desired righteousness & morality) fills Isaiah’s 66 chapters.

Unfortunately, Isaiah’s preaching does not penetrate into the conscience of the elders, and the rulers, and the elite families. Isaiah realizes that only a national calamity will sufficiently shock them to begin to change their lives.  They are too comfortable… too pampered and proud.  They’ve got it “made in the shade!”  The “status quo” is working to their advantage, thank you very much!  They’re not about to change!

    So, Isaiah becomes the quintessential prophet of “doom and gloom.”  The lovely vineyard of the Lord that he sang about in Chapter 5 will be laid waste.   “I tell you what I will do to my beloved vineyard,” says God. “ I will break down the fence thereof and allow the sheep to graze. I will tear down the watchtower and scatter the stones…” (5:5)   In other words, the invasion of a more powerful army than their own (presumably Babylon) will serve as God’s instrument to correct (and to punish) God’s wayward people.  That’s the bad news Isaiah sees on the horizon, if people don’t change their attitudes and behaviors.  God will remove divine protection from Jerusalem and let the people pay for their sins.

After all this pointed criticism and condemnation, and after the collapse and calamity has taken place, Isaiah assures the people that a “remnant” will survive to rebuild the land in accordance with God’s expressed righteousness.

    Dr. Solomon Freehof, of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and general editor of The Jewish Commentary for Bible Readers series, says in the Introduction to the Book of Isaiah (1972, page 4) “After the Torah & the Psalms… the best known biblical book was the Book of Isaiah.  The Prophets were read at services in the synagogue, but not consecutively as the Torah was, nor completely as were the Psalms; but choice and appropriate selections from the various Prophets were a regular part of the Sabbath and holiday services since ancient times.”

    “In this list of synagogue prophetic readings, it is to be noted that there are two from Amos, four from Hosea, nine from Ezekiel, and nine from Jeremiah – but nineteen from Isaiah!  There are more than twice as many passages from Isaiah than from either of the other two major prophets. … Already in ancient times, when this list of synagogue readings grew up, the Book of Isaiah was a favorite because of the message of comfort and redemption in its latter part.  [Precisely what we read this morning!]  At all events, the people, Saturday after Saturday, year after year, heard more of Isaiah than of any other prophet.” …

Rabbi Freehof goes on to say (page 5): “In the Christian tradition, Isaiah always had a special place owing to its messianic predictions… which early Christian theologians refer to the founder of Christianity and his career.” …  He concludes (page 7):  “The whole Book of Isaiah as it has come down to us … has been part of Jewish life, worship, and study for over two thousand years.  ”

    With this appreciation for the bulk of Isaiah’s critical social commentary, his historical setting and his relevance to both Judaism and Christianity, let’s look again at today’s text… How can something so OLD promise something so NEW?

“Behold” says God, “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth!  The former things shall not be remembered, nor come to mind.”

    The “former” things, making up the bulk of Isaiah’s writings for 64 chapters, were God’s judgments and people’s distresses & injustices of all sorts.  Now, he says, they will all (soon) be forgotten!  That is because God is about to ACT!  God says: “I am about to create…” which gives us a sense of imminent (near, almost here) future.  “I am about to create…” – the verb is “bara” which first occurred in the first verse of the first book in our Bible “Genesis”:

  “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth
  was without form or void, and darkness covered the face of the deep…”

    The almighty power which was displayed at the original creation is about to be displayed in a new work of creation!  The material God will use for this new creation is not mentioned.

Isaiah says that God will once again create heaven and earth (as in the beginning) and that they will be NEW.  God’s creativity will produce something so fundamentally new that it can only be perceived as revolutionary.  What is coming will so fully show forth the glory of God, their Creator, & so completely fulfill every need and desire of humankind, that the “former” heavens and earth will no longer be remembered!  What God is about to do is going to be so complete a renovation, so radical a revolution to the existing course of affairs, that it can be described only as a NEW CREATION.

The Apostle Paul picked up on this theme in Second Corinthians 5:17 and in Galatians 6:15 when he applies the term to believers.  We are New Creations!  The old has passed away.  Former things -- former sins and former social status -- are no more, when we are “in Christ.”  We are New Creatures in a New Creation.  Even in the Book of the Revelation (Chapter 21), when the new heaven and the new earth, and the new City of Jerusalem descends from God, prominent in the prophecies of blessing to come is the idea of forgetfulness of the past.  Tears will be wiped away; injuries healed, resentments forgiven, sins washed away.

Instead of remembering the distress of the past and the fears of the present calamity, the people are commanded in the next verse to “be glad” & to “rejoice, forever” on account of what God is creating.  So prevalent is the idea of joy, that it is expressed in at least six ways: “Be glad, and rejoice forever in what I am creating,” says God, “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.”

So, not only are we supposed to express joy and gladness, God’self also will rejoice!  You see, God will no longer have to grieve over them.  We get the picture that God delights in our peace and prosperity, no less than as if God enjoyed it right along with us!  In the same way that God feels all our afflictions, hears our cries and suffers with us; God also rejoices with us in all our joy!  To my mind, that may be the best reason of all to be glad and to be good, because God feels our gladness and our goodness! And don’t you want to give God joy!?

“No more shall the sound of weeping be heard, nor the cry of distress.  No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime.”  Apparently, longevity and good health is a hallmark of God’s Realm. 

In olden days, death often accompanied childbearing.  Mothers died in childbirth and infants often did not live to be weaned.  The custom of naming a baby only after eight days was, in part, because an infant (a new-born) could so easily die in a matter of hours or days after its birth.  If they survived for a week, they would probably live, and the name would not be wasted; the child’s life was largely assured and its soul was intact.  Furthermore, premature death was often interpreted as due to divine displeasure.  So the elder who is cut off in his prime – the man who has “not lived out the full span of life” – was not only a loss to the family, & put their future at risk, but was often denigrated as a sinner.

In the New Creation (in the age to come), longevity will be such the norm that one who dies at age 100 will be still considered a youth!  Implying that he or she had still far more life yet to live.  Yes, people will still die in God’s New Creation, but the lifespan will be measured by centuries… more nearly that of the heroes of old, the Genesis patriarchs, who hardly got started before age 80 (like Moses) or 90 (like Abraham) and who lived long into their hundreds (like Noah).

“Like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be.”  In the Palestinian context, trees were the most permanent and enduring life forms the Hebrews knew.  The same olive trees are standing in the Garden of Gethsemane now that Jesus prayed under 20 centuries ago!  You’ve all seen the rings on a Redwood or Giant Sequoia, dating back to the days of Columbus in 1492, and earlier to the Fall of the Roman Empire.  The notion of “immortality” was not yet on the horizon for the Jewish people of Isaiah’s day, but the dream of unusually long life-spans is set before the people as a symptom of God’s New Creation coming.  “My chosen,” says God, “shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”

Longer lives would make possible the continuance of family & neighborly relations for several generations, centuries perhaps.  In a world at war, lives were cheap and short-lived.  Peasants saw their crops destroyed on the eve of harvest; homes were destroyed by invading armies, children were taken prisoner to become soldiers or slaves.  Too often the oppressed and the poor feel that their “labor is in vain,” because they don’t live to enjoy it, or it is taken by another.  Mothers feel that they have borne children for calamity; which is to say, in times of distress and fear, children are objects of concern.  What will become of them?

No, says Isaiah: “You shall build houses and inhabit them.  You shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.” First of all, because you live long enough to do so.

“No longer shall you build only to have another inhabit!”  That loss could come about either directly through confiscation, indirectly through indebtedness (losing it in “foreclosure”) or primarily because the man of the house died young.

“No longer shall you plant, only to have another eat.”  In other words, the farm workers themselves will own the crops, not the landlord, not the ruler, not the city merchant who has gained title to the land.  In God’s New Order, the vineyard grapes belong to the workers who plant and tend them!  The harvest belongs to the farmers who work the field!  Wouldn’t that be a social reversal.

After dealing with the initial joy and delight of the NEW having come, and addressing the specific economic and social changes people will see in their own lives and families, Isaiah brings the religious element of God’s New Creation into focus.  “Before they call, I will answer.  While they are yet speaking, I will hear.”  In the previous chapter (Isaiah 64), the people had complained that God did not hear them when they cried out; God did not respond to their worship services, their sacrifices, their prayers.  God had become silent, withdrawn.  The demise of their religious rituals had been part of their overall social disintegration

But now Isaiah promises not only that God will clearly hear and respond, but that even before they call, God will speak the answer they need; while they are still formulating their words, God will hear their yearning and respond to it.  What strikes me is God’s readiness to answer prayer, because God has a love and concern for us mere mortals that we may not even begin to appreciate.  God’s love is so great, that God answers before we even call out.  God is still speaking.  That future scenario of rejoicing, tangible blessing, and religious revival need not be forever in the future; we can start to live it in this New Year.

Isaiah concludes his prophecy of God’s Coming Realm with one of his favorite pictures (it’s been called the “peaceable kingdom” in Chapter 11): “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and the serpent, it’s food shall be dust.”  The carnivore wolf and the tender young lamb, which would have been the wolf’s dinner, will feed together in God’s New Creation – apparently on grass.  (The wolf will become “vegan!”)  The lion, too, a carnivore cat, will give up its violent predator ways and go strictly vegetarian;  eating straw like an ox.  And the serpent, the snake that was cursed in the original Creation story in Eden: forced to go on its belly and eat dust… will actually eat dust in God’s New Creation, too.  The good news is, it will no longer feel the need to bite other creatures to get its food.  It will be content with eating dust.

In this way, with human oppression and social injustice cured, good health and longevity, religious reconciliation, and peace restored to nature, all ends well.

Isaiah has been popular for more than 2,000 years (2,700 years!) I believe, because he reassures us that amid all the bad news, the bad weather, the doom & gloom and bumps in life, we can still find peace, hope, and love. 

Having come through the Christmas season, we are blessed to know that God is with us (“Immanuel”), and that God is still speaking to us.  I wish you happiness beyond measure in this New Year 2011; friendship without condition, and a vision for our world that inspires others who also desire the same good feelings and experiences we want for ourselves. 

All the best, now and always!  Happy New Year, and Amen.