The
wilderness and the dry land will be glad,
the
desert will rejoice and blossom;
like
the crocus it will blossom abundantly
and
rejoice with joy and singing….
Strengthen
the weak hands, make firm the feeble knees.
Say
to those of a fearful heart,
“Be
strong, do not fear! Here is your God…”
The
eyes of the blind will be opened,
and
the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then
the lame will leap like a deer,
and
the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
Waters
will break forth in the wilderness, streams in the desert…
A
highway will be there, it shall be called the Holy Way…
it
shall be for God’s people;
no
traveller, not even fools, shall go astray…
The
ransomed of the Lord shall return
and
come to Zion with singing…
they
shall obtain joy and gladness,
sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
It’s tempting in Advent to become facetious… and like Oscar Wilde I can resist most things except temptation. Here we have, for instance, the desert rejoicing with joy and singing… as when my wife comes in from watering the garden to inform me: “The silver beet’s saying thank you.” Then we get the bit about firming up the feeble knees, which has relevance for some of us. Then the highway… I don’t know what highways were like in the 8th century BC, but this one is the highway to Zion, and it will be such a wonderful highway that, says Isaiah, not even fools will go astray… not even tourists in campervans. Everyone arrives at the temple singing… sorrow and sighing flee away.
There is
discovery in faith which may come as a lovely surprise. It is what one hymn writer calls the joy that seekest me through pain.[1] There are levels deeper than the pain, and
joy is hidden there – although words like “joy” and “rejoicing” may be spoilt I
think, through having become religious words.
C S Lewis wrote about being surprised
by joy. Etty Hillesum, on the cattle
wagon leaving for Auschwitz, threw a card from the train which read, We left the camp singing. Though
I make my bed in Sheol, wrote the Psalmist, you are there.[2] For Thomas Merton at a low and restless time
it was the liberating discovery of his major handicap: taking himself seriously,
the delusion that it was all about Thomas Merton. And for Karl Barth it was finding Mozart, the divine child in all of us. Martin Luther was overcome by joy when it
dawned on him what St Paul is saying, that we live by faith, by unknowing. Jesus died, says the writer to the Hebrews, for the joy that was set before him.[3] What Isaiah sees, his vision, is that all
this journeying, all this struggle and setback, ends wondrously: they
shall obtain joy and gladness, sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
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