One
night when I was in the depths of depression, I was getting ready for bed. Out
of force of habit, I sat down to read a psalm. But in my tiredness, I missed
Psalms and ended up reading through all of Isaiah 35 before I noticed my
“mistake.”
Here’s
what I read:
1 The wilderness and the dry
land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice and
blossom like the crocus;
2 it shall blossom abundantly
and rejoice with joy and
singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be
given to it,
the majesty of Carmel and
Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the
Lord,
the majesty of our God.
3 Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
4 Say to those who have an
anxious heart,
“Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God
will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind
shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf
unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap
like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing
for joy.
For waters break forth in the
wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
7 the burning sand shall become
a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs
of water;
in the haunt of jackals, where
they lie down,
the grass shall become reeds
and rushes.
8 And a highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Way
of Holiness;
the unclean shall not pass over
it.
It shall belong to those who
walk on the way;
even if they are fools, they
shall not go astray.
9 No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast
come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk
there.
10 And the ransomed of the Lord
shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon
their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and
joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall
flee away.
I
believe that God directed me to the “wrong” passage that day because this was
exactly what my hurting soul needed. I needed to read this promise of renewal
for the deserts – the empty, lonely, broken places of the world – because my
heart felt like a desert. I needed to hear that no matter how hopeless I felt,
I wasn’t really without hope because God had promised to make things right.
Verse
10 in particular stood out to me with its promise that “sorrow and sighing
shall flee away.” I believe the complete fulfillment of these verses will come
when Christ returns. But until then, God’s promise that better things are
coming can give us hope and comfort.
But is
that all our faith offers? Is it merely a piece of positive thinking or an
“opiate of the masses”? Not according to Isaiah.
Verses
5 and 6 speak of healing for the blind, the deaf, the lame and the mute. Just as
God gives us emotional comfort, He offers healing. We see that in the pages of
the Bible, and I believe that God continues to work miracles today. Yet once
again we will need to wait until Christ returns for all disease to completely
disappear.
OK, so
Christianity offers emotional and physical healing – for us. But is it just a
personal thing that only touches its followers? Again, the answer is “no.”
The
whole point of this passage is that the physical world will be healed. Verses
1, 2, 6 and 7 speak of desert being turned into lush, fertile land. In a sense,
this is undoing the effects that sin had on all of nature. Part of God’s curse
after the first sin was that the land would be unfruitful, producing thorns and
thistles instead of good crops. But here we see the curse undone. Even the
harshest, least hospitable lands are transformed into lush valleys. The whole
earth becomes a fruitful, safe and holy place.
How
does all this happen? The passage doesn’t explicitly say, but verse 8 points to
the answer. It refers to the “Way of Holiness” in which the redeemed walk.
Verse 10 indicates that it leads back to Jerusalem, the city of God. In the
Bible, Jerusalem is seen as the place of God’s presence, and we know from the
New Testament that the way back into God’s presence is Jesus. He is the One
through whom our hearts, our bodies and all of creation will be healed. When we
believe and obey Him, we walk in the way of holiness.
We all
face moments when we feel dry and empty. We sometimes fall and wander away from
the way of holiness. But we must “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the
feeble knees. Say to those who have an
anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not!’” That means picking ourselves up when we fall,
but it also means building others up when they are weak. We must remember, as
it says in verse 4, that God will come and save us. We can be strong and work
to restore the things that are broken in human lives and the outside world only
when we place our hope in the One who has the power to accomplish this
seemingly impossible mission.
