Scripture: Isaiah 35
Sermon: The Defiant Joy of the Redeemed
Topics: Advent, wilderness, pain, joy, tears
Preached: December 20, 2015
Rev. Mike Abma
Isaiah 35
The Return of the Redeemed to Zion
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus 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.
Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
‘Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
He will come and save you.’
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
A highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
but it shall be for God’s people;
no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
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.
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
INTRODUCTION
I love the Sunday of the Christmas Program.
I love seeing the kids in their costumes.
I love hearing them sing.
I love hearing them read –
and I pray mightily that everyone can hear what they say.
There is one thing I have learned about this Christmas program.
It is best to simply get out of the way,
and let the kids tell the story.
It is simply best to get out of the way.
I feel the same way about chapter 35 of Isaiah.
This chapter is so poetic, so powerful,
so full of wonderful imagery and so spiritually energizing,
that part of me simply wants to read it and sit down.
(Did I hear an Amen to that?)
WILDERNESS PLACES
Before I sit down,
let me say a few words about this passage
that hopefully will not mess it up too much.
Why does this passage have so much power?
It has so much power because it speaks
into our weakness,
into our vulnerability,
and into our pain.
I remember when I started as a pastor.
One of the funniest things to do was to lead a baptism service.
Baptism services are great –
beautiful babies,
beaming parents,
a Church full of thankful people ready to nurture another covenant child.
But over time, I realized, not everyone was happy.
I realized that for some people —
for couples who desperately prayed for a child;
for parents who had lost a child;
for parents whose children had wandered far, far from the faith —
for all these people and more, baptisms could be painful and difficult.
It was hard for everyone to rejoice and glad.
Isn’t that true for all our celebrations —
whether it is baptisms
or thanksgivings
or Christmases?
Times that are supposed to be full of cheer
are not cheery for everyone.
Celebrations for some
can be crucibles for others.
The very times and places that are supposed to be glad,
can be wilderness places,
desert places
of deep loneliness
deep grief
deep pain.
WALKING IN THE WILDERNESS
Recently someone was in my office.
He asked me how I did it.
He asked me how I could handle people coming to me
with their problems and their troubles,
with their pain and with their grief.
How was I able to do that,
day after day
week after week,
year after year?
The answer I tried to give him
is basically the answer of Isaiah 35.
The answer I tried to give
was that God knows us.
God knows the wilderness we walk in,
the deserts we trudge through.
He knows us:
our vulnerability,
our weakness,
our emptiness.
He knows
our eyes are often blind,
our ears are often deaf
our legs are often lame
and our tongues simply have a hard time praising,
let alone praying.
God knows.
But here is what Isaiah 35 says:
sorrows and sighs will not have the last word;
gladness and everlasting joy will.
JOLT OF JOY
The video of Susan Boyle’s first appearance on Britain’s Got Talent in 2009 is still there on YouTube.
Do you remember Susan Boyle in 2009?
Here was this frumpy 47 year old woman
who led a lonely life,
who sang mainly for her local parish church,
and who felt too old and too plain to have a shot on this show.
But she wanted to give it her best.
So she strutted onto the stage with all the confidence she could muster,
even though there was a lot of eye-rolling in the audience.
Then she opened her mouth.
Then she began to sing “I dreamed a dream” from Les Miserables.
Suddenly there was a jolt of electricity in that hall.
People had expected a flop — but her voice was fantastic.
That surprise, that unexpected surprise, that was a jolt of joy.
MYSTERY OF TEARS
I must admit,
I almost always tear up when I see that video – tears of joy.
Tears are a bit of a mystery both biologically and psychologically.
No one knows exactly why tears come.
What we know is that tears come
either with great sadness or great joy.
It is sort of odd that two totally opposite emotional states
both produce tears.
Apparently our amygdala sends strong emotional signals
to our hypothalamus,
and our hypothalamus does not discern whether they are happy or sad,
only that they are strong – and thus the tears.
One theory is that tears come when we are in a state of helplessness,
when we are overwhelmed,
overwhelmed either by grief
or overwhelmed by goodness.
Our tears show us,
that there is a close connection between grief and joy.
The one seems to make room for the other.
That is part of the power of the picture we have in Isaiah 35:
the wilderness of grief
really can gush with the tears of joy;
the desert of loneliness
really can suddenly burst forth with tears of laughter.
Joy can jolt us.
Joy can ambush us.
In the work I do, I see this.
On one of my last visits with Andy Kuyvenhoven[1],
he was on the doorstep of death.
And yet,
when Revelation 21 was read,
when he once again heard the words
of the new heavens and the new earth,
Andy got tears in his eyes — tears of joy.
Why?
Because he was jolted once again
with the deep truth that sorrow and sighing will flee away,
and that everlasting joy and gladness will have the last word.
Another person told me just this week
how her son was once in prison.
It was a dark time, a hard time, a wilderness time.
Then he read words from Isaiah,
words that jolted him with the reality
that a new life,
a new beginning,
a new hope
was possible.
JOY
If you could bottle joy and sell it,
it would be more popular than all the Star Wars merchandise put together.
But we cannot bottle joy.
We cannot produce it.
We cannot purchase it.
We cannot even pursue it.
We cannot because
joy, real joy, is actually the mysterious presence of God
bursting into our lives,
anywhere and at any time.
Real joy is the mysterious presence of God coming
and doing what God does best:
turning tears of sadness into tears of gladness;
turning deserts into gardens;
turning death into life;
and turning sinners, like you and me, into saints.
In this season
we remember the message of the angel:
I bring you Good News of Great Joy
I bring you the News that the presence of God
is bursting into your world and into your lives;
That Good News of Great Joy is for all people – –
all people
the cheery and the weary;
the beaming and the burdened;
the faithful and the fearful.
May that defiant Joy,
may that unkillable joy,
find its way into your hearts and lives
Amen
-
Rev. Andy Kuyvenhoven was a former editor of the denominational magazine The Banner, and author of many other theological and devotional books. ↑
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