Isaiah 35.1-10, Matthew 11.2-11
“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. The desert shall rejoice and blossom,” said Isaiah in our Old Testament Reading.
Deserts do sometimes blossom, exactly as he describes. Flower seeds that have lain dormant in the dry dusty ground, sometimes for years, suddenly spring up and flower and set seed, all in a few weeks after a sudden rainstorm drenches them. It is a wonderful spectacle, and to ancient people it must have seemed like a miracle. How could so much life be hidden in such an apparently dead landscape?
Stories of the saints often featured miraculous flowering too. Flowers were said to spring up in the footsteps of the Irish Saint Brigid, for example. According to legend Joseph of Arimathea came to Glastonbury after the resurrection and was said to have stuck his wooden staff into the ground where it promptly burst into bloom. I did much of my training for ministry based in the church in Glastonbury, and there are ancient varieties of hawthorn growing in the churchyard there which bloom in the winter. A sprig of those “holy thorn” trees is sent to grace the Royal Family’s Christmas dinner table to this day.
The springs and wells which fed this unexpected flowering often litter the stories of saints too. Wells often spring up where saints are martyred, according to legends, and we find stories in the Bible too, like that of Moses, who struck a rock in the desert, as God commanded, and water poured from it. In Jewish legend, a well of water appeared wherever Miriam, Moses big sister, camped during the Exodus. The legend arose because when she died, the book of Numbers said that “the people had no water”. (Numbers 20.2)
Whether we put any credence in these stories or not, the message is obvious. There are times when we are confronted with situations that seem lifeless, hopeless, but what you see is not necessarily what you get. There is more to life than meets the eye. God can be at work even when we don’t see him. We can flourish and bear fruit in the most arid and unlikely situations, and the reason for that is that it isn’t down to us. It is the work of God, who is as much at home in a desert as he is in a fertile pasture.
In our Old Testament reading today, that’s what’s promised. The people of Israel are in exile in Babylon, and have been for many decades, long past the point where hope of return seemed sensible. And yet, says Isaiah, God would lead them home, and not only that, as they travel together with him, flowers would spring up in their path, pools of water would appear. It would be a journey full of hope for the future.
In the Gospel reading Jesus doesn’t promise flowers in the desert in the future. He points to miraculous flowers that are appearing there and then. John the Baptist has been arrested by King Herod, and he knows he isn’t likely to get out of prison alive. Has it all been worth it? Does his sacrifice mean anything? It’s easy to see how he might question himself, facing a squalid and terrible end, and want to know that his suffering hadn’t been in vain, so he sends messengers to Jesus.
Jesus’ response is tender, consoling, but very, very definite. “Go and tell John what you hear and see; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them”. It’s almost as if each of these things is a flower from the desert, a miraculous bloom, which he is sending to John. “See! Here is God at work! Nothing you did, nothing that will happen to you is a waste, because love is never wasted.”
All of us need to hear that at some point in our lives. We look back and wonder what we have achieved, what good we have done, what we will be remembered for. What is there to show for our lives? We look forward and wonder how we will cope with the future, how we will cross the trackless deserts that might confront us – illness, aging, the uncertainties that we all face. Most of us are not called to the sacrificial life of John the Baptist, but we are all called to share in God’s work of bringing healing to the sick, good news to the poor. We are all called to look for God at work and join in, to be part of a community of hope.
God says to us “look! I have been at work, here, and here, and here, in the love you have given and received, and if I have been there in the past, why shouldn’t I be there in the future to bless and enrich you? It’s not about you, and your strength – you of the feeble knees and the fearful hearts – it is about me, the limitless creator of the universe. I spoke the light into being with a word. Flowers in the desert? Water in the wilderness? Hope in despair? Love out of bitterness? Life out of death? Why should they be impossible for me? Watch, wait, and rejoice!”
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment