Holy Defiance [Advent 3A - Isaiah 35:1-10]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Isaiah 35:1-10

Holy Defiance

There were no crocuses, no majestic cedars brushing the clouds with their branches, no reeds or rushes swaying in the gentle breeze.  There were no refreshing pools of water in which to escape the summer sun.  They were just a dream – all of them.  They were products of the prophetic imagination of the prophet Isaiah.  He was looking for the Garden of Eden in a golden sea of sand. 

It was a fool’s errand.  But so is most of the prophet’s work, and so this was par for the course.  Isaiah’s task was to dream contagious dreams, to kindle the delicate flame of hope in a hopeless people living in a hopeless world.  It was his job to remind them that, on the other side of their pain, God had a better future in mind.   

Isaiah wasn’t asking them to be optimistic; he was challenging them to have hope.  And there is a difference.  Optimism is a flimsy thing.  It floats untethered from reality – intentionally ignorant of the heartbreak that shadows the human experience.  It comes with very little investment.  And goes with very little notice.  It never reaches our soul.  And so it doesn’t hurt, but also it doesn’t matter.

Hope matters.  Hope always takes a piece out of our soul.  It requires us to put our heart on the line, to risk everything for the possibility that God can still do the impossible.  And that’s not easy.  Hope is the thing that pushes through the cracks of a broken heart.  It is the seed we plant in the barren desert.  Hope is the song we sing at the grave; hope is the foolishness that keeps us alive.   

Isaiah is not feeding his people some cheap optimism to satiate their troubled minds.  That would only deny the pain they felt.  Instead, he begins by telling the truth, by acknowledging the reality of their pain, by validating their feelings of despair, by recognizing the legitimacy of their sadness.  The prophet was in the business of hope, but he understood that the people needed to accept the reality of their lives and the reality of their world before they could dare to imagine a better one.

And so Isaiah dreams his dreams in midst of a barren wilderness.  And in the ancient world of our ancient text a wilderness was what was left in the wake of war; it was the ashes that remained.  War in the ancient world was waged not only on a people but also on their land; war was waged on past, present, and future.  The trees were felled, the crops were scorched, the water was spoiled.  And what was left was barren, desolate, wilderness.  That was the reality of Isaiah’s people and no amount of optimism could change that.  They needed a prophet who was defiant enough to keep dreaming even as the ashes burnt his lungs, even as the sand stung his face.  They needed a prophet who was foolish enough to plant seeds in the desert.

You see, hope is this kind of holy defiance.  It does not ignore the pain or the hurt; it does not disregard the tears or the sorrow; it does not turn a blind eye to the heartbreaking realities of the world.  It takes those heartbreaking realities seriously – seriously enough to believe that it is God who has a better reality in mind.

We are not yet living in the Garden of Eden; as beautiful as our city is, as beautiful as the planet in which God has placed us is, we have not yet seen the prophet’s dreams come true.  And I know that, because we are living in a world in which addiction and grief and depression and despair and violence and hatred and prejudice and isolation tear at the souls of our friends, our siblings, our children.  We are still called to be people of stubborn hope, people called to kindle the delicate flame of hope in the midst of all the despair that threatens our world.  Hope is still necessary because there are still deserts to traverse.  There are still parched souls desperate to be refreshed by the living water.  The world is still weary.  That is the truth – the truth that we must tell.  Because our message of hope means very little to people if we are not willing to see and acknowledge the struggles of their lives.

And in doing so, acknowledge the struggles of our own lives.  It is OK if you are not OK.  And it is OK to admit it.  People of hope can still hurt.  The Advent way that we walk sometimes winds through a desert.  And sand does get into the souls of desert wanders.  Some days it is hard to force a smile.  Some days it is difficult to suppress the tears.  Some days the despair seems far too overwhelming.  Some days it feels like the drought has dried us to death.  Some days I am weighed down; some days probably you are too.

If your heart is breaking this morning, you are not alone.  If you feel lost in the wilderness, you are not alone.  If you feel weary, you are not alone.  If you feel like God is far away, you are not alone.  We walk the way together.  We all acquire scars along the way.  Don’t be afraid to let them show.  Our message of hope means more when folks can see our scars, when folks can see that we carry our defiant hope in broken bodies. 

Life can be hard.  And it can be exhausting.  And it can be overwhelming.  But in this season of Advent, we remember that God entered not into a perfect world, but into a world like ours – a weary world of weary people.  A world desperate for a word of hope.  A word of hope carried by a tiny voice that shattered the darkness with a cry of holy defiance. 

This season reminds us that with God nothing is impossible.  There are deserts, but they will bloom.  There are tears, but they will be wiped away.  There is pain, but there will one day be no more.  There are nightmares, but the dream of God will one day drive the nightmares away. 

The Advent way that we walk, that we walk together, sometimes winds through a desert.  But that is not where it ends.  And so we journey on.  Because hope tells us that dreams, like the prophet’s, will come true.  One day.  We’re not there yet – it’s still Advent – but we’re on the way.