Isaiah 35:1-10 (Second Essay); Let the Real Advent Party Begin!

One of our worries might be that if this unconstrained, free-flowing water is gushing forth in the desert, that it might cause floods. Today, as I write this, I-5, the major north-south artery out of the City of Seattle is now under eight feet of water in the City of Chehalis (about 90 miles South of Seattle). People have been evacuated from small towns in Oregon and WA because of a torrential wind and rain storm that battered my area this past weekend. The storm has been responsible for at least seven deaths. So, you can see my reluctance now, at reading Isaiah 35, to assume that waters bursting forth can just be an unmitigated good! The biblical author, perhaps perceiving the potency of bqa in v. 6, tells us that "A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way" (v. 8). Presumably this Holy Way will not be flooded, because "it shall be for God's people," and there isn't any indication that Isaiah thinks that God's people are going to have to face a second flood!

The Hebrew of v. 8 is vivid and terribly choppy, so let me give it to you literally:

"There shall be there a highway and a road and the Holy Road shall be its name. The unclean shall not pass there, and the way (shall be) for walking for them, and fools shall not stagger around there."

That is what you have. Three times in three consecutive words appears the word "road" or "highway." It really is quite astonishing, and it has led scholars to suggest a "scribal error," which is the customary thing that scholars say when they can't make easy sense of things. But I think that Isaiah is so aware of the power of his previous image, with waters literally gushing all over the place, that he has to, as it were, convince the reader that we all aren't going to be washed away again. So, in three consecutive words he says, "highway, road, road..." as if to tell us that the waters, though violent and forceful, will be confined or channeled enough so that we have a dry highway left behind.

But the second half of the verse is a bit ambiguous. The highway is for someone (the someone is never identified in the text), but the unclean and the fools, apparently, will not be able to go there. Well, we are told who will be able to tread thereon in the last verse of our passage--the redeemed or ransomed of the Lord. Let's turn, finally to them (us!).

The Redeemed (v. 10)

I memorized this verse in college not because I sat down and learned it by heart but because I learned a little chorus that recited these words, in the King James Version. It goes like this (did you sing it, too?):

"Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads."

You could just keep singing this over and over again, with an ever-growing crescendo. What struck me as I learned this chorus and sang it so eagerly, was that it was sort of like a "parade-song," the words that participants in a parade might sing over and over again as they marched along in jubiliation. Just as the marching band tends to play the "fight song" over and over as it marches down the street, so this chorus is a kind of "fight song" of the saints in the divinely-led parade.

The thing that caught my attention, however, was the reference to "everlasting joy" which shall be "upon their heads." That image stuck with me because normally you don't think of joy as something of tangible quality you can put upon your head. But here it is. Joy and gladness will be the twin towers of our journey, and we will take the joy and place it right on our heads, like a crown or diadem. And, it is "everlasting" joy. So many thing in this life give us a temporary lift, and even when we say to ourselves or others that we have arrived at a place in life where we live in more permanent joy, we are vulnerable to so many things.

For example, in the last few years I have tried to establish a way of living and working that makes life work for me in ways that I never thought possible. I can write, think, plan, study, read--to my heart's content. I thought, too, that this kind of life would put me on a kind of plane of experience which would minimize difficulties and lead to a sort of "everlasting" joy. But, that isn't the case. Difficulties still hound, whether they come through family or friends, through things that you thought you had "taken care of" in life, through our own bad judgment and shortcomings. The joys we feel now may be true and they may be as permanent as we can get this side of heaven. They are not the everlasting joy of which the text speaks. Here we will have the tribulations and the pains, but there, in that great parade, we will have everlasting joy. Maybe it will be sprinkled upon our heads, like rice on the bride and groom. In any case, it is something that so strongly drives and allures us that I can't get it out of my mind.

Conclusion

I noted a slightly humorous inconsistency as I read the passage. We recall from Is. 11, last week's text, that "the wolf shall live with the lamb" and "the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them" (11:6). I note here that there will be no lions (35:9) on the saints' highway. I can't explain it. Probably neither could Isaiah...

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