Musical Prelude and Service

Isaiah 65:17–25
What concerns you? When you look around your world, when you still yourself and take time to listen
what do you hear? Whose cries come to you?
We live in a world that leaves us concerned for the future. We live in a world in which many are
anxious about where we are headed. We live in a world in which a great many people are suffering
here and now. We live in a world where we keep asking ourselves what we should do. What hope do
we have?
Well, without for a minute dismissing the anxiety and the fears people hold, these are questions
people have asked throughout history. People look around their communities; they connect with the
news of the world and conclude the world is on the brink of collapse.
Yes, the world is in turmoil. To quote William Butler Yeats in his iconic poem, The Second Coming:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Yeats’s poem is not one of great hope. He wrote it in 1919 in the aftermath of World War 1. He saw
civilization on the brink, and he feared things were going to get worse. In his defence, considering
the coming decades – he was not wrong, really. And yet, the world was rebuilt; eventually.
And we continue on.
It was not the end. It was the beginning of something new; eventually.
Biblical scholars estimate this passage from Isaiah, what is often referred to as the Third Isaiah was
written after 539 BCE (Before Common Era). The people of Judah have just returned from exile in
Babylon. After approximately seven decades in exile, they are returning to their beloved Jerusalem
and the surrounding country. The city they remember so fondly. And things are not as they
remember. It is not a triumphant return.
The temple is destroyed. But beyond that, Jerusalem is not empty. Not all of Jerusalem, nor Judah
was sent into exile. The Babylonians took the priests, the administrators, the nobility and carried
them away into exile. They left the labourers, the common people behind. Those expected to lead
them were taken away. They were replaced by loyal Babylonians in those roles. After seven decades
of this occupation things are different.
Those left behind have begun to adopt the habits and traditions of the occupiers and the settlers.
Many have intermarried and begun worshipping Babylonian, then Persian Gods. The exiles, or their
children and their grandchildren, who have struggled so hard to remain faithful to the culture and the
religion of their parents, anticipate a return to and revival of the grand city of Jerusalem they have
heard so many stories about. What greets them is tension and conflict.
For those who remained in Jerusalem, they are not so eager for this return. They view these
newcomers who return with so many expectations with suspicion and resentment.
For everyone no matter where they are in this scenario, this seems more like an ending than a
beginning. And it is into this environment the prophet we name Isaiah, writes these words:
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create
Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.
Questions about who has sinned and betrayed God, who has been abandoned or punished by God
are rampant. Why have the people of Judah been left to suffer as they have? And Isaiah says, the
former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
God is about to create new heavens and a new earth.
Biblical scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann – in his writing on and reflecting on the Hebrew
prophets – discusses what he calls Prophetic Imagination. This is the idea that the prophets’ writing
and poetry looks beyond the realities of our world and tries to stir our imagination with a vivid
imagination of what this world might be. The prophets do not ignore they state of the world. Not at
all. They are more than ready to convict the powers of this world of a great many injustices. They
tend to be vividly aware of the hurts and the grieving that the people of their world endure. And they
very much name those wounds.
But they also point us toward a new world. They encourage us to envision a world of peace and
compassion. A world where people’s lives matter. A world where people are justly compensated for
their work. Where they can live in the homes they build and take nourishment from the crops they
grow. This is what Isaiah addresses in this passage. He sees the pain; he sees the injustice in his
community. But moved by the Holy Spirit, moved by his connection to a God of love who has never
abandoned the people of Judah, he writes of what God is creating.
That in the rubble and the destruction of the old Jerusalem, in the midst of the weeping and anger,
the fingers pointing back and forth, God is creating something new. We are invited to; encouraged to
come along for the ride. To participate with God in the creation of this new world, this new heaven.
Isaiah wrote these words 2500 years ago. Over the decades, the centuries, the millennia, humanity
keeps experiencing these moments when everything seems to be collapsing around us. Society is
being ripped apart. People’s lives have become devalued; we are being exploited or ignored. And in
all these cases these critiques, these concerns, are absolutely valid. And yet, once again, God comes
to us and says, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth.
Humanity keeps losing sight of its holy relationship. Its relationship with God, its relationship to one
another. We become focused on the material; the value of objects and forget the ways we are
connected to one another and God. And God comes to us and reminds us of and encourages us to
remember what truly matters. To participate in God’s latest project to create something new.
There is a song from the 1980s by one of my favorite bands, REM. It was titled It’s the End of the
World as We Know it. It was somewhat popular in its day but has never really fallen out of favour.
It was written at a time when we tended to live in fear of nuclear holocaust. The anxiety that a few
power-mad individuals could make decisions that end the world for all of us. Fears of environmental
disaster were just starting to enter our consciousness.
The thing is the song has a pretty upbeat melody and tempo. The full line is It’s the end of the world
as we know it; and I feel fine.
In many ways it’s a song of resistance. A song that says, I will not give in to the gloom. I will not
succumb to despair. I will not let the world overcome my desire to live life fully. At least, that’s the
way I choose to interpret the words now, in my maturity.
The song has a lot of words that still seem gibberish. But then it hits you with lines like this:
World serves its own needs; don’t mis serve your own needs
And
Tournament, a tournament a tournament of lies.
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.
It’s the end of the world as we know it; and I feel fine.
Our faith calls us to live in hope when we experience disaster.
When we see and hear the signs of tragedy and the coming of despair, we are encouraged to resist
that temptation and to hold on to the knowledge that God remains with us. God has not given up on
us. God has not forgotten us or abandoned us. God’s promise of resurrection. God’s promise of new
life; of a new heaven and a new earth remains with us and points us to new possibilities.
When things seem bleak; when it seems all is falling apart; when it seems this is the end of the world
as we now it; we are encouraged to keep working with God and keep moving forward.
Thanks be to God.

Music provided with permission through licensing with CCLI License number
2701258 and One License # A-731789