Reading: Isaiah 23-27, Psalm 114
It is not all that well known, but the author of one of the greatest works of literature in our time began his story with a song. Long before the epic story of the Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a creation story for his world. In the Ainulindalë, Tolkien tells the story of how the Ainur (basically angels) participate in a grand musical that Ilúvatar (God) gives to them. They mess it up because of rebelliousness, but Ilúvatar weaves their rebellious themes into his music, making it come out better than they could imagine. But the rebellious themes grow until he ends the music with a catastrophic chord. Only when the music is complete does he reveal to the Ainur that their music is the story of a new world. When they enter that world, they find it is at the first stages of the music, and they will have to live through it to reach it’s dramatic conclusion.
Following one last look at the judgment of the nations, Isaiah turns his attention to something that sounds a lot like the end of the world. Chapter 24-27 contain Isaiah’s vision of a withering of the whole world, brought to destruction by the curse of God on it, which turns to an ingathering of the faithful remnant, the acclimation of the righteous one, and the restoration of the world as a new and better creation. While some read this as Isaiah’s “version” of apocalyptic literature like Daniel and Revelation, when I read it I am more reminded of Tolkien’s narrative of the creation of his fantasy world: this is the whole story, it just hasn’t all played out yet.
First we have chapter 23 and the proclamation of the destiny of the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon. We haven’t seen a great deal of these cities in recently, but recall the friendship that Tyre had with David and Solomon. While Isaiah pronounces destruction for Tyre, the chief city of the region, he weeps for it, and predicts that the God of Israel will restore the city after a time of exile. Tyre and the “ships of Tarshish” will be silenced for 70 years, a round number that in Hebrew generally signifies the completion of an era, but then they will be restored to their work, and will contribute to the worship of the God of Israel, like Ethiopia, Egypt, and even Assyria were prophesied to do in yesterday’s reading.
Then Isaiah turns to his grand vision of the working out of God’s plan. He sees the world brought to a withering ruin and judgment poured out by God on everyone and everything. The poetic descriptions in chapter 24 stand for the universality of God’s judgment- the poor, the rich, the free, the slave, the worker, the owner. The effects of the curse are universal and do not discriminate. This is the story of a broken world. This is the world from the moment of Adam and Eve’s fall, a world cursed by their declaration of independence. But even in the midst of this broken world, there are songs of praise to the righteous one. There are people of God holding on to his promise of restoration during the breaking of the world, which eventually extends even to the skies, as the sun and moon grow weak.
The next chapter talks about how God will usher in a new age, in which there will be for all peoples a feast… and the veil that is spread over all nations will be removed. The God of Israel will personally swallow up death forever and wipe away every tear. The vision is astonishingly complete. God will act to save not just his people, Israel, but the nations upon whom all this judgment has been pronounced. Israel’s reproach will be taken away, but all the nations who come will be saved.
Chapter 26 then gives us a description of an age of the world in which there is a shelter for those people who put their hope in the righteous one. These people appear to be the ones who were saved by the act of God in swallowing up death in the previous chapter, but they are not in the clear yet- there are dangers beyond the walls of the city and house that God has made for them. They are told to remain hidden until the wrath of God and the withering of the world has wholly taken place. Those who have died are given hope of resurrection.
Finally in chapter 27 Isaiah sees the God of Israel strike the fleeing serpent. This image is pretty important if you remember the curse in Genesis 3 and the promise of the serpent’s demise. Here the serpent is fleeing, and is associated with a dragon who lives in the sea, a character we will see again later. After God strikes the serpent down, he builds a new garden (Genesis again) in which there are no thorns and briers (aaaand Genesis 3 again) but now God himself is the keeper instead of Adam and Eve. Note that there is still justice to be done when this garden is built and God’s people brought into it, where they can flourish. It is not justice to the foreign nations, either. Isaiah sees God looking to the torn out thorns and briers, which are the false worship of God’s people, and setting them on fire. The priority of God’s actions is the purification of his people, which if we are following the whole section are the people he rescued when he swallowed up death.
This vision that Isaiah sees in 24-27 is dramatic, complete, and rather unexpected if you are an Israelite living under the reign of Hezekiah. In his day Isaiah must have seemed just a little bit mad, running around naked and barefoot for three years and raving about the Day of the Lord. In retrospect, we see bits and pieces of this prophesy coming together in Jesus Christ and his work to “swallow up death” in the cross and resurrection. But like the ancient people of Israel, we may look at the grand sweep of God’s action and not wholly understand it. We have been given a vision, but only part of the reality. We see that it has happened, is happening, but has not yet happened. Like Tolkien’s music of the Ainur, God has proclaimed the whole story, but we still must live in it.