Isaiah 65:17-25

 

“For behold, I create new heavens 

     and a new earth,

and the former things shall not be remembered

     or come into mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever

     in that which I create;

for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,

     and her people to be a gladness.

I will rejoice in Jerusalem

     and be glad in my people;

no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping

     and the cry of distress.

No more shall there be in it

     an infant who lives but a few days,

     or an old man who does not fill out his days. . . . 

 

They shall build houses and inhabit them;

     they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit;

     they shall not plant and another eat;

for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,

     and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labor in vain

     or bear children for calamity,

for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD,

     and their descendants with them.

Before they call I will answer;

     while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together;

     the lion shall eat straw like the ox,

     and dust shall be the serpent’s food.

They shall not hurt or destroy

     in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD.

 

Revelation 21:1-2, 5a

 

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. . . . And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” 

In the 6th century BC, God’s people prepared to return from seventy years of exile in Babylon. They longed to rebuild Jerusalem and especially to restore the temple of the LORD. Being home in their own land and worshipping in freedom seemed a grand enough dream. But then the LORD spoke a vision through Isaiah that was even more wonderful. He promised to create once more: to create a world recognizable as earth, but yet remade at the very heart. New because the chilly stripe of sadness that runs through everything will be replaced with joy. Gone will be the sorrow over an infant’s dying. No more frustration over a life’s work left incomplete. Injustice and strife, tragic accidents and sudden disasters will vanish. People will live and work in harmony. Peace will reign to such an extent that a child can play safely near a serpent. A lamb can nuzzle up to a lion. Everything will work as we have ever dreamed. No more hurting or destroying. 

 

Isaiah’s prophecy looked well beyond the time when he wrote it. As he did in so many ways, Isaiah foresaw the coming of Jesus. Something new would interrupt the world. God would enter his creation. The new creation would begin in the womb of Mary. As we noted yesterday, Jesus was humanity made right again. His faithfulness through life and death reconstructed the very life of man. His return from death in a resurrection body became the pledge of all creation being made new. That Jesus returned to heaven still joined to our humanity now restored means that he is the guarantee of the new creation reworking the old. 

 

The book of Revelation picks up this theme of re-creation. In John’s vision, the new heavens and earth descend into our present world. In other words, there is continuity. It’s the earth we know. But made right. Healed. So vivid with rightness and harmony and peacefulness that we might hardly recognize it. Revelation depicts “the throne of God and of the lamb” in the center of a new Jerusalem. Echoing Eden, a river of the water of life will flow from God’s throne right down the middle of the city. The great tree of life will grow on either side of this river. Its fruit will no longer be forbidden. But all will eat of it, and the once-warring nations will find their healing. We will be reconciled to God, to one another and to all of nature. The Garden will become even more than it had been (see Revelation 22:1-5).

The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. . . .

 

In the Christian story God descends to re-ascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity . . . down to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him.

 

One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders.

 

C. S. Lewis, Miracles (New York: Macmillan, 1947), 112, 115.