a sermon on Isaiah 58:9b-14

The book of Isaiah is a fascinating text. Like the view from the top of The Rock, it’s best taken as a whole vista, not just little snippets of verses out of context.  The basic theme of Isaiah is one of falling away from God and taking up idols; of threat of judgement, of offered redemption, and of the blessings which will flow from acceptance of God’s mercy. It’s a picture of God never turning his back on his people even though they grieve his heart with their sin. The whole book is a pointer to the coming of Jesus and his offer of redemption for us at the cross.  There’s this pattern of demolition and reconstruction;  of judgment and salvation.   Then in the last chapters of the book, there’s a hopeful picture of the new Jerusalem which has resonance with heaven for us.

Now, when I said that the book is best taken whole, I was just showing off, so you’d know that I did actually have a scant knowledge of the book, and I want to actually just speak on a one verse which jumped out at me when I read it. Verse 11 says this:  “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail”.  

I watched a documentary recently about a young Canadian man, Robert Bogucki who went on a journey into the Great Sandy Desert to try and find God.  (Incidentally, the Great Sandy Desert is the one in north west  Western Australia, inland from Broome.  It’s roughly the same size as Japan, and it’s surrounded by other deserts). He wanted to fast in the wilderness, like Jesus. He set out on a bicycle with a few belongings and a bible.  But as he got further and further into the desert, the bike was useless in the unrelenting landscape and he discarded it and continued on foot.  Eventually, of courses, he became lost and in grave peril. When his bike and belongings were found, a search was launched using police and aboriginal trackers.  But he wasn’t found. His father eventually came over here with his own search team and found his son, alive, but only just. He’d been 6 weeks without food and 12 days without water and had lost 30 kilos.  The documentary describes how he kept finding water in the most inhospitable of places;  he would dig into the sand to find water seeping up, or he would follow birds which led to waterholes, and he was able to survive.

Most of us would not seek God in such an extreme manner. But all of us encounter times of adversity when we seem to be in a spiritual desert. We’ve all had times when God seems far away and nothing we do seems to bring Him closer. We’ve all had times when the circumstances of our lives are difficult and hard to live through.  But take heart, these times are essential to us finding God, in a way we never could, if all our time was spent in watered and fertile comfort.  Just as Robert  found water in the driest place on earth, not only can we find God, but we can be as these verses in Isaiah describe;  like a watered garden;  strong, resilient, satisfied, contented, a spring whose waters do not fail.  We can be like this, because this is what Jesus becomes to us in times of adversity.

How can this be?  Let’s look at the preceding verses.  There’s a kind of spiritual physics here;  when you do this, there is a certain outcome.  The whole chapter is a discourse on what true fasting is.  It’s not just going without food;  it’s looking after those less fortunate;  it’s relieving those who are oppressed;  it’s giving food to the hungry.  When we do these things, we are promised God’s favour.  Listen to these lovely verses again;  “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house;  when you see the naked, to cover him … Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily;  your righteousness shall go before you;  the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.  Then you shall call and the Lord will answer. If you pour yourself out for the hungry then shall your light rise in the darkness”.  This is not just a set of rules though.  You do this, and you get what you want;  you follow the rules and God blesses you.  These things are not just a set of rules and regulations;  they are God’s precepts.  So I think this says that even in the midst of our own trouble, when we continue to live according to God’s precepts, we find God.  Our living this way, becomes a seeking of God and he will never let us go unsatisfied.  Rather, he uses these difficult times, to weed out the dross of our lives;  There is a saying from Arabia;  “too much sun makes a desert”.  It’s true.  If our lives were all comfort and ease, our souls would become cluttered with worldly stuff.   As life still thrives against the odds in desert places, so God’s life becomes a source of refreshment and vitality and streams in dry places, when we continue to trust him.  He becomes a lifeline, like water found in a dry creek bed.  In the natural world, creatures adapt to living in the desert.  One of the inhabitants of the desert, is a tiny lizard, which can survive when the temperature on the sand reaches well over 50 degrees C.  It does so by lifting it’s body up away from the burning sand so that it’s vital organs are kept cooler.  So, in parched difficult times, the stuff we don’t need (like resentment anger and selfishness) are dropped (with God’s help).  In times of difficulty, for example, when someone faces a life threatening illness or loses a loved one, the importance of say, getting back at someone for some slight, seems less important than it did before;  we simply don’t have the energy for it anymore because we see how petty it is.  We can move past it more easily, because in the face of our own, or a loved one’s impending death, it simply isn’t important any more. The harsh light of desert experience can shine a refining light into our hearts.

There is so much imagery in the Bible about trees.  I won’t mention them all, but one of one of my favourites is from Psalm 1, vse 3…. Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord;  he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields it’s fruit in its season and it’s leaf does not wither.  There is a season for everything going well; but there comes a time to most people when things perplex and trouble us.  Whatever our circumstances, when we keep our lives anchored in God’s word and in seeking him, then we are like the image of this tree.  We won’t wither and we’ll bear fruit when it’s time.  When I first moved into my present house, there was a lovely standard weeping cherry in the amongst a garden with other plants, but over the ensuing years of drought, it didn’t really do well.  As each season passed, more and more of it died off.  Thinking I would do it a favour, I installed the polypipe dripper system in the whole garden.  It seemed to make no difference and I finally decided I’d pull it out and plant another one. 

The older I get, the more I think that adversity and suffering are God’s hand as much as when everything is going well, and as much as the physical and fiscal things he gives us.  He is the Lord God, and he doesn’t just go around mopping up after the evil one’s schemes.  He is always sovereign. 

It’s in the desert where our true relationship with God is formed.   And Like Robert in the Great Sandy, we become focussed on the really important things which ensure our spiritual survival.  I think this is the answer to the great “why” of bad stuff happening to us.  Have you been through a hard rocky experience lately?  Take heart, God is at the centre of adversity;  he may not have brought it, but he has allowed it;  God made the great Sandy Desert as well as the mighty Murrumbidgee and he has promised us his presence whether we are in the drought of the one, or the watered places of the other (I must say here how lovely it is to see the Bidgee with lots of water between it’s banks at the moment;  haven’t seen that for a while).

We can become so strong spiritually when we endure the desert of adversity or pain, or uncertainty or suffering.  We can become spiritually “well watered”, even though our outward circumstances seem to be the opposite.  Be aware though, that this may not become evident at the time.  When we are stuck in the parched places, the watered garden seems a long way off.   

And the lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places.

Let’s just get back to the book of Isaiah for a moment. It’s set in the time of the exile of the Israelites from their promised land;  God warns them to stop rebelling and repent; he uses their enemies Assyria to chastise them;  then He uses Babylon to take them out of their land;  they are refugees. Then God uses Cyrus of Persia to set them free and take them home. We can see how God uses their adverse circumstances and their rebellion to bring about their eventual spiritual good;  he brings them back into the fold of his favour.  He never lets them stay in their desert of disobedience but always has their spiritual well-being in mind.  And so it is with us.  He uses all the times of our lives to bring us closer to him.  And that’s a good thing, even if at the time, it seems so difficult to live through.

  Amen