"The Desert Shall Bloom"

First Presbyterian Church
Peter S. Buehler
December 16, 2007
Isaiah 35:1-10

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert..

When you hear the word "desert," what comes to mind? What images? What do you see?

When we think of the desert, what usually comes to mind is what it lacks, what it isn't. A desert is vast and sparse and dry; it's hot during the day, very hot --  and cold at night, very cold. There is little if any vegetation; what we see is miles of emptiness, all rock and sand, sky and silence. Rarely do we go out of our way to visit the desert -- usually we drive through it or fly over it; to us the desert is an inhospitable place.

One thing especially the desert lacks, one thing defines it. Author Bruce Feiler speaks about it in his 2001 bestselling book, Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses. He describes the experience of trekking through the dry wilderness of Sinai: "First, you get thirsty. You wake up thinking about water. You go to bed thinking about water. You walk, talk, and eat thinking about water. You dream of water. You wonder, Do I have enough water? Am I drinking enough water? Where is the water? But you stay calm. You know water. You know how much water you need. Twelve liters a day. Or is that thirteen? And what if it's hot? Does that mean more? What if it's windy, does that mean less? Just drink. Drink when you're thirsty. Drink when you're not thirsty. Because 'If you're thirsty, it's too late.' …But you know yourself…. So you tell yourself, I can go longer than most people. But you're wrong. Everybody needs water… Go wandering in the desert, for days, weeks, or forty years at a time, and water becomes the most important thing, the only thing. Water becomes life. Becomes salvation."

We take water for granted, we don't give it a second thought: we turn a faucet and it flows. No faucet nearby? No problem: we carry a bottle of water with us.
It's good for us: eight to ten 8-ounce glasses a day -- we may not be trekking through the desert but we need our water.

But water in the desert, that is a contradiction. Deserts are defined by their dryness. They aren't fertile. They don't blossom. They stay the same, bone dry.

Have you ever found yourself wandering in the desert? A time in your life when everything was dry and there was no water in sight? If you're thirsty, it's too late -- how well we know! Sometimes we don't even realize how dried out we are until we are seriously spiritually dehydrated. It's a hard thing to admit, because we don't know if things can be different. So we call the desert our "reality."

Yet it is in this place that the prophet speaks up and says what's real.
Isaiah's words astound us: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; Like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.

I grew up on the East Coast with lots of snow in the winter, but always around March or April the most amazing thing happened, crocuses began to bloom, the most beautiful flowers. Often right up through the snow, their impossible colors proclaiming Spring is here, not yet but almost! Hang on, be patient, don't despair.

It's December and almost Christmas -- we associate this season with white winters, Currier and Ives pictures in our minds. But the Bible's December is not a snow-covered scene; the Bible's December is not Currier and Ives, as charming an image as that is. The Bible's December is the desert. Only it's not arid and empty and foreboding, it's exploding with crocuses, it's rejoicing with color, it's literally jumping with water: For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The Hebrew for "breaking forth" is like Old Faithful -- the water is leaping up out of the desert, it's dancing for joy! All creation is rejoicing, because God is coming! That is the promise. There may be no signs in the present, no hints on the horizon, but the promise of God's presence, of God's grace and strength and salvation, is the true reality. It's not only what is, it's what shall be. Chapter 35 of Isaiah is God's word, God's good promise.

We need to hear it; I need to hear it. When things look the same, and I'm tempted to say out loud Same old, same old, I need Isaiah, his picture of the wilderness bursting with streams of water, with fields of crocuses, with all creation celebrating. My reaction is to be way more modest, to tone the prophet down, to make him more cautious, more realistic, more practical. I would tell him, Drip irrigation is perfectly OK. We don't have to have streams of water, we can conserve. We can plant cactus, succulents, and other drought-tolerant varieties.

But that's why he's the prophet, because he sees God's reality, he knows God's promise -- so he speaks straight to our heart, as he did to the heart of the people of Israel. They were still in exile in Babylonia, they were a conquered people, their memory of the desert was of being dragged east across it from their homeland; people died on the way. They were exiles, they would always be exiles; the desert represented the emptiness of their imagination. Same old, same old.

Sometimes the possibility of things being different, even far better, even wonderful, scares us and we don't want to change. Being stuck somehow seems safer than venturing into the wilderness, no matter what the crocuses are doing.
We keep our expectations in check, we don't dream too big because that, we fear, is to court disappointment. We scale back our hopes because we don't want to be let down. Thankfully, Isaiah understands. He speaks words of encouragement: Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear!"

What are your dreams, your hopes?

I made a list of my own this week. Some personal ones, some professional ones; some hopes for our church and our world. Right away I noticed something: that my list started out short. I was holding back. I found myself facing my doubts, I didn't want to ask for too much. I had to make myself write down exactly what my hope was, because the bigger the dream the more tempted I was to scale it back.

And then I realized something else, that I don't do this very often! My hopes and prayers tend to be about one-day-at-a-time things -- manageable things, not large things, not God things. Are you like this? Do we feel free to dream big, to trust God with our deepest desires, our highest hopes?

Do we ask for socks for Christmas?

This past Tuesday evening we hosted the 27th annual Messiah sing-along here at First Presbyterian and it was wonderful. Bob Scott of KDB Radio, with the help of wonderful soloists and musicians and volunteers, have made this a splendid evening of singing -- really we were worshipping. As I was leaving I heard someone saying to her friend, Well, now my Christmas has started! I thought, How wonderful. That's great. But then she said, Oh, that's right, I'm not supposed to say "Christmas." I'm supposed to say "holiday" -- my holiday has started. I held back my Calvinist impulses, but in my mind I said, "No! It's Christmas! We just sang about our highest hopes, God's promises: For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! This isn't some generic holiday -- this celebration is about God's coming to set things right. It's not about some nervous half-hearted hope: Christmas is about the best God can give, the coming of the Messiah, the promised future the prophet so clearly saw and painted with words, The desert shall rejoice and blossom!

It's good to have respect and consideration for our neighbors who believe differently; this is important today. We would hope they would practice the same courtesy toward us. And, really, whether we say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays isn't what's important, what's important is showing what we believe by our actions and having high hopes, gospel hopes, to guide our lives. Strength to show kindness when we're weary; grace to listen to a fearful friend; courage to do what's right; faith to wait for the fulfillment of God's great promises and our true prayers.

Like everyone else we get discouraged, our hands get weak, our knees get feeble. Frankly this is not a bad way to be at this time of year. We don't have to be singing Hallelujahs. Not everything in our lives has to be resolved or perfect to celebrate Advent and Christmas. This season is about God's promise of salvation, not our worthiness.

We can whisper it as well as shout it, we can show it as well as tell it: God comes to the world in weakness! Salvation comes not through our strength or our success, but in our neediness. God doesn't choose proud people; God chooses ordinary people. God comes as a vulnerable child, a baby to a mother holding onto a secret and a father holding onto a hope. Journeying to Bethlehem, they too crossed a desert. What was their pilgrimage like? The whole world must have seemed vulnerable!

As it does today. Yet God calls us to travel on the highway he builds in the desert, a way in the wilderness of our world. We have a new way -- that is the promise. The New Testament Letter to the Hebrews says that by the blood of Jesus, by his sacrificial death on a cross, we have a "new and living way...opened for us" (10:20). So we're pilgrims too. God is always opening up new and living ways for us in the world.

So we don't scale back our dreams or our hopes to be more realistic, because God's reality is wonderful, colorful, fertile, beautiful. We believe in Isaiah's vision.
The picture he paints is the promise we trust.

Even now the desert is showing its colors.

Amen.