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First Baptist Church, Ashland
800 Thompson Street
Ashland, VA 23005
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Sermon for Sunday, December 16, 2007

“Sooner or Later — A Blooming Desert”
Isaiah 35:1-10

The year is 700 BC and life has become like a desert to Israel. The cruel armies of Babylon have come in, destroyed their cities, laid waste everything, and carted those who were left into exile far from home. Their capital city had been destroyed. Their temple had been destroyed. Their sons had been killed. Their cities and farms had been burned. They were captives in every way and Israel is in the desert in every way.

If you look at a map of the Middle East you will see a vast, dead desert that separated the exiled Jews from their homeland. In exile, they were longing for home. They were struggling in a foreign place, wondering if their lives would ever be the same again. Traveling back home did not seem to be an option for them. Would they be in the desert forever?

Life can be like a desert can’t it? Life can be like a desert where it is dried up, burnt and brown. Life can become very dried up after the death of a loved one.

Or, after years of marriage when the love between a man and a woman slowly dries up and their marriage becomes like a desert.

Or during an illness that can ravage a body, life can feel like a desert.

Or that time when a person loses a job and the loss of income and you don’t know where to turn because there seems to be nowhere to turn

Or those times of loneliness and depression, when the walls talk back to you and you have lost your energy and life has lost its challenge.

Or even at Christmas time. Christmas can be a tough time of year for people who feel that life is like a desert. As exciting as Christmas is, there are those folks who will be glad when it’s over.

I have a hunch that some of you understand that sense of dryness. Even though it is Christmas you may feel like your own heart is as dry as the Sahara desert.

Life can be like that. Life can be like a desert. Your heart can ache with spiritual dryness, physical concerns, emotional pain, guilt, grief. It is a load isn’t it? The Israelites knew about the desert and so do a lot of us. Somewhere along in life, yours and mine, life will be like a desert. Sometime, somewhere, someplace, each of us will walk a desert path.

To those sufferers the prophet Isaiah proclaims homecoming. In the scripture from Isaiah 35, the prophet says that the desert shall burst into bloom. God was going to do something for them and with them. Just when the people were feeling burnt and brown and broken down, Isaiah wrote those incredible words: “the deserts shall bloom again.”

It was in the midst of the desert that God came to those in exile with an incredible promise: the desert was going to be transformed. Springs would flow in the desert. It was going to be bloom again. God was going to work in their midst again.

Old Testament prophets have the reputation for being harsh, critical, and judgmental. But prophets have another side as well. That is the side we experience in Isaiah’s words this morning. The desert shall bloom. God will build a grand highway straight through the desert.

Isaiah is a word of good news. It is a word of hope that was given to the Hebrews who were in exile. They were living a terrible wilderness experience. But Isaiah comes with that word of hope. God was coming for them. The desert of their lives would bloom again! They were going to be rescued. The deserts of their lives would bloom again. With the promise kept they heard the word that God had not given up on them. He would send One who would rescue them from the desert of their lives.

In the New Testament, Jesus came to earth and found person after person whose lives had become like deserts and through their encounter with Jesus, their lives began to bloom again. Do you remember any of them?

*a woman caught in the act of adultery. She was a woman whose life was a desert for her, past and present. She heard his words: “your sins are forgiven you. Go and sin no more.”

*the prodigal son. He had gone to the far country, his life was a total mess. His life had become a wilderness, a desert, parched and brown. Dead. He came back to his father and found new life for himself.

*or Zacchaeus, the crook…a new start…salvation to a home.

*or Matthew, the tax collector…follow me.

Again and again when Jesus came into their lives, their lives were like deserts and when he left them, their deserts were blooming once more. It has happened over and over again. I’ve seen it. I’ve witnessed it in some of your lives. Just when you thought there was no hope and that all of life was dried up for you, you had an encounter with a living Lord and life began to bloom again.

At Bethlehem God came to save us. That means that God came to be with us in the desert places of our lives. Maybe that is why Jesus began his ministry in the desert. After his own baptism, he moved to the wilderness. There he was tempted. There he meets us in the desert. In his book, “The Wounded Healer,” Henri Nouwen is right when he says, “The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.”

Because He has already been there, tempted, hurt, grieved, stressed and betrayed. He meets us in the deserts of our lives, not just to commiserate with us, but to transform the desert and cause it to bloom again for us. What an incredible promise. He has not given up on us.

At the beginning of the Christmas holidays one year, when Paul Tillich was teaching in New York city, the famous theologian went downtown to worship with a small congregation in a storefront church. One of his students was pastor. Tillich listened as the young man preached. He listened with dismay as the young preacher related the story of Christmas to a group of uneducated people using the language of the lecture hall. He spoke eloquently of how “the divine transcendent had become immanent.” After the service ended, Tillich, with tears in his eyes, went to his student and said to him, “Son, just tell them that God became a man in Jesus of Nazareth.”

There are two movements in this Isaiah passage. God comes to us. Emmanuel, God with us to cause our deserts to bloom just when we think everything is all dried up. But there is one more thing I want you to notice: A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way.” (v.8)

A highway is there, a holy way. The call for the people of God was to come back home. This was an encouraging word to those in exile who wondered if they would ever return to the home place. But it is also a word that speaks of the invitation of Christmas.

God comes to us in Christ – but God provides a way for us to come to him. That was what happened on the first Christmas. God came to the shepherds through the angels – but then the shepherds said, “let us go to Bethlehem.” God came to the Wise Men through the star, but the came and offered their gifts to him.

God comes to the desert to change our lives. But a way is provided for us to come to God through Christ who was the way. The Holy Way was the one born in Bethlehem. And like most highways there are two ways to travel. God comes to us in the desert and he invites us to come home through the way…”o come let us adore him!”

Prayer

Lord Jesus, make a way into the deserts of our lives and let the bloom of your love and presence come into lives once more and then let us travel the holy way home to you. Amen.

— Robert Thompson
Pastor
First Baptist Church, Ashland

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