OK. I admit it. I’m really into new things.
When Penny and I clean our house together I’m in charge of cleaning the kitchen sink. And one of the things I get to do when I clean the kitchen sink is to replace our old sponge with a brand new sponge.
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I can tell by your reaction that you’re not quite catching on as to what a new kitchen sink sponge means to me. There is nothing like breaking out a bright yellow porous cleaning device and throwing the old grimy and stained one away. I love new things.
Another favorite thing for me is when I take a ride in a brand new car. How many of you just love the smell of a brand new car? Absolutely.
This is the bible I use every Sunday in worship. It’s an NRSV bible which stands for “New Revised Standard Version.” The former translation was simply called “The Revised Standard Version.” How many ways can you say that something is “new?” We’ll leave that up to the folks in marketing.
And what’s up with worship attendance being really high on the Sunday that a newly appointed pastor is introduced to the congregation for the very first time? Is that why we Methodist preachers move from church to church? People like new pastors? And when do we become old pastors?
If you are into new things, you’re not alone, because so did the prophet Isaiah. Writing during one of Israel’s most painful moments in history, when God’s people had been sent into exile and were just beginning to return to the Promised Land after several decades of being away from their homes, the prophet paints a beautiful picture of hope and promise.
“The Lord is about to create new heavens and a new earth,” he says. New heavens and a new earth.
Just what does this prophet mean when he says, “a new earth?”
Imagine a world in which people will live healthy lives, where everyone has a place to live, where people will be able to grow food and have plenty to eat, and picture this in your mind… imagine a world in which even a wolf and a lamb feed together.
A wolf and a lamb feeding together.
Or a Buckeye and a Nittany Lion embracing?
Or how about a Buckeye and a Wolverine acting like they like each other?
Or a Republican and a Democrat shaking hands and smiling. Remember those days?
Or a famous rapper apologizing to a former President?
A wolf and a lamb feeding together.
By the way, did you hear the story about the two rabbits who were being chased by a pack of wolves? The wolves chased the rabbits into a thicket.
After a few minutes, one rabbit turned to the other and said, "Well, do you want to make a run for it or stay here a few days and outnumber them?"
The new earth that Isaiah has in mind is a world that is filled with harmony and where even wildlife peacefully coexist in God’s created world.
As we approach Thanksgiving, I’m reminded of the painting by the 19th century artist, Edward Hicks entitled “The Peaceable Kingdom.” The painting includes several different species of animals gathered together and enjoying God’s creation and just down the hill from these animals is an even greater scene – Native Americans and white Europeans gathered together in fellowship and friendship.
Edward Hicks did with the brush what Isaiah was doing with his spoken word – helping us to imagine a new earth.
One of the foundational beliefs of our faith is that we believe in a loving God who created this wonderful world which includes meadows and fields, mountains and plains, sunsets and rainbows, cattle and fish, trees and flowers, and every creature on the face of the earth. God created all of this and called all of his creation good. And we had this wonderful garden filled with beauty, harmony, and loving human interaction. So if it’s helpful for you in trying to picture what Isaiah might mean by a new earth, we might want to start from the beginning and think about the Garden of Eden, because that was God’s original intention for creation.
And of course, the story of those early chapters of Genesis tells us that we disobeyed God and because of our rebellion against God, we don’t have to look around for too long to painfully realize that we have a long way to go if that’s how God’s creation was intended to be. A place of peace, justice, harmony, and where all of creation celebrated and worshiped God.
I was looking through the tie rack at a well known department store when I heard a mother yelling at her child who was probably only in the 1st or 2nd grade. “You shut your mouth,” she angrily yelled at her daughter, “You shut your mouth or I’ll haul off and hit you upside the head and then you’ll know to shut your trap.” On and on, she made these verbal threats to her daughter.
Surely, this isn’t the way God intended this world to be. Today, the prophet invites us to imagine a new earth the way that God has always intended for it to be.
Christians have mostly gone one of two ways in interpreting passages like this one from the prophet Isaiah. Many Christians see this vision of a new earth as something that has nothing at all to do with this present earth. They believe that what the prophet really means is that one day God will do away completely with this earth and that what’s really important is heaven, a place that is beyond time and space.
One of the reasons that people see it this way is because they believe that our world as we know it is beyond redeeming. Things have gotten so bad that the only way to solve the problems of the world, is for God to do away with his creation all together and to have us focus on heaven instead. This interpretation is understandable at first glance, especially when we read about the problems in our world such as child abuse, crime, oil spills, wars, nuclear capability, global warming, and the list just goes on and on.
But the problem with that interpretation is that it fails to take seriously the first two chapters of the Bible where we are told that God created this earth and everything in it and called it good. And if God called his creation good, it doesn’t make sense that God will one day just do away with it. And beyond the first two chapters of Genesis, it’s also important to remember that the way that God decided to deal with the problem of sin and evil in the world, was to establish a covenant with Abraham and through this covenant, God would form the people of Israel, so that they would become a light to the nations and a blessing to the entire earth.
If this earth was beyond redeeming, why would God have gone to all this trouble? No. God created this earth and everything in it and called it good. And in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul calls people who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, people of the new creation. In other words, Paul wants us to know that through Christ, God wants to bring about his new creation on this earth.
Any time that we take care of God’s creation, we are announcing to the world that we believe in a God who wants to make all things new, including this earth. Through the power and strength of Jesus Christ in our lives, we are called by God to live in such a way that Isaiah’s vision of a new earth will become more and more real through us.
A church bible study group was actually studying this very topic of the importance of being good stewards of God’s creation and for one of their outreach projects, they chose to pick up litter along the highway one morning. It was a small but significant way of expressing their faith in a God who created this world and called it good. People took notice of them and many thanked them for taking time out of their schedule to serve in this way.
These conversations provided an opportunity for bible study members to share their faith. They explained that they were part of a bible study group of a nearby United Methodist Church and had been studying the creation story from the Book of Genesis and how through Christ they were called to participate in God’s new creation of the world. Picking up litter along the road was just a small way that they were seeking to live out their faith.
A few years ago, I was with several other church leaders attending a continuing education seminar where the walls of the room were all glass so that we could see everything that was going on outside of our building. In a way, it was a little depressing since every day of that seminar was sunny and beautiful outside!
Since the location of the seminar also had a preschool next to it, we couldn’t help but to take great delight in watching these adorable children walking hand in hand with their parents to the preschool entrance every morning.
And in the afternoon, we would watch the parents pick up their children. There were some days during that seminar, where I kind of tuned out from what the speaker was saying because I was more interested in watching these children. They would often be smiling as they walked hand in hand with mommy and daddy and once in a while, they would even look in the window and smile at those of us who were watching them from inside the church building.
Watching those children smile at us each day was a true gift to help break up the day a bit. Isaiah reminds us that God’s new earth will include the care and protection of children.
During that same week long seminar, a United Methodist layman who was probably somewhere in his late 70s and who was sitting at my table during one of those days, shared with me that he really appreciated the opportunity to be part of this time of learning.
He said that since he retired, the world has kind of said to him that his life was pretty much over and there wasn’t a whole lot left for him to do. And he said that thanks to the week long seminar, he was learning that God isn’t finished with him yet.
And I said, “Well, Bob, what do you do in your church?” And he said, “Well, I serve on some committees. I volunteer at the hospital. And I help recruit people to serve on retreat weekends.” He went on to share several more things that he does in his church and community.
And I said, “Bob, it doesn’t sound like you’re slowing down at all.”
And he said, “Oh, there’s a lot more that I think God wants me to do and this seminar is helping me to realize that.”
Isaiah also includes older persons in his vision of a new earth, doesn’t he? All of us are called to live out our faith in Jesus Christ and work toward Isaiah’s vision of a new earth.
An extraordinary work of art was put together by very creative artists from Mozambique after the end of that country’s long and bitter civil war. The work is a sculpture of the tree of life which is the tree we find in the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis when God created the earth.
The artists sculpted this tree and it stands about ten feet tall, with spreading branches of another ten feet in all directions. In it, and under its shade, are birds and animals.
And the whole thing, tree, creatures and all, is made entirely from decommissioned weapons: bits and pieces of old AK 47s, bullets and machetes and all the horrible paraphernalia of war, most of them made in peaceful western countries and exported to Mozambique so that the government aid given by the west to that poor country would flow back to our own industries.
But the whole point of this extraordinary work of art is that it reminds us that God created this earth and wants there to be nothing but God’s peace, justice, and love for all people. All people.
Any time that someone turns away from evil and sin and accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior by faith, God’s world is being made new. Any time that you feed a meal to the hungry or clothe those who are in need or help carry groceries to someone’s car or welcome the stranger or collect food for a food pantry or give up a morning to rake people’s leaves or donate gently used children’s coats or offer hope to someone in despair, God’s world is being made new.
During visits with church members in a nursing home, I shared this same scripture from the prophet Isaiah about God’s desire to create new heavens and a new earth. I invited each of those shut-ins to imagine this earth as a place of no suffering, no war, no pollution, no pain, and no death.
I could tell I struck a chord especially with one of the nursing home residents. After a few moments of imagining this earth totally renewed by God, she then looked at me and said, “Reverend, this world needs to hear these words from Isaiah.”
She said it with a conviction that would rival any evangelist. “The world needs to hear these words.” She’s totally right. There is no better time than right now, right now, to share this tremendous word of hope to a broken and hurting world.
So let’s continue to share this good news of our faith throughout our community and world. It’s a message that points us to a picture of God’s preferred future.
They say a picture’s worth a thousand words.
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