Mark's Blog

Reading:  Isaiah 65:17-25

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
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 offspring blessed by the Lord—
and their descendants as well.
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,

says the Lord.

Did you do a double take when you started reading about “the new heavens and the new earth” here in Isaiah?  The New Jerusalem too?  These are ideas that we are familiar with from Revelation—from the last chapters of Revelation when John describes the Second Coming, but not from Isaiah who prophecies seven hundred years before the First Coming!

I’m tempted to think that Isaiah is also just talking in prophetic language about the Second Coming, but there are too many references to our times for me to be comfortable with that limited application. No more SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), no more early onset Alzheimer’s, no sudden massive heart attacks like my friend Mike died from a couple of weeks ago at age sixty.

In the New Creation, people build houses –and will not lose them in foreclosure; they work at jobs that provide for their families, not just make other people rich—and they like their jobs.

How can all of this be in heaven?  But how can it be the world I live in either? It’s not the world I live in today!

Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.

Instead of the First Coming and the Second Coming, instead of Nativity and Apocalypse, what happens to our dilemma if we think of the new heavens and the new earth appearing in The Coming! Does it help you to blend the First and Second Coming—to think of one as a part of the other rather than as two very separate events.

I believe the Baby is also the Mighty Warrior! Could it be that God’s “Coming Down” is a progression of events that started with the First Creation and will end with the completion of the New Creation?

Can we see our daily lives as people participating in The Coming—possible only because He came as a baby and is coming as King of Kings and Lord of Lords?

If we can see ourselves in the Story, then our labor is part of God’s new creation, teaching our children ways of peace is part of God’s new creation, building homes and planting trees and learning God’s ways so that we live longer are all part of God’s new creation.

Seeing ourselves in The Story must not in any way diminish God as Sovereign Creator nor Jesus as Lord and Savior. We are written into the Story, we are short-lived characters in the Story, but we do not create the Story. Remember Paul’s words to the Ephesian 2:10  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

So if you celebrate The Coming and if you long for The Coming, then LIVE the Coming today. Do what you were created to do!