Dealing With Grass

Isaiah 40:1-11 is a shocker, I guess. One of the most interesting, amazing, spiritual approaches in the reign of Isaiah, in the Old Testament, in the believers who trusted God above everything and anything and life as it was. It’s my kind of thing too, of comparison, of sticking a pin in a fur, turning, and twirling and not getting dizzy because it is so right, so amazing, so real, so pure.

Isaiah proclaims: “All people are grass.” Yep. That’s exactly what is written in Isaiah. The constancy of their faithfulness is like the flower of the field. The dirt was once turned to please the seeds, to stir it up, to agitate it a bit so it would create what was needed.

Yes, the grass withers to make room for growth, for fresh air in its dying leaves, for a rest before it comes again, and things get green. Just like in any garden, of course grass withers, flowers fade, the soil moves and scratches and twists its roots to get them ready to survive the winter and refresh for that first spring blessing. When the breath of the Lord blows upon the people, that’s when it happens, or the soil pays attention to God.

Yet - O comfort my people, says your God, dictating from Isaiah’s words. Speak tenderly of Jerusalem. Now why he says that I wonder. Was there some sort of evil verbal word spreading pollen or poison or putrid things that disrupted the beauty in that city Jerusalem? Really, I doubt that there was no more badness or evil to touch a way into Jerusalem. That city has had enough. All Jerusalem’s sins are packed away, no longer floating around so that they could cause any more angst and evil and unhappiness.

Out comes a voice somewhere in the air saying, “Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Did God need a highway? It sort of implies a good time when things could or would be better. Imagine how valleys could be lifted or mountains and hills could drop low - is that a rest sign? Or a growth sign? Or something to get people’s minds out there to get their own lives re-adjusted? Even the rough places will become a plain. Is that a good thing? Will crops grow there? Will there be water that is sweet and rich? All these things having gotten themselves ready and so now the Lord’s glory will be revealed  and everyone will see it all together, like going to a fantastic extravaganza, maybe like the Woodstock moment way back a few decades when youth and adult got together to find each other and leap into a new way to worship the earth, the sky, and, hopefully, the God we had been brought up to love, even if it was through music, marijuana and good fried catfish. Depends on who you are and what you did and do.

Then someone present shouts out - or cries out - because all people are grass, their constancy is like the flowers of the field. Grass in my yard grows like weeds in giant fields - and it gives comfort and shade, somewhat, to my dog Black, who trots with me daily around the banario to get my three mile walk in my soul or so my heart can rest.

Isaiah asks what should I cry to appease the requests? He seems to be at ease. For the truth is always the same and he points this out: grass withers when it is time to wither, the flowers fade when it is time to fade, and then the breath of the Lord blows upon everything, like checking out nature to be sure it is still doing its thing. That suggests that people are grass, happily green, growing in leaps and bounds if no one comes along and cuts it back. Yep. It is declared right here - first repeating that grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever no matter how much we mess it up, or misinterpret it, or forget it, or never even hears that part of the Bible.

So, rise to a high mountain, O Zion, (better known as Jerusalem - although it is mentioned in the Bible 150 times) with your herald of good things. Lift it up, do not fear, say to the critics of Judah “Here is your God!” Then we can see for ourselves that the Lord God comes with might and His arm rules for Him, His reward is with him, his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in is bosom and gently lead the mother sheep.

Such a detailed report - it is an amazing beginning for the new year. We should not worry, not because already God has taken charge and things will grow and blossom and we will rejoice at the beauty of everything God has arranged for His people. Grass being a primary one. Don’t fuss that God is often slow about His promise. It teaches us patience, not wanting any of us to perish, no matter what our attitude, our curses, our joys, our hopes, and how beliefs. Peter declared that the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. So don’t fuss at the Lord because things don’t happen in the time lot, we want it to happen.

One way or another, the day of the Lord will arrive like a thief. We know this: then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, maybe a boom, and the elements will be dissolved and the earth and everything will be re-done in a way that will spread out our lives, the ones we are trying to live with holiness and godliness, waiting and hastening the arrival of God. That is when heaven will be ablaze, and the elements will melt with life. But that ends that. Then the new heaven and the new earth will be our hometown and with that comes our salvation no matter where we are at that moment of birth. Amen.

~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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