The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
March 28, 2004 

A Little Resurrection
Isaiah 43:16-21 and Psalm 126

What are we doing with an ostrich on the cover of our bulletin? The verse says, “The wild beast shall do me honor the wolf and the ostrich, for I will provide water in the wilderness and rivers in the barren desert.” It’s one of those images from scripture that takes a little digging to discover its meaning. 

What I would like to do together this morning is explore two strong images found in our Old Testament readings this morning. We’ll try to uncover something more about what they probably meant to the writer and the first hearers of our scripture for today. Then we will see the common thread connecting these images. 

First, the ostrich. The Book of Isaiah contains prophecies from a key period in Israel’s history, before and during the exile in Babylon. Together with the Call of Abraham and the Exodus experience, the exile in Babylon is perhaps one of the three most important events in the Old Testament. During the time of Isaiah and the school of prophets that followed him, Israel, fell to the Babylonian conquest and the Israelites were removed from the Promised Land to live in Babylon itself for generations. This was not only a great military and political blow to Ancient Israel, but a religious crisis. 

Israel had always seen themselves as invincible because of God’s protection. When God’s chosen people are living in God’s Promised Land, then they cannot be removed by anyone. That was the theory anyway. The prophets had warned the Israelites that life in the Promised Land was conditioned on Israel living according to God’s laws. Israel ignored this condition, feeling that they could act anyway they wanted and God would bless them. The nation of Israel was wrong. The Northern Kingdom was swept away by the Assyrians never to return to the land as a people. The Southern Kingdom withstood the Assyrians through making alliances, but they lost the Promised Land to the Babylonians. 

The Prophet Isaiah described the Promised Land during this time as filled with briars and thistles. This was strong image for a land once described as flowing with milk and honey. Briars and thistles showed God’s judgment on Israel working itself out through the land. At the point we get to today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah chapter 43, the prophet has been describing the Promised Land as a land of briars and thistles for 38 chapters (from Isaiah 5:6, see also 7:24, 9:18, 10:17, 13:21, 14:23, 27:4).  

The Land Promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The land Moses led the people out of Egypt to possess. That Promised Land has become uninhabitable waste, which is described as a land of briars and thistles and the haunt of jackals (or wolves depending on the translation). Then Isaiah reminds the Jews through our reading that it is the same God who brought the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt who is about to act. The same God who took the Hebrews with Pharaohs chariots bearing down on them and their backs to the Red Sea and offered deliverance through the waters, is now ready to act again to deliver God’s people. 

This is where the wolf and ostrich from our bulletin cover come in. Isaiah now tells us that God is about to do a new thing. This is a turning point for the barren land. The land God made uninhabitable in judgment will change once again. God promises a way in the desert and a river in the barren land. The beasts that eek out their existence will rejoice. The people will also declare God’s praise.  

If you know the history of those children of Israel, then you will see what a new thing God is doing. When God brought Israel out of Egypt, the main thing the people did was grumble and complain about life in the wilderness. God provided food and water and the people complained about even that. But now that God is doing a new thing, the people will declare God’s praise. The joy of the jackals and ostriches who live in the briars and thistles will become the joy of Israel as God leads them back into the Promised Land. The proof that this is going to happen is the Exodus experience itself. Just like God brought the people safely through the water and drowned Pharaohs army, so God will bring Israel out of captivity in Babylon.  

Just to fast forward ahead for those who do not know the story, it happened. The captive Jews were released and allowed to return home to Jerusalem and surroundings and the Babylonian king even paid to rebuild the temple. 

Let’s take on another, very related image from our scripture for this morning. Psalm 126 is what as known as a Song of Ascents. It is one of the collection of Psalms people would sing while going up to Jerusalem to worship in the Temple. From any direction, Jerusalem is up, and so these Songs of Ascent were sung as the people were walking to the Temple to worship. In this Psalm, the people count on the things God has done in the past as proof that God can act now to help us. 

Verse one says, When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, then we were like those who dream.” This verse can be applied to the Exodus experience. God restored the fortunes of the people of Israel and planted them in the Promised Land. Or this same verse could apply to the Babylonian exile and the return from that captivity. And for those in modern Israel, many readers equate this verse with 10:20 on the morning of June 7, 1967. 

Here is the image. [show PowerPoint slide of Israeli paratroopers at the Western Wall of the Temple]. Here is what it sounded like. On that morning in 1967, the six-day war was coming to an end. Israel retook the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the first time since the year 70 a.d. Jews who were separated for their holiest site returned. The photo you see is of Israeli paratroopers stunned to have reached their goal, the Western Wall, known as the wailing wall today.  

You’ll here the live Hebrew broadcast and I will give you the English translation…

“The temple mount is in our hands, the temple mount is in our hands.
All forces stop firing!
The time is 10.20, the 7^th of June.
At this moment we are passing through the Lion’s gate.
I am at present under the shadow of the gate.
And again we are going out into the sunny street.
Lion’s gate. We are in the Old City, we are in the Old City.
The soldiers are standing very close to the walls.
We are marching now down the Via Delarosa.
Do you understand this?…the Old City, we are again in the Old City.
Al Aksa Mosque. Under the ruling of the mandate, we could not enter here.
One moment. Straight ahead is the wailing wall.
Shouting hurrah
It is hard to express in word’s our feelings.” 

The reporter who made this recording said he forgot objective reporting in the excitement and began singing with the soldiers as their general blew the shofar. General Narkiss told his men, “Never has there been such a thing, for those standing here right now. I am speechless. We kneel before history.” 

For those who experienced it, this was an Old Testament-sized event. Jews given back access to the old city of Jerusalem and the temple mount. When you see the look in the paratroopers’ eyes, “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, then were we like those who dream.” Forget the politics that would follow and still follow, and notice the wonder of the day. 

For the Psalmist, it was like rain in a barren land. That’s why verse five moves in this Song of Ascent from the tone of the first four verses which are all past tense about things God has done in the past. The move is to dream that God will act in our lives as well. The Psalmist writes, “restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses of the Negeb.” 

The Negeb is the southern desert in Israel, an uninhabitable waste. When the rain comes, the land will not accept it and the water quickly runs off. But Israel had channeled that water. They built cisterns to catch and store the rainwater, to make a barren land inhabitable. It’s part of the work that goes into making a place of briars in thistles into a land flowing with milk and honey. So, the watercourses of the Negeb being restored means bring us the rain. The people are needing God’s touch like a barren desert needs water. But they will make room for God’s healing presence to soak in and to remain. 

So, there are our two images. The first is the ostrich who lives in the wasteland of Israel rejoicing when God makes a stream in the desert. The second is rain coming to the parched land. In both of these images, God is bringing the people the life-giving touch they need. In both images, the people can dream of a new future, a new thing God is doing because they can see how God has acted in the past. 

The Anglican Poet and Preacher John Donne was fascinated by the Resurrection. He wrote of it again and again in his sermon’s. Donne saw that resurrection was something we could not see in nature, but we saw it forshadowed in nature. The same way the son dies each day to appear anew the next. The same way an acorn drops to the ground, seemingly dead, and then grows into a mighty oak. In that same way, if we saw actual resurrection, the way we see its forshadowing, then we would not marvel at resurrection. Donne wrote, 

“If churchyards did vent themselves every spring, and that there were such a resurrection of bodies every year, when thou had seen as many resurrections as years, the resurrection would be no stranger to thee, than spring is…” 

I bring in this tidbit from Donne, because both of the Old Testament reading are images of a type of resurrection. The barren land becomes inhabitable in each of our images. The place of death becomes a place of life. And we have signs of these own little resurrections in our own lives. We have it in the springtime, when the seemingly dead branches spring forth with life. We have it elsewhere as well. But we cease to marvel, just as Donne wrote that we would cease to marvel if the graveyards gave up their dead every spring. It’s as if God is shouting that death and resurrection are still an option and we are not always listening. 

Look at your own life and the times you thought you could barely lift your head and go on. Then there was a little resurrection. God provided the water to the barren land and you moved on. For some of you, you may be in that barren place this morning. If so, you can pray for God to give you the water you need. In fact, for any of us, no matter what we brought this morning, there is something worth hearing in the resurrection of a dying and dead land. 

The Psalmist wrote “Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering the sheaves.” God told Isaiah, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” 

Next week, we enter in to Holy Week. We will experience the story of death and resurrection in a powerful way from Palm Sunday though Easter. We can all use a little resurrection now and then. I encourage you to come soak up as much of the life-giving water as you can. 

Amen.