Stories of exclusion are painful and universal. Everyone of us has at least one, if not more. Maybe it’s that ubiquitous, unintentional moment when you wave at someone you thought was waving to you but it was to someone else. Or perhaps it was even worse – it was intentional. It was the invitation you were denied, a verbal rejection to your face, or even a trick that brought you shame. And scientist tell us that in those moments – the pain centers of our brain literally spark just as if we were slapped, punched, or beaten. And those wounds can run deep – festering in the shadows, leading to all kinds of painful actions, memories, or associations. And today I want to confront one of the larger exclusions that too many Christians have perpetuated: the exclusion of nature and non-human creation from God’s plan for salvation. We have forgotten that even the plants and animals need Jesus too. Each week of Lent we have been declaring, “Salvation is ecological.” Today, I want to show you why the Bible tells us so.
For God so loves the parallels.
One of the more powerful pieces of Isaiah 35 are all of the amazing parallels of inclusion which seek to inform us and draw upon connections so that we can understand the fullness of God’s majesty and what God wishes to do. Parallelism is a common practice of Biblical writers not to rhyme sounds, like in English poetry, but to “rhyme” ideas—that is, to put two or more lines together that somehow match each other or connect; sometimes for emphasis, sometimes contrast, sometimes to further illustrate. And our passage today wants to strongly parallel the joy of a reinvigorated landscape with the glory of God and the salvation of needy and hurting people with the salvation of a needy and hurting earth. Vs. 2 points out:
The glory of Lebanon / The glory of the LORD
The splendor of Carmel [garden or Orchard] / The splendor of our God
Lebanon and Carmel were famously forested with cedars and towering evergreens which sloped down into the Valley of Sharon, the whole area was known for abundance. The parallel of this vegetative abundance with God’s splendor and glory as a principal feature of salvation and the land as worshiper in response certainly paint a more expansive good news than many of us have previously heard.
And this parallelism continues, articulating a vision that supplements the salvation of human beings by including in the troubled elements of the planet. In vs. 4 we are told that “God will come, he will come with vengeance; within divine retribution he will come to save you.” And if I’ve taught you anything in reading Scripture always pay attention to the “you.” Who is the “you”? Well, here is where the parallelism is important. Because it’s more than us. Vss. 5-7 offer four ostracized, hurting humans to reflect the loving reach of God. And these are paralleled to four hurting natural elements which need saving too.
The blind Are Paralleled to The wilderness
The deaf The desert
The lame The burning sand
The mute The thirsty ground
Each of the four experience a reversal of fortune that place both categories of human and non-human creation as victims in need of God’s saving love.
By the way, don’t imagine that this is all that Isaiah has to say on the matter. In Isaiah 32 he will speak of Spirit being poured out from on high, “and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest. The LORD’s justice will dwell in the desert, his righteousness live in the fertile field. The fruit of that righteousness will be peace” (Isaiah 32:15-17). And then he speaks of people dwelling in peace but even more amazingly speaks of animals being liberated by people to “range free” (Isaiah 32:20)
And Isaiah 11:6 prophesies about the peaceable kingdom of the Messiah which depicts peace between the human world, with its domestic animals (lamb, kid, calf, bullock, cow), and those wild animals (wolf, leopard, lion, bear, poisonous snakes) that were normally threats both to human livelihood and to human life and each predator is paralleled with its typical prey. And that prophecy ends with amazing declaration of peace: “The land will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” The knowledge of the LORD will take those wild things, those dangerous animals, those untamable beasts and make them friends with domestic animals and human beings. But let’s return to Isaiah 35.
Salvation carries some (not all) responsibilities.
In vs. 3 & 4 Isaiah declares to his listeners: “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come . . .’” Our first responsibility is that we are to encourage one another, strengthen one another, speak kindly one to another that God “will.” Last week I talked about finding our place within the created order. Once again, I ask you to do that by recognizing that we aren’t the saviors. That’s not a declaration to do nothing but it does reorder priorities and position. God, we are told, is the savior – that is what we declare and we must declare it – feeble hands and fearful hearts need to hear it.
But the prophet will give us a second responsibility as well. We are to walk “the Way of Holiness”: “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way.” What is that way? Well, it’s those who recognize and order their lives by the declaration of God’s salvation for all creation and not just human beings. And as Christians we believe that this way is the way of Jesus, who is the One saves us, who teaches us how to live, how to find our place, how to receive forgiveness, who was the very image of God in action with us, for us, and for all created things. So we walk this way and anticipate the salvation that has both come and is coming but always remember that it is God and God alone who is ultimately responsible. The centrality of Jesus’ way and Jesus as the way is for this whole project of ecological salvation was brought home to me in a surprising way by a delightful New Testament scholar named Richard Bauckham who pointed out something that I had never seen from Mark’s Gospel.
13 and [Jesus] was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. ~ Mark 1:13
Why must Jesus go into the wilderness? Because as Isaiah has prophesied that’s where salvation is needed and the messiah must establish himself among non-human creation before he can embark on his mission to the human world (which is why three categories of non-humans are mentioned): Satan, the wild animals, and angels.
Whereas Satan is simply an enemy of Jesus and the angels his friends, the wild animals, placed by Mark between the two, are enemies of whom Jesus makes friends. Jesus in the wilderness enacts, in other words, the peace between the human world and wild nature that Isaiah envisions. Mark’s simple phrase “he was with the wild animals” indicates Jesus’ peaceable presence. The expression ‘to be with someone’ in the Gospel of Mark (3:14, 5:18, 14:67, cf. 4:36) has the sense of close, friendly association. It means that Jesus enacts salvation by befriending them. Now it’s true that in Jesus’ day the relationship between wild animal and human beings was quite different. Then, it was humans who lived in fear of them. Now, it is often they who live in fear of us. In fact, more than a few of the animals that Jesus could have encountered no longer exist. But, the work of Jesus can still speak to the reversal. It reminds us that animals and creation have inherent value and remain a concern of the creator and a part of Jesus’ salvific work. Jesus, as Isaiah prophesied, will be the Lord’s justice dwelling in the desert. Jesus’ way is the way of friendship with all creation.
I want to invite you to come forward during the next song to prayerfully pick up a feather and ponder a potentially life-altering truth: the God of the universe wants to save the birds along with you. The God of the universe wants to pour out his love on the thirsty ground along with you. God wants to offer his Spirit to change landscapes as well hearts. I want to invite you to keep this feather in your Bible as a means of reminding you that salvation is bigger than you might have believed and better than you might have hoped.
And if you haven’t decided to follow this great and wonderful way – what Isaiah has called the Way of Holiness. I want to invite you to that journey. It’s what you were made for. Jesus welcomes you to walk the path that through the cross and resurrection he has made for you. Walking it will change your life and should change the earth.
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