Have you ever experienced the desert? Real desert, where the sun beats down on your head and glares back up in your eyes as it bounces off the burning sand? For those of us who have always lived in a land of bush and beach, it can be challenging to “get” what life in the desert really is—to feel its arid, scorched, tongue-sticking-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth reality. Yet, as our world groans under the weight of human misuse, the reality of the desert creeps closer into our consciousness—reminding us that this world is not as it should be…but we can still too easily push it aside.
This was not so for the Israelites, though. Between their geography and their memories of a forty-year wandering, the desert was an integral part of their story. The desert also had a deeper meaning. The Israelites knew their beginning, they knew that they were not made for a desert. They were created for life in a garden—a garden planted by the hand of God, designed as a sanctuary where he would dwell with his people.
So why did they end up in a desert? Very simply, because they said “No, we don’t want you!” to the Water of Life himself. And ever since, all of humanity has been stuck in a kind of desert—with scorched souls and arid hearts, digging our own wells and wondering why they always run dry.
It’s only with this background in mind that we are ready to come to our Old Testament reading today. Here we see something indescribable: a desert turning back on itself, becoming a garden again. A place of death bursting into life. A place of violence becomes a home of healing.
How? How is this possible? The answer is in verse four: “Your God will come…he will come to save you.” Remember, the desert was the place that practically proclaimed “We choose life without God!” And yet, here, in this very desert God himself comes. And wherever the author of life goes, life will always follow.
Reflection by Laura on Isaiah 35:1-10