“BLOOM COUNTY: WHAT REDEMPTION LOOKS LIKE”
Rehab Addict
July 24, 2011
Cornerstone Community Church
If you’ve joined us sometime along the way this summer you might be wondering why I call this series “Rehab Addict.” The title comes from a TV show on the DIY Network about a single mom from Minnesota who rehabs old homes. And she’s very particular about how she does it. She doesn’t just rip out old, broken sections of her rehab project and replace it with something brand new. Instead she does her very best to restore the home to what it looked like when it was first built. In her last rehab project she took a home that was built in 1914 and restored it as best she could to how it looked before it had been ravaged by time and by weather and by neglect. So for example, when she needed new cabinets, she didn’t just go online and pick out the latest and greatest cabinets she could afford. Instead, she went down to a shop that collected antique wood, wood that had long before been discarded and tossed out as garbage. She sorted through the junk piles until she found enough of the same kind of wood for her to restore and refinish and reuse as cabinets. In other words, she took what others had viewed as junk and redeemed it and made it into something both useful and beautiful. That’s how she gets the name the “Rehab Addict.”
And it occurred to me as I was reading the Old Testament book of Isaiah that our God is very much like that, that our God is a “rehab addict.” God specializes in redeeming our failures and our mistakes and turning what to us was junk into something useful and beautiful. He takes our weakness and turns it into something wonderful.
In chapter 35, Isaiah paints us a picture of what redemption looks like. Think of it this way. If the TV show “Rehab Addict” was a book, it wouldn’t be all that interesting. I don’t think I would read a book about someone salvaging old wood to rebuild cabinets. Like most of us, I need to see that in order to appreciate it – I need to see the “before” picture, I need to see the process, and I need to see the “after” picture. In Isaiah 35 Isaiah doesn’t just tell us about redemption; he shows us what it looks like. He uses one word picture after another to help us imagine what redemption looks like. Up until now in Isaiah we’ve been seeing a lot of the “before” pictures, images of the destruction that is going to take place because of the people’s sin. But Isaiah 35 is an “after” picture, a picture of what life will look like after God redeems the people and the land he loves.
When God Redeems Us, Our Failures Bloom As Flowers
Isaiah 35 is a fairly short chapter, just 10 verses long. If you have a study Bible you might see a title the translators have given to this chapter; in my Bible it’s titled “Joy of the Redeemed.” The first seven verses of the chapter read like this:
The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.
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, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. (Isaiah 35:1-7)
A few springs ago I bought some beautiful orange flowers to plant in our yard. For some reason I expected them to bloom much longer than they did. After about 10 to 14 days, the blooms fell off and all that remained was a pretty ordinary looking green plant. I tried a few things to get them to bloom again, but nothing worked, so when winter came around I just cut them off, assuming they would die. But the following spring I noticed that these plants were growing again, and I noticed that it looked like they were budding. It took what seemed a very long time, but about 5-6 weeks after the buds first appeared these plants finally bloomed. They’re called orange daylilies, and they have a brilliant orange bloom, but two weeks is about all they bloom before the petals fall off for another year. And while I very much wish they would bloom year round, they are so beautiful that they’re worth having in my yard for those two weeks of the year when they blossom.
That’s something of the image Isaiah paints for us of what redemption looks like – it looks like a flower that finally blossoms: “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.” (Isaiah 35:1-2)
“Say it with flowers,” the saying goes. I often send my Mom flowers on special occasions to let her know that I am thinking about her and that I love her and that I am grateful for her. And pretty much every week in the inbox of my email account I get an ad to suggest some flowers I might want to send to someone special as a way of letting them know that I care. That’s the picture Isaiah paints for us of redemption. Redemption is God saying it with flowers, reminding us that we’re on his mind, that we matter to him, that he hasn’t forgotten us. It’s God letting us know that he can turn our barrenness into beauty. It’s God telling us that he can take that within us that seems dead and he can make it bloom.
If you’ve ever been to Israel you know that much of the land is a desert. Without irrigation, the majority of Israel would be largely barren, as it was in the days of Isaiah. Certain parts of Israel get more rain and are more fertile, such as the Plain of Sharon, which was part of what was known in antiquity as the Fertile Crescent. So here’s the image Isaiah uses to tell the people of Israel what God is going to do for them one day – he’s going to transform the desert and make it as lush and fertile as the Plain of Sharon. In verse 2 Isaiah says, “The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.”
Now the main point of these verses is not to tell the people of Israel that someday there will be flowers in the desert. The response Isaiah is looking for is not for everyone to say, “Oh, how sweet – poppies.” Isaiah has spent the first 34 chapters in large part warning the people of Israel and Judah that because of their sin and their rebellion God is going to use the nations of Assyria and Babylonia to destroy them and to destroy their land. God is going to use their enemies to turn everything they’ve built into ruins. Their crops will be plowed under, their homes destroyed, their lives shattered.
But that will not be the last word, God wants them to know. God is a rehab addict. He intends to redeem their sin and their mistakes and turn their failures into flowers, to turn what was dead and buried into something alive and beautiful. Yes it’s an image, it’s a picture, but it’s a picture of a crucial truth, the truth that in the hands of God our failures are not final.
Bloom County is the name of an old cartoon, one of my favorites. Opus, a penguin, was the star of Bloom County; I still have an Opus stuffed animal in our bathroom. Berkeley Breathed was the creator of Bloom County, and was asked to pick his favorite all-time cartoons; this is one of his favorites and mine:
That’s what Bloom County the cartoon looks like. But if you want to see what Bloom County, redemption-style looks like, what it looks like when God causes our failures to bloom into something as beautiful as your favorite flower, just sit in on our new Cornerstone Recovery group that meets the first Tuesday night of each month. I don’t go to that group because I’m recovering from any particular addiction. I go to hear the real-life stories of people whose lives have been redeemed, to hear how God has taken people who have failed in some significant ways but who have bounced back and who are making a positive impact on their world. And that group is open to anyone who wants to come and listen. You don’t need to have an addiction. They won’t make you stand up and say, “My name is Craig and I eat too many Arby’s sandwiches.” What is said there stays there. But if you want to be inspired and challenged, then come to our next meeting. Come and see the faces of people who are being redeemed by the power of Jesus. Come and see Bloom County, the Cornerstone version.
When God Redeems Us, Our Sickness Blooms As Strength
In verses 3-6 Isaiah gives us another image of what redemption looks like. The first image was of flowers blossoming in a desert. This next image is of sickness that blooms as strength. Look again at verses 5 and 6: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.”
There’s a great redemption story in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel; it’s the story of Zechariah. Zechariah was a priest. He and his wife Elizabeth had tried for many years to have a child but despite their efforts and their prayers were still childless. Then one remarkable day, as Zechariah is in the temple burning incense to the Lord an angel appears to Zechariah and tells him that his very old wife is going to have a baby. The angel tells Zechariah to give the baby the name John, and he explains that John is going to be a very special young man, filled with the Holy Spirit.
And do you remember Zechariah’s reaction? Zechariah says this to the angel: “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” (Luke 1:18) Zechariah blows it. Think about this. This is exactly what Zechariah has been praying for for years. And when God sends an angel to tell him, “OK, I’m giving you a baby,” Zechariah’s response is, “I don’t believe it – prove it.” The angel is none too pleased with Zechariah’s unbelief, and so he takes away Zechariah’s ability to speak and his ability to hear.
Nine months go by, and just as the angel said, Elizabeth gives birth to son. Eight days later they take the boy to be circumcised (good thing they didn’t live in San Francisco), and they asked Elizabeth what they were going to name him. “John,” she said. They protested; there’s no one in the family by that name. So using sign language they asked Zechariah what he wanted to name the boy. He asked for a writing tablet and to everyone’s surprise he wrote, “His name is John.” And then notice the next verse: “Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosened and he began to speak, praising God.” (Luke 1:64) We would say that Zechariah redeemed himself. He made up for his prior lack of faith by giving his son the name the angel said to give him. His obedience to God redeemed his disbelief. And when he did, God rewarded Zechariah by restoring his speech and his hearing. In the words of Isaiah 35, “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.”
When God redeems us, Isaiah says, our sickness will bloom as strength. In verse 3 and 4 Isaiah proclaims, “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 …’” Have you ever had to rehabilitate a part of your body? Ever had surgery or ever had to wear a cast for any length of time? And after the surgery or after you get the cast off, how much strength do you have in that body part? Not much. You had a cast on your arm for a couple of months, and when they cut it off your arm was half the size of your other arm and had almost no strength at all. So what did you do? You rehabbed it. In fact, you may have become something of a “rehab addict.” You started doing some exercises and you went to physical therapy and you worked so hard that in time your weak arm got stronger than ever.
A few years ago my wife had back surgery. The first day after her surgery it was a struggle for her to get out of bed. For those first few days she moved very slowly and very carefully. And for quite a few weeks she had to limit her activity, she had to limit how much she could lift. But if you know my wife you know she can be something of a rehab addict, and when the doctor gave her the OK she devoted herself to strengthening her back. I know she doesn’t look anything like a weight-lifter, but let me assure you that my wife is very strong – scary strong. When I can’t open a jar, I have her open it for me.
And in a way, that – says Isaiah – is what redemption looks like. When God redeems us, our sickness blooms into strength. Our God is able to take those parts of our lives that are broken and sick and weak and to make them strong. Our God is able to heal our blindness and our deafness and our lameness, to restore function to those parts of our lives that we thought would never work again.
Now is Isaiah telling us that God is literally going to heal our bodies? Yes and no. Someday, in the coming age, God is going to literally redeem and restore and renew our bodies. Someday the blind will literally see and the deaf will literally hear and the lame will literally leap for joy. God gave us a taste of that through the work of his Son Jesus, didn’t he? When John the Baptist was tossed in prison and began to have some doubts about who Jesus was, he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he really was the Messiah or not. And Jesus said this: “Go back and report what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” (Matthew 11:4-5) And someday what Jesus did for a handful he will do for all of his followers. Someday the picture of redemption Isaiah paints for us and that Jesus demonstrated for us will be a reality for all.