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Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13
“The Earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.” “The Earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.” That is a very rich metaphor. Though I had read this passage at least once every Christmas season for who knows how many years and on many other occasions, the first time I never really heard it, noticed it was there, was well over fifteen years ago while listening to a New Testament scholar named N.T. Wright talk about our future hope as Christians, a future where everything is filled with the knowledge of God. I have pondered this very profound metaphor ever since.
N.T Wright is very keen to point out that the future reality that the Bible points us forward to is not our disembodied souls going to heaven when we die and staying there. Yes, we will spend a little time after death without our bodies with Christ in a place Jesus called Paradise. But, that is not our ultimate goal. Rather, what we are headed for is Resurrection to live in Creation made new. This wonderfully awesome and beautiful Creation that God created, blessed, and called very good will be healed and freed of Sin and Death and Evil and as Isaiah says…wait for it…wait for it…, it will be full of the knowledge or better yet the knowing of who God is and what God’s nature is like, full of the unveiled presence and glory of God just as the waters cover the sea. The goal of our existence is as Wright says, “God is going to do for the whole Creation what he did for Jesus on Easter morning.” Resurrection into a New Creation, this is our hope in Christ. This is what God is up to and pointing forward to that is what we the church are about.
Isaiah’s prophesy here, like all of the biblical prophesies which look forward to the Day of Creation’s deliverance and restoration is symbol rich, metaphor rich. We need to “crack the code” on the meaning of the symbols and yet be careful to not get too specific or literal with them by trying to peg them down to specific dates and so forth. They are meant to provoke “hopeful imagination”, to make us want to see God’s promise fulfilled, to make us “abound in hope”.
The first metaphor or symbol in Isaiah’s prophecy here is that a shoot shall come up out of the stump of the lineage of ancient Israel’s King David, a ruler full of the Holy Spirit, a righteous ruler who will judge fairly on behalf of the weak and oppressed. This metaphor is a pretty obvious one to nail down. This ruler is Jesus. He is the Jewish Messiah who has brought and will bring the Kingdom or Reign of God to earth.
The next metaphor/symbol that Isaiah gives us is of a world that is free of predation, free of those who kill and devour. The nature of relationship in creation will change from predation to Peace/Shalom. The nature of relationship in creation as we know it now due to sin is predatory. The strong devour the weak. Poverty, war, climate change are all the result of the powerful devouring the weak. With this image of a world without predation Isaiah means to cause us to hopefully imagine that the world that Jesus is bringing about will be free of all forms of predation. There will be peace, harmony, Shalom.
Looking at this third image, that of the earth being full of the knowledge of God as waters covering the sea. Well, the symbol of the “sea” in the world of apocalyptic/prophetic imagery often means humanity, the chaotic sea of humanity. Water is the symbol of the source of life. As God is the source of life, I think this image is telling us that the personal, life-giving presence of God is going to be visible among the relationships of humanity. The image of God which was marred by sin will be restored by God resting his presence upon and in us.
So then, what Isaiah wants us to imagine is the coming of the Messiah, full of the Holy Spirit to put things right in God’s creation and the noticeable difference will be that predation will not be at the heart of relationship anymore, but rather in its place will be the personal presence of God. The image of the Trinity – the loving communion of God the Father Son and Holy Spirit – will radiate forth from humanity in our relationships with each other and in our relationship with the Creation as a whole.
Leaping forward in time a few centuries from Isaiah to Paul, this hope-filled image of the image of God restored in humanity undergirds Paul’s understanding of what the church is. To Paul, the Holy Spirit-filled Messiah has come. Jesus is that shoot rising from the stump of Jesse. Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom of God. His death and resurrection is God’s judgement against humanity that kills wickedness. With the breath of his lips, the Holy Spirit, God puts wickedness to death and recreates humanity in his image. The Christ-like, Holy Spirit filled fellowship of Christians, us, is the first fruits of this new predation-free humanity. As far as Paul, the former zealous Pharisee who hated Gentiles, was concerned, the fact that Gentiles and Jews were together in harmony, like-minded in their devotion to Jesus as Lord, worshipping God the Father with one voice is evidence that the day Isaiah held forth has begun. The knowledge of God has begun to fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.
The New Creation, predation-free, Spirit of God-filled humanity that Isaiah put out there for us to “hopefully imagine” is now embodied in Christian fellowship. The Holy Spirit filled life of Christ in which predation is disappearing and the loving communion of God is becoming evident shines forth in Christian community. Christian community, Holy Spirit filled congregations in whom the self-giving, self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ is embodied is living proof that God is faithful, that God gives strength to endure, and that God will deliver his Creation from the futility that pervades it.
I hope you are catching a glimpse with your “hopeful imagination” of what exactly is going on in our midst as a congregation. What Isaiah prophesied with spoken word as a promise, we embody as a visible, felt reality in our fellowship also as the promise of what God will ultimately bring about in Christ. The love of God abides in us and is making us to be the type of people who go and comfort others. The presence of the Lord is with us. Christian acts of support are more than just good deeds. They are living signs of the New Creation coming. Our acts of support are the earth becoming full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. Imagine that. The love shown by each of you is the earth becoming full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. Amen.
