Oaks of Righteousness

Read Isaiah 61

Imagine being the lowest and least regarded person at your job.  Some will say, “Hey!  I don’t have to imagine that.”

Now imagine that you have been promoted to a senior executive.  Lowest guy in the hierarchy to the top dog just like that.  Most people would think, “I could live with that.”

The prophet Isaiah knew that this was what was in store for God’s people.  They would be totally devastated.  The Babylonians would complete that process, but the Egyptians—sometimes an ally—and the Assyrians had been dismantling all of God’s Chosen People for some time. 

The political landscape of the time was complicated.  It was even more complicated as God’s people moved farther away from the righteousness of God and looked more and more like their pagan neighbors.  The more they blended in with the pagan nations that surrounded them, the more they became entwined in trying to solve their problems without God.

It was a vicious cycle.

This land promised to Abraham and his descendants and delivered to them under the leadership of Joshua would be in ruins.  God’s people would be captured and taken into exile if they had not already fled the area before the conquerors arrived.

The days when God gave victory after victory to his people under Joshua’s leadership had given way to people who desired kings and received them, wanted armies and then fielded them, and who accepted gods made in man’s own image and they embraced them.

Think to the end of the book of Joshua.  The land is conquered and settled.  Joshua’s time is about up, but he issues a challenge to the people.

Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.

 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.  But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his family went down to Egypt.

 “‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out.  When I brought your people out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. But they cried to the Lord for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time.

 “‘I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land.  When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you.  But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand.

 “‘Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho. The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands.  I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow.  So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’

 “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.  But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!  It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled.  And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”

 Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.  If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”

 Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

God’s people knew this story and they knew it well.  Even when they were disobedient, they knew their history and what God had done for them.

They had been disobedient for a long time and God was withdrawing his protection from them.  Remember the words of the Lord that came through Joshua.

If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.

This was happening.  After all the chances that God’s people had been given to repent and return to the Lord, they remained comfortable in their apostacy.  They would receive what they asked for.  They were witnesses against themselves.

If this was your favorite television series, this would be the season ending episode.  Everything is falling apart.  Come back next season.  Isaiah could have left the people hanging, but he didn’t.

For the Lord had not given up on them.  When they would hit the lowest of lows, God offered them hope and a future.

Isaiah had been given a vision of hope by the Spirit of the Lord.  This hope was more than just a chance to go home to a desolate land.  It was more.

It was good news for the poor.

It was healing for the broken hearted.

It was freedom for captives.

It was salvation for his people.

It was beauty instead of ashes.

It was defeat for enemies of God’s people.

It was comfort for those who mourn.

It was gladness replacing grief.

It was songs of praise instead of sorrow.

It was ruins rebuilt.

It was to rule over foreigners who would work the land and care for the livestock.

God’s people would be laborers no more.

Shame and disgrace will end.

Wealth will abound.

They will be priests of the Lord.

Joy will last forever.

The world will see God’s people and say, “They are blessed!”

Jerusalem—the city in ruins—would be adorned as a bride.

She will be clothed with victory and salvation.

The sovereign Lord will save his people and the nations will praise him.

Now that’s something!  God’s people would know the lowest of lows and then be restored beyond their dreams. 

It’s not like when we send our kids to their rooms because they have acted out.  After a while—long or short—we say, you can come out now and life resumes.

When God says, “You can come out of your room now,” it’s a whole new world.  It is everything made new again.  It is wonderful.  What God has in store for us is full of wonder.

We were never captives in Assyria or Babylon or had to flee oppressors.  We have never seen our homeland devastated.  We were attacked at Pearl Harbor.  We were attacked on 9-11.  But you have to go way back to when the British burned Washington D.C. to get anything close—remotely close—to what God’s Chosen People would know firsthand.

But we know lives that have been given over to poverty, brokenness, captivity, mourning, grief, shame, disgrace, and even some hopelessness.

We have not all been through these things, but most have been through some.  Today, our separation from God’s favor takes the form of addiction, apathy, lives without purpose, self-gratification, and so many other things that pull us away from God.

But whether you were exiled to live as a servant among the pagans or in a self-imposed exile of drugs or disconnection; God never gave up on you.  God may stand back for a time, but he never gives up on you.

God may let you deal with the natural consequences of addiction, foolishness, wickedness, or just insisting on your own way, but he has never stopped loving you.

And when it is time to come home, it’s a big deal.  It is a very big deal.  It is gladness over grief.  It is healing for the broken hearted.  It is praise over sorrow.  It is freedom for the captives.

We have never been held captive in Babylon, but we have been held captive by our foolishness, laziness, apathy, and even ignorance.  But when our eyes were opened to the truth, we knew victory and salvation.

There was one part of a verse that I didn’t say anything about.  Isaiah prophesies:

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord

for the display of his splendor.

You can have bad news and good news and then more bad news again.

You can be captive then free then captive again.

You can have ashes then beauty and then ashes again.

You can have grief then gladness then grief again.

You can have poverty and wealth and poverty again.

But the Lord speaking through Isaiah wanted his people to know that their restoration would last.  Some of this restoration began in the 6^th Century B.C. when the captives began returning from Babylon.  Some comes in the age ahead.

The imagery of Isaiah is of an Oak tree planted by the Lord. 

I bought my Burns Flat house after coming back from Iraq in 1992.  The price of the house and the new car that I had bought were about the same.  My thought was that the house needed a lot of work and that would be more expense.  I didn’t know that the car would too.  I haven’t bought a Ford since, though both of my kids have some.

Enough Ford bashing…

The house that I bought only had one tree.  It was perhaps the ugliest tree that I had seen and it was too close to the foundation.  So, one summer Christopher and I came to Burns Flat from California for about a week.  I planted a few trees around the house.  One of them was an Oak.

It was just over six feet tall when I planted it.  When I checked on it a couple years later, it seemed that it hadn’t grown much.  When we moved into the house in 1999, it still did not seem like it had grown much, but it’s roots were getting deeper and deeper.

Finally, over the past few years, it looks more like the oak trees that I remembered as a child.  Little did I know that the trees that I enjoyed climbing and that shaded parts of the yard when I was young had been around a very long time.

My grandchildren’s children may get to make a tree house in my oak tree.  It takes a while for an oak to become massive, but once it has grown for a few decades, there a few trees like it.  It will be there for many generations.

Isaiah used imagery that the people could understand.  This oak of righteousness would bring glory and honor and splendor to the Lord.

The Lord was doing a mighty thing.  He was taking people who could never be righteous on their own accord and making them right with him.

This would be a lasting thing.  This would be an everlasting righteousness.  This would be more than a trip home from Babylon.  This was an invitation to receive the best gift ever—God with us.

We celebrate Christmas—the Babe in a manger—knowing that it is not a stand-alone story.  Emanuel was there at the beginning and will be with us for all eternity.

We know that God lets people endure the consequences of their decisions, but he never gives up on them.  His desire is for none to perish.

We know that restoration goes beyond what our hearts can conceive.

We know that God came into the world as a baby, not because we as humankind were finally getting our act together, but because we could not.

We know that when our human heart knows only hopelessness, God will give us hope.

We know that no matter how broken our lives become, God heals all wounds.

We know that no matter how much the world seems to be closing in on us, God is the ultimate liberator.

This Christianity that we know, this discipleship that we know, this following Jesus that we tried so hard to get right comes with an eternal reward.

Not something temporary and transient as the world offers.

Not something that corrodes or can be stolen.

Not something that is here today and gone tomorrow.

We, like the mighty oak that thrives for centuries, will be God’s righteousness for ever and ever.  This profession of faith that we have made is no small thing.

Our proclamation that Jesus is Lord are not passing words.

This assurance in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead is not a momentary emotion.

God has claimed us from sin and from death and has made us through the blood of Christ Jesus to be his righteousness for ever and ever.

That’s no small deal.

Remember that it’s not all about you.  It’s all about God, but he did this very special thing for you, for us, forever.  Remember that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it but that through him we might be saved.

God has done a mighty thing.  He has made us right with him for all eternity and doing this mighty thing for us is to his splendor, and honor, and glory.

Amen.