Isaiah 65:17-25 Commentary

Heaven is a Place on Earth

A lot of ink has been spilled in scholarly spaces debating the nature of the New Jerusalem that Isaiah celebrates here in this passage.  Some say the New Jerusalem will be an eternal heavenly reality after this earth is destroyed, first by human hands until, finally, (as though mercifully) put out of its misery by God’s judging fire.

Others argue that this earth and this moment are all we have so we are responsible to build as close an approximation of that Heavenly Jerusalem here on earth in our neighborhoods, communities and nations as we can.  Whereas the former can promote a kind-of other worldly spirituality that dismisses this world as a place we’re just “a-traveling through” on our way to “pie in the sky, by and by,” the latter option can promote a kind of Triumphalism.  If we are responsible to make this world the way God wants it, then any means can be justified by the end that we are pursuing both God’s glory and God’s will.

In response to those who have invested their lives, ministries and churches to one of these two options, a third option has emerged, which is to avoid the topic of the Kingdom of God.  Too fraught. Too contentious.  Too far away.  Let’s just worry about the piety of our own lives and reaching others with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  As D.L. Moody once famously wrote, “I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a lifeboat and said, ‘Moody, save all you can.’” While there is merit to this approach, it has also failed to disciple people with a sense that God’s future does not only involve souls. It involves bodies and creation, it involves culture and cultivation. It involves goodness “far as the curse is found” and restoration for the whole world that God so loves.

This text, in concert with Isaiah 66:22 give us a fourth possibility, which is also my favorite version.  What God intends to restore through a refining fire (note the difference between that and an all-consuming fire) is this world. A world we are invited to imagine along with Isaiah. A world which, according to The CEB Study Bible Commentary, is “free of invasion, violence, and suffering, where contentment and security reign, where life is long, work yields prosperity, descendants are born and God hears prayers.”

The language of Isaiah 65 is evocative and intends to draw us into Isaiah’s vision for the world renewed and restored but also inviting us into our own dreams for and participation in the kind of justice, beauty, goodness and joyful work that will characterize all of life one day.  We don’t make this world appear through our actions.  Only Christ can usher in God’s Kingdom.  But, likewise, we can’t ignore, diminish or trash this world as though it doesn’t matter at all to God its Creator, Sustainer and, one day, Restorer.

In Collaboration with the Other Lectionary Texts

Psalm 98 is a joyful hymn of celebration and thanksgiving to God.  This picks up the theme of God who continues to sustain the world. Luke 21 reminds us that we will need to hold fast through turbulent times, that our lives and our world are not a matter of steady progress up and to the right.  But that, in the end, our God is coming to make all things new (which is a different promise than making all new things.)

In the meantime, we are to diligently plug away at the work we have been given, neither triumphalist or quietistic but, like the widow’s mite, generous even with our meager contribution. We feed the hungry, disciple our children in the faith, create beauty, advocate for just policy, protect our neighbors and all of this simply in the delightful hope that what we do matters to God in this life and also, quite possibly, in the next.  The 2 Thessalonians exhortation to diligent labor holds a wonderful resonance with the promise of Isaiah 65:22-23. “They won’t build for others to live in, nor plant for others to eat. Like the days of a tree will be days of my people; my chosen will make full use of their handiwork. They won’t labor in vain…”

This brings to mind a recent and poignant heart song that we have sung with great tenderness and conviction in my current church and in the congregation I was blessed to serve in Washington, D.C. I commend it to you as it lifts up some of the image of this passage directly: Your Labor Is Not in Vain.

Worship Idea:

If verse 25 sounds familiar, that’s because it is meant to. Reaching all the way back to the barred gates of the Garden of Eden, when God curses the serpent to eating dust.  More poignantly, Robert Alter suggests that a later editor may have reprieved themes from Isaiah 11:6-9 by placing this image here in verse 25. “The wolf and the lamb shall graze as one.” Likely because it is such an evocative image “to round out his own picture of an ideal age.”

This may be a wonderful week to invite some imagination in terms of our visions of an ideal age.  What is it that we long for in the coming Kingdom of God?  We invite this kind of imagination regularly in our Children’s Ministries as we ask “I wonder…” questions.  Unfortunately, adults have been taught to believe that we are meant to grow out of our imagination and wonder. But perhaps we could invite a child to lead us.

Taking verse 25, could you invite members of your congregation to rewrite with new imagery that captures the possible impossibility of God’s beautifully restored world?  For example, a child might contribute:

The bully and the bullied will play together at recess.

The popular kids will invite anyone who needs a seat to eat lunch at their table.

The loner who imagines violence toward himself and others will be disarmed.

They won’t hurt or destroy at any place on my holy mountain.

And a grown-up might learn to imagine the impossible and, in imagining, pray for and perhaps even work toward it.

Palestinians and Israelis will rebuild Gaza.

Unjust politicians will be impeached and

Terrorists will find no quarter.

They won’t hurt or destroy at any place on my holy mountain, says the Lord.

[Note: In addition to our weekly Lectionary-based commentaries we now have a special Year A 2025 section of additional Advent and Christmas resources that we are pleased to provide.   Please check them out!]