Look! God Is Creating Something New

First Reading

A READING FROM THE BOOK OF ISAIAH

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

ISAIAH 65:17-25

Sermon: The Rev. Dr. Maryann Amor

Most of us have probably seen The Jetsons. The show originally aired in 1962 and presents a vision of what the creators thought life would be like 100 years later, in 2062: people flying through the sky in cars, robot maids tending to every whim, computers and machines running daily life.

For many of us who watched The Jetsons as children, we may have thought, “Wow, wouldn’t it be amazing if that were real? I wonder what life will be like in the future.” Who could have guessed that so much of it would actually come true? Things like video calls, smart watches, robot vacuums — in many ways, the world that once seemed so far-fetched now looks so familiar.

What The Jetsons — and other shows like Star Trek — did when they first aired was open people’s imaginations. They helped people to dream, to look toward the future and think about what it could be like.

But how often do we do that today? How often do you think about life 50 years from now, or even 20, or 10?

When I think of the future, I have to admit, it doesn’t feel very exciting. It doesn’t look anything like the shiny, happy world of The Jetsons. Instead, the future seems bleak: climate change burning up our planet, the cost of everything rising so high it feels impossible to afford even the basics, technology that makes us lazy and takes away our jobs.

With the way things are right now, imagining the future doesn’t often bring up positive images. So, most of us probably avoid it.

Undoubtedly, this was true for Israel at many points in its history. The people were regularly oppressed, conquered by larger, more powerful empires that took so much from them — especially during times like the Babylonian exile. They were taxed heavily, their lands taken, their labor exploited. Life was hard. Many of them probably felt so mired in struggle that they stopped thinking about the future: “Why bother? If the world is terrible now, why would it be any different later?”

Into this reality, the prophet Isaiah speaks. He presents the people with a utopian vision of the future — one that is beautiful, amazing, almost unbelievable in its hope. He describes God creating a new heaven and a new earth, a completely new world order where infant mortality ends, everyone lives to an old age, and the houses and vineyards people build are theirs to enjoy… no one invades and takes it all away. People no longer labor in vain; everything and everyone is blessed.

Then comes the powerful image of peace between enemies: “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent — its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”

Whether the people of Israel truly believed this would happen, we don’t know. Maybe they thought it sounded too good to be true, especially while they were stuck in exile, having lost so much.

In a way, Isaiah’s vision calls us to be like the Israelites — to imagine, even in our own difficult and sometimes exiled-feeling world, that what Isaiah describes could really happen. We are invited, we are called, to trust that even when the world looks nothing like what Isaiah describes, one day his vision will become reality.

And yes, to do this is difficult. We all know how hard it is to keep believing when nothing seems to change. The history of our faith is generation after generation of people, waiting, wondering if God’s promises will ever come true. And today, we, like countless people before us, are called to continue waiting for the day when God’s kingdom of peace and justice finally breaks through.

And to do this requires that our eyes remain open, even now, to signs of where God is starting the work. As we heard this morning, in most English translations of Isaiah, God says, “I am about to create a new heaven and a new earth.” But in the original Hebrew, God’s words are slightly different — God says, “Look! Behold! I am creating a new heaven and a new earth.”

In the original text, God is not saying, “I will create,” as in some distant future — but “I am creating.” God is doing it now, right in the middle of exile, right in the middle of our broken world. God said to the Israelites, and God is saying to us, “Look around you. See what I am already doing. The new creation has begun.” God is inviting us to recognise that while, yes, the complete vision isn’t yet realised, the seeds of it are already being planted… right now, in the many good things we do have in our lives, in acts of generosity, in the courage of those who care for others, in a communities coming together to help each other, in moments of forgiveness that restore. These are glimpses of God’s new heaven and new earth already taking root among us.

As we come closer to Advent, our readings keep pointing us to see God’s new creation, now found in the baby in the manger — the one who brings light into darkness, hope into despair, and renews the promise of a new heaven and a new earth.

So, for you, right now, what is your vision for the future? Do you have one? Or have you stopped looking too far ahead because it feels overwhelming — less bright and happy than the world of The Jetsons? Is the news, the chaos, the exhaustion of the world too heavy to leave space for dreaming? As hard as it is, let us be people who have the courage to imagine, to dream, and to believe… that even now, despite all that is going on around us, God is saying to us: “Look! Behold! I am creating something new.” Amen.