The World As God Would Have It.

Isaiah 65: 17-25
Luke 21: 5-19

It was warm fall morning almost 10 years ago. I was working as an accountant for a large corporation in downtown BigCity at the time. It was early in the morning and I was processing my daily cash accounting spreadsheets and listening to the radio. My favorite DJ was reading the news in her usual joking manner but suddenly she stopped, and in a panicked voice she said that a Airline Jet had hit a sky scraper in New York. I stopped working and looked at my radio. Then my phone rang. I picked it up and my Beloved Partner told me that she had just seen on the news a jet plane hitting one of the twin towers in New York. I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say. I tried to get on CNN website on to see if there was news of this tragedy but the website was so overloaded, I could not get on. I changed the radio station to public radio to hear the news of this tragedy. At first I thought it was some bizarre accident, that someone had fallen asleep at air traffic control thus causing the planes to fly amuck. Eventually the towers collapsed.


"As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down." (Luke 21:6)

As the day wore on, the media revealed that terrorists associated with the group Al-Qaeda had hijacked the commercial airline jets planes and had flown them into the towers for the purpose of utter destruction.

“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.” Luke 21: 10b-11

I couldn’t continue working under the distress that I was feeling. Then I heard that a plane had crashed into the pentagon. My panic shifted into high gear because my sister lives by the pentagon. I tried to call her but couldn’t get through because the phone circuits going into Washington DC were also overloaded. I sat and I worried. Eventually my workplace closed and let us go for home for the day.

As I rode the bus home from work noticed that the streets were unusually empty in our normally bustling downtown BigCity. The stores had closed early and many of the offices were empty. The skies were also empty because all planes had been grounded. I realized that my world had changed instantly in the moments that the planes had hit the twin towers. Safety was no longer something that I could take for granted.

I imagine that the Israelite people felt the same shock and life altering pain when their temple fell 70 years after the death of Jesus. The temple of Jerusalem was the worship center of the Jewish community of which Jesus was a part of. “People would[sic] gather in the large colonnades and porches around the Temple Mount for various purposes, including speech making and healing.” (1) They believed that God physically dwelled within the temple in a room which was called the holy of holies. The Jewish folk throughout the Middle East made pilgrimage to the temple on Passover to celebrate the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. This is exactly what Jesus and his disciples were doing in the narrative of this story. His disciples were marveling at the grandeur of the buildings but Jesus tells them that the buildings will be destroyed. The disciples are shocked that Jesus would predict such a thing. This prediction implied that God’s dwelling place would be destroyed and that God would no longer be physically present among the people. They wondered if God was going to abandon them.

Forty years after Jesus made his prediction, the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army. At the time of the destruction, the early Christians were still a part of the Jewish people as a sect of within the religion of Judaism, and so the destruction of the temple was indeed a devastating blow for them. They were at a loss as to where worship God, because God’s dwelling place amongst the people had been torn asunder. This indeed was an uncertain time in the life of the early Christian Community.

What was it like for these early Christians to see their center of worship destroyed and yet have the words of Isaiah 65 ring in their ears, “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.” (Isaiah 65:18) Does this vision of Isaiah imply utter destruction of the present world and creation of a new one? In order to understand where Isaiah was coming from when he wrote his prophesy, we need to know the time and place of the writing of this scripture. It is understood that the last portion of Isaiah chapters 56-66 was written at the time when the Israelite people were returning to their homeland in 520 BCE after being captive in Babylon for over 60 years. They were going about the difficult task of rebuilding their community of faith in a time where people were cynical about their future. There is hardship all around them, their lives are difficult. And yet in the midst of despair the prophet Isaiah is able to testify with confidence that hope that the God who created heaven and earth does not seek to destroy, rather, God seeks to build upon the original creation and transform it into something new.  (2)

This text gives us a radical vision of the world as God would have it, where the living conditions of the new Jerusalem reflect the hope of God’s creation living in right relationship with each other.

“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.” (Isaiah 65:20-22)

As people of faith we are called to testify this vision of radical transformation even in the midst of our most difficult times. Imagine what the world would look like if it were as God would have it. How would such a world spend its resources? How would the common good be embraced when all people had the opportunity to live in the fullness of time? What if we had health care, education, safe neighborhoods, plentiful good water for all and what if we all practiced good environmental stewardship of the earth. (3) Indeed, this is the very future that God has already announced for us as possible now.

How does God call us to take part in the transformation of our world? How is it possible for us to be God’s hands, feet and voice in bringing about the world as God would have it? It happens through following the patterns of justice making and mercy that Jesus taught us through his ministry. By giving one act of mercy we are able to give comfort. By giving one can of food to a local food pantry we are able to give nourishment to someone who is hungry. By giving one challenge to the systemic evil that causes injustice, the continuation of domination are dismantled piece by piece. By welcoming one stranger into this community of faith, the witness of God’s love and grace freely given can change one life. All of these one time acts accumulate to bring about the world as God would have it. (4) May it be so. Amen!

(1) Vernon Robbins, “Luke 21:5-19: Exegetical Perspective.” Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 309.


(2) Mary Eleanor Johns, “Isaiah 65:17-25: Pastoral Perspective.” Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 290.

(3)  Martha Stern, “Isaiah 65:17-25: Homiletical Perspective.” Feasting on the Word. Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary Year C, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 295.

(4)  Isaiah 65:17-25: Pastoral Perspective.” 292.