Publications Isaiah’s Vision
Reflections of a Lay Leader
“See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.” (Isaiah 42:9). “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” (Isaiah 65:17).
In the end, The War came. Darkness covered the earth, and thick darkness the peoples (Isaiah 60:2). Sheol opened wide its gullet and parted its jaws in a measureless gape, and down into it tumbled humankind (Isaiah 5:14). Ravaged by radiation, pestilence, and famine, the world’s population imploded. Towns lay waste without inhabitants and houses without people, and the ground lay waste and desolate (Isaiah 6:11). Technology ceased. No airplane would ever again cleave the skies or car engine split the night or ships carve the seas.
But the surviving, tenth part of humankind repented, and that stump became a holy seed (Isaiah 6:13). The firestorms of war seared violence from the human soul, and the dreadful aftermath of war engrained in humankind a patience unknown in human history. Into plowshares, they beat their swords; and into pruning hooks, their spears. Nation never again lifted up sword against nation, nor did they ever again know war (Isaiah 2:4). They neither harmed nor destroyed on all God’s holy mountain, on all the earth (Isaiah 11:9, 65:25). Government ceased because the need for government ceased.
But civilization did not cease; survivors nurtured art and science until they flourished. As nature reclaimed her own, buildings and highways were razed, until only the most diligent search would reveal human habitation. The great libraries, monuments, and museums were preserved. Nothing else. No dams, no interstates, no asphalt, no concrete. Creation and created existed as one (Isaiah 11:6-9, 65:25).
What once took a year may now take a century because relationship was everywhere and everything. Thus the final puzzles of quantum physics were solved not by massive atom smashers but by the exchange of countless letters and visits, millennia of thought and prayer, and brilliantly simple experiments; and through them silent ships reached the stars. But if a man wished to visit his sister on another coast, he simply bid his farewell at work for a year or two and walked across the country, stopping each night at a neighbor’s house for rest and the fellowship of a meal. And all were neighbors. One traversed the seas in great balloons, silent and slow.
Only local food was eaten, ample for all, and every form of electronic communication was eschewed. Relationship required no less. Visits and letters alone sufficed, letters written on edible paper, spiced with homemade inks, a source of pride to each and a personal recipe never to be revealed. Not a few unread missives succumbed to overzealous children or hungry pets. Travelers provided the only mail service ever needed.
Ubiquitous observance of the ancient faiths wrote God’s law upon the human heart (Jeremiah 31:33). Justice rolled down like waters, and righteousness like an overflowing stream (Amos 5:24). All flesh came to worship before God (Isaiah 66:23). Thus, trusting in the Lord, they renewed their strength; they mounted up with wings like eagles; they ran and were not weary; they walked and did not faint (Isaiah 40:31). God poured out God’s spirit on all flesh. Sons and daughters prophesied; the old dreamed dreams, and the young saw visions (Joel 2:28). Prophets were called before they were born, named in their mother’s womb (Isaiah 49:1).
And healers arose among the people. Few died before 100, and more than a few approached 200 (Isaiah 65:20). Passing through waters, they were not overwhelmed; walking through fire, they were not burned (Isaiah 43:2). No one was wealthy, but everyone was rich.
And thus God appointed them a covenant people – restoring the land, allotting anew the desolate holdings, saying to the prisoners, “Go free,” to those who were in darkness, “Show yourselves.” For the Lord comforted the Lord’s people, and took back the Lord’s afflicted ones in love (Isaiah 49:8-13).
Your brother in Christ,
