The Water that Leads Home - Isaiah 35:1-10 / Philippians 3:13-21
I think it profoundly true that repentance grows fundamentally into homesickness. The a-ha about this world as it now is finally sinks in and we realize that it is not our final home. Good thing. Because this world shares the fate of all the homes in this world. They are always vanishing away. The people who make them the homes all grow up, move away, grow old, die, and are buried. And with their passing, the home passes. Doesn’t matter how great and wonderful your home is now – or how horrible and sad – either way it’s not going to last.. It is a sad truism that here we have no lasting city, no lasting homeland.
How well did the people of Israel in their exile experience this home-sickness. They would ache for the city and land they were destined to lose. But Isaiah foretold a wondrous day that would come. He saw a miracle unfold before his very eyes.
The desert blossomed and came alive with the sound of singing. The scared with knocking knees suddenly straighten up and their hearts fill with joy. God is coming! And when He comes, He comes to save. He comes to rescue His afflicted people. Joy overflowing!
Blind eyes see! Deaf ears will hear! Lame men are suddenly dancing like deer! And the tongue-tied are suddenly singing a song of joy. Why?
Suddenly in the wasteland there is water, streams in the desert, pools in the burning sand, and along the water runs a way, a highway. It’s a miracle path. Those who walk on it are safe and saved and sweetest of all: are headed home. Home to a home unlike any in this fallen world that is passing away. They’re headed to a home that they will never lose. A home where there are no more good byes. A home from which sorrow and sighing turn tail and run away, leaving everlasting joy and gladness. A home forever.
You will never love the Church as God would have you love her until you see her for what she is: she is the path toward home. She is the path alongside the waters that God causes to spring up in this wilderness, this desert, where all things pass away and fade, where nothing ever seems to last except the long sorrows of sin and death. Suddenly there is something that lasts. A water that refreshes the weary! A path that leads alongside that water, filled with singing, toward a lasting, a permanent home! Yes, the Church is the gift of what lasts given into a world where nothing else does.
As Paul thought of it he could cry out: “Forgetting what lies behind (all the sin, all the sorrow, all the pain and unending grief in this age) and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ.” He warns that many who bear the name of Christ, fail to do this. Instead, they walk as enemies of His cross with their god being their belly and their focus being simply on the things of this world, this age. That is just the way of destruction, he says. But our citizenship – our true homeland – is in heaven, and from it we await the Savior, our Lord Jesus, who will come in glory as He once came in humility. Only this time it won’t be to bear and fight and die. It will be crowned with glory like the sun that lights the morning sky. It will be to make US shine like that sun. To literally transform our bodies like His glorious body – the body that was on the cross and experienced the worst that death can do – and yet now is already raised in glory, forever beyond the power of corruption. As I like to say: unfallapartable ever again! And that’s how He will make our bodies too – as He brings us into the true home, the Zion, He has prepared for us as His sisters, His brothers, His family. Home to the Father.
He came into this world as that little baby to find His lost family and bring them out of the ruins of this world into His unending realm. He would one day be called the Carpenter, for He would build for His own a home they would never lose. “I go to prepare a place for you.” From manger to cross to empty tomb, He was at work laying the path and constructing the palace.
And how is all of this ours? He gave it to us in the water. In Holy Baptism, which is not just plain water, but the water included in God’s command and combined with God’s Word. This is the water that breaks out in the desert and that flows all along the side of the way that leads towards our true and final home. It’s miracle water. It gives those who pass through it, trusting His promise, a new birth, a new life, a new family, a new home.
Because of your Baptism into Christ, you know that all of that is yours. You live in this world as one who is one the way to your true home. And that changes how you live. Picture the difference between the poor wanderer whose home has been destroyed, whose family has been enslaved, whose country captured, who doesn’t even have a hope of home anymore. Compare the journey of such a one to the man who knows that his home is standing and safe, whose family is eagerly awaiting his arrival, and whose country is victorious and ever shall be, and who through the growing gloom can glimpse up ahead the lights of home. While the first is bowed down in fear and grief and uncertainty; the second is standing tall and striding forward with peace and joy and the calm of certainty, singing as he goes! Home beckons!
Baptism into Christ gives you the gift of being the second man – the man whose every step brings him closer to home. For by your Baptism into Christ He has given you forgiveness for all your sin, rescued you from death and from the power of the devil, and given you and all who believe the gift of eternal salvation – the promise of living with Him in His home, made beloved children with Him of His heavenly Father by the working of His Spirit. You were washed! You were sanctified! You were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. To this blessed Trinity be all the glory, now and forever! Amen.
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