Where Once There Were Thorns: Ashley Palmer
Over and over I find myself returning to Isaiah 40-66 (and the Book of Isaiah as a whole, but especially this part). The bold proclamations of salvation for a people who very much do not deserve it, the imagery of nature and a highway in the wilderness for a broken people to at last return home, the prophecies that Jesus will come to fulfill many years later—I feast on those words, my breath catching with awe at God’s might and love. During my month this summer as a Wesley Intern, I sat in the prayer room at the back of the chapel, opening the spine-broken red-covered Bible to the passages that the previous owner must have loved too, because a few were highlighted. Stained glass before me, casting color on the pages. The cross before me, a reminder of the fulfillment of some of these words, a reminder of how much God loves each of His children. I often wept.
I have many favorite sections from these twenty-six chapters. Just one of them is Isaiah 55. Now, I’m a recently-graduated English Literature major, so I’ll have to hold myself back from a full-fledged ten-page poetry analysis and focus in particular on verses 10-13. (Don’t worry, you still get poetry analysis. You’ll always know I’m an English major when I write one of these posts or give a homily. I couldn’t help it even if I wanted to.)
“The rain and snow come down from the heavens
and stay on the ground to water the earth.
They cause the grain to grow,
producing seed for the farmer
and bread for the hungry.
It is the same with my word.
I send it out, and it always produces fruit.
It will accomplish all I want it to,
and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
You will live in joy and peace.
The mountains and hills will burst into song,
and the trees of the field will clap their hands!
Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow.
Where nettles grew, myrtles will sprout up.
These events will bring great honor to the Lord’s name;
they will be an everlasting sign of his power and love.”
Isaiah 55:10-13 NLT
Over the past year through our study of Genesis at The Wesley, I’ve seen more clearly how God speaks specifically through the lens of farming (the basic occupation of human beings up until the past hundred years or so), how his Creation provides literal food for our bodies. The passage takes that knowledge for granted, even though we modern people rarely know the pleasure of eating directly from a garden. While the mission team was in Ethiopia, we had a bumper crop of strawberries here in Ruston in The Wesley’s garden and only a few people to eat them. Every morning the day’s ripe strawberries, sweet and tart in the perfect combination, were my breakfast, and I was fed by the provision of God.
The second verse of this passage extends the description of God’s provision for our physical bodies through the growth of plants (and the water from heaven that nourishes those plants—the description here of the water cycle always hits me) to God’s provision for our spiritual needs. This section forms an interesting contrast with what Jesus says in the parable of the sower, for whom the scattered seeds don’t always produce fruit. I think the difference is that here, the scattering of seeds isn’t mentioned. Like the farmer, we the people of God are the ones who must sow the seeds in other people, disciples who make disciples. God provides the water from Heaven. Water that quenches, water that floods, water that is one of the most powerful forces on earth. Water that we’ll wither and die without in three days.
God’s Word always produces fruit. Just as clean, pure water always quenches thirst. It’s a natural and intrinsic aspect of the Word. We can fumble or fail in our delivery of it, but it is unrelentingly good.
As much as I always want my delivery of the Word to be as perfect as possible, that assurance is a comfort. For much of my life I’ve often held back speaking the Gospel to friends whom I know don’t believe because I’m convinced that it won’t bear fruit, that it won’t be good, that it’ll turn them away from me. But the state of their soil is their responsibility. Scattering seed is mine. And the living water is God’s.
The second half of the four verses is a beautiful praise and an assurance: You will live in joy and peace one day, even though you don’t now, and all of Creation will rejoice around you. The particular images here always remind me of my grandparents’ land in the Ozarks—old hills full of old trees and thorns. Clean air and clear springs of cold water. While my sister Jamie was gone on mission for a month, I went up there without her for the first time. It was bittersweet. My grandparents said I looked lost, just as she had when she’d gone up there without me. And I was, but in my daily prayer I found the rocks peeking out from the field grass and brushed my hand over them and knew that they had been here longer than any human had lived on the earth, and that God was yet more ancient. That He set the mountains in their places, weathered as these now are. I leapt to try to touch the branches of the trees. I cut through the tangled briars with my pawpaw.
Where there were once thorns, cypress trees will grow. In the wild forests of the Ozarks, briars are perhaps the plant you can count on the most to be there. It’s the mark of a cultivated trail when they’re missing, and they always hem in the edges of the trails. They’re these long, thin vines that tangle around themselves and the trees around them, bearing thorns that snag on your clothes and hair and skin. They sprout up every spring and summer. Cypress trees on the other hand—at least the ones over here in North America—can live lifespans that we humans can’t imagine. One cypress in North Carolina is over two thousand years old, weathering all the years since Jesus’s birth and death.
Thorns choke out joy. They are temporary, short-lived, but great and painful barriers. Cypresses put down their roots in the water that comes to the earth from heaven. They are old and beautiful, pointing to their even older and more beautiful Creator.
Metaphorically, these thorns take many forms: distractions, worries, fears. The failures of a fallen world. But one day there will be no more thorns. One day Christ will come again and we will feast on living water and wine and milk with no need for money (verses 1-2 of this chapter because how can you miss out on such cool lines?), and we will live in joy and peace. That’s what God’s Word can do for us. That’s what its fruit is.
Even before all is made right, though, we can cut away the thorns around us and dance with the trees to the song of the mountains. We can live to the best of our ability to bring honor to our God’s Name, as a sign of His power and love.
This passage brings me a lot of comfort and hope. I hope it does you, too. After all, in a world searching for hope, it is this hope that is everlasting.
Ashley Palmer (a recent LA Tech graduate of Computer Science and English) is a blessing to The Wesley. As she continues to live in Ruston, she works as a remote Software Developer for Praeses, LLC in Shreveport. She is also a fantasy novelist currently editing her first novel: Among the Skies. In addition to writing, Ashley enjoys making attractive websites and apps, digital art, reading, and good food. She is kind, knowledgeable, and devoted to her relationship with the Lord. We love her and are thankful to have her in our community!