Photos of Isaiah's Hopeful Imagination 2. God's Long-Term Investment in Life.

It's true. To plant a tree is to trust in the future. A tree is a long term investment in life The prophet Isaiah repeatedly speaks about trees as symbols of hope.

Trees are those slow growing signposts that line the road to Zion. Listen to the applause of creation for the Creator as "the trees of the field clap their hands". Trees that in the long years of arboreal life are to be pictured as signs of God's promise that "as the days of a tree" so shall be the long life of his people.

Isaiah finds so many ways to encourage faith, to restore hope, and to find metaphors for the reality of the incomparable God, who when He moves in justice and mercy creation applauds, dances, and bursts into fruitfulness. 

In the hopeful imagination of Isaiah, God will grow trees of hope in a new landscape in which the wilderness becomes a forest, the desert an orchard, the barren place an olive grove.

This wonderful poem describes hope as the impossible reforestation of the desert.

I will make trees grow in the desert.
    I will plant cedar and acacia trees there.
    I will plant myrtle and olive trees there.
I will make juniper trees grow in the dry and empty desert.
    I will plant fir and cypress trees there.
   Then people will see and know
    that my powerful hand has done it.
They will consider and understand
    that I have created it.
    I am the Holy One of Israel.”

My guess is we don't pay enough attention to trees. Preoccupied by money, anxious about today let alone tomorrow, accustomed to think short term instead of a future oriented hopefulness - no wonder a walk in a wood makes a difference to how we feel inside, and how we look at the world.

This Advent, Christmas trees don't have to be artificial, bauble bedecked stumps cut off too soon. Instead walk the woods with Isaiah, and listen for the applause of creation- consider and understand - God makes all this happen. Immanuel, God with us.

Comments

[Stuart Murdoch]

Hi Jim

Thank you so much for this profound, inspirational arboreal reflection. This touched me so deeply as over recent years I have annually grown, and will continue to grow many trees from seed, Oaks from Acorns, Horse Chestnuts from Chestnuts, Scots Pines from the seeds harvested from Pinecones. Each having their own ways of propagation. Each sapling protected from the carnage and massacre that can be caused by Grey Squirrels is then handed over to a Private Woodland Estate to plant in the memory of Loved Ones who I have journeyed with as a Hospice Chaplain and have died. I watch those trees slowly grow and mature and remember fondly those who I have been called to serve and minister. Thank you once again for sharing your heart and thoughts.