“Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:18-19
If I were a watercolor artist I think I would paint trees. This one in particular (above), standing at the southeast edge of the Town Common, close to where Saint David Street bumps into Wilson, has all the bells and whistles.
The umbrella shape, boughs and branches that curve in a series of lyrical undulations, hundreds of shades of green against a backdrop featuring more trees, the great swath of grass and Park Avenue behind.
Even uncultivated, weedy areas such as the back yard of our home bloom enthusiastically in the springtime. It is as if the imperative of new life joins in with the Easter message to take a stand in favor of promise and possibility.
It’s happening all over, “Do you not perceive it?” the prophet Isaiah asks. “See, I am doing a new thing!”
And this is the message of Easter. Resurrection as not merely a reversal of death (like the Lazarus situation or the daughter of Jairus) but completely new life. This is a favorite idea of mine and it is worth repeating again and again. All Lazarus got was his old life back, but what God offers us is something completely new, something we could not have imagined, something transcendent.
The Easter promise is about something brand new.
Whatever is going on in our lives, God is not interested in reiteration or reassembly… but reimagination and reinvention.
When that gorgeous tree on the Town Common shed its leaves last fall I guess we could have gathered them up – dead and browning – saved them until the springtime, and then glued them back on. Imagine how false and grotesque and pitifully inadequate that would look!
But no, God is in the creation business and new life bursts forth in extravagance and grace.
So I will say it again. Whatever is going on in our lives… God is interested in extravagance and grace.
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
What is even better is that God wants to do this new thing together – DEREK