Thus says the Lord God, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. Isaiah 65: 17-19

Can we really and truly believe that God is creating a new world that will be a delight? The present world that we live in makes it difficult to believe in this promise. For most of us, this promise of faith is hard to hear. It is too fearsome and wondrous to entertain. And because it is too fearsome and wondrous to entertain truly, we often come to our life in the world with a blindfold on the eyes of our faith. We don't dare to look at the possibility of God's promise, so we close it off. We also close off everything that may cultivate and grow this new reality. Dag Hammerskjold put it this way:

To listen--in faith--to find one's way and have the feeling that, under God, one is really finding it again. This is like playing blindman's bluff: deprived of sight, I have, in compensation, to sharpen all my other senses, to grope my way and recognize myself as I pass my fingers over the faces of my friends, and thus find what was mine already and had been there all the time. What I would have known all the time was there, had I not blindfolded myself. (emphasis added)

What if the new heavens and the new earth was really here all along? What if we have just put blindfolds on our eyes of faith and live if this could never be so? Does our cynicism and mistrust of human nature become a blindfold? Is our fear of loss or death a blindfold? Does the spectre of illness keep us from seeing the love and grace that surround us each and every day--that indeed is our way to healing? Is our depression about the way our life is going keep us from seeing that new creation abounds in our life? Time to take off the blindfold and see the glory of God. Sometimes it takes a John the Baptist or a Mary--a friend of faith in our lives right now--to make us see that God is truly making all things new--right before our very eyes. Listen to the Advent stories--listen to the Christmas story--each story is about God's new creation firmly ensconced and growing in the world of darkness and sin. The glory of God in the dark manger in Bethlehem. Take off that blindfold and see.

Text: Isaiah 65: 17-25

Pondering: What might be your blindfold that keeps you from seeing and then embracing the glory of God? What new creation in your life has happened? What friend of faith--your Mary of John the Baptist--has given your a way to begin to touch the blindfold's knot? This Christmastide, maybe it's time to untie the blindfold and see.

In Christ's Love,