The Joy of the Prophet Isaiah

Very recently I felt downcast and abandoned, lost in thought with little hope for the future. As a recent college graduate, fears of unemployment, loss of identity and loss of youth have been pervading my days and causing a dryness of spirit that has brought me to a despairing state of mind. And all of this in the wake of Easter Sunday and for the recent following weeks.

As a practicing Catholic who has tried to keep an active prayer life and heed the advice of the saints, to always hope in the Lord, I believe this melancholic attitude, though frequent, should not have such a strong hold on my spirit. In being sad, I have felt the compulsion to despair even further. “A person this ungrateful with the heavenly gifts received is no better than the tree that will eventually be uprooted for lack of mature fruit” I often wake up thinking (cf. Luke 13:9, John 15:2). I do not mean to sound self-pitying. Rather, I am trying to express the common despair of the Christian who has lost his way for lack of trying and what I do believe is the case, lack of trust. Trust that God knows and loves me, and that he knows and loves the world, even with its chaotic mess and violence.

My place in the world is a privileged one. I live in a safe neighborhood in the north eastern United States with loving and supportive parents and siblings. I have a home parish and a Eucharistic adoration chapel within driving distance. I have friends who are not too far off, and supermarkets and water aplenty. Yet, I remain largely self-absorbed in a certain and specific loneliness. The loneliness I believe is a result of doing little with the gifts I have received and as consequence, a self-imposed isolation that has kept me down and depressed, feeling hopeless under the weight of headlines describing terror, war and inequality among so many of the world. And in all of this, I relate it back to myself – a white, privileged and healthy man of twenty six who has never wanted for anything in his life. Sure there have been struggles like any human being, but mine have been few and far in-between to call true suffering.

But throughout my short life, I have come to realize that I am nothing and will remain nothing without the Lord and his mercy. I have been blessed to have received undergraduate and graduate degrees in theology and religious studies and fortunately have recognized the miracle of this kind of education. But even so, the more I entrap myself in my head and in my lack of “accomplishment” in all that I have and have been given by God, I grow increasingly distraught by the lack of contributing more to the kingdom of God and to my brothers and sisters throughout the world. Again, the “me” train comes back full circle and runs me over. How often I cannot stand to entertain yet still pay attention to the this constant noise.

Yet in this the year of mercy, there is something that has recently exploded directly in front of me and has blossomed into a fountain of unending hope that was, has, and now as I have been graced to see, will always be there. The other night I was complaining to my mother of increasingly hostile and violent nightmares that have been occurring for many months now. On top of my growing lack of esteem it has brought me to new lows of harm and delirium. Yet this night I was given a grace in the form of a dream, or at least what I believe was a grace. Now it is well known in wisdom literature that we are not to trust in dreams nor put our hope in them (Sirach 34:1-7). In consequence, I will in no way state that this dream was a message from God or a vision or anything of that nature. But whatever it was, it allowed me to wake up with joy and something new in my heart.

In the dream I was a “scribe” inside of the prophet Isaiah's synagogue. I do not believe Isaiah had a scribe or scribes and he certainly did not have his own synagogue, so immediately we can note the absurdity of this dream. But what he was saying were words right out of the book of consolation of the prophet Isaiah. He was practically yelling, “Comfort! Give comfort to my people Israel!” (Isaiah 40:1). And as he was saying this, his face was literally shining with the most amazing glow. He then began to preach, “The Lord has freed us from our sins! Write this down, 'our captivity is at an end, he has redeemed us! We have been redeemed!'” He was practically shouting this at us (I was amongst other scribes) and was running all around. And as he was speaking I felt my heart burning with the most incredible joy, literally how I would imagine the disciples feeling after Jesus left their midst (Luke 24:32). I cannot describe how his words were hitting me. He began speaking of the joy of creation, “Let the mountains shout for joy! Shout for joy, you heavens, for Yahweh has been at work!” (Isaiah 44:23). And suddenly (in the dream) the unending joy of Christ hit my brain. I realized the weight of everything he was telling us, that the Christ would come to redeem Israel, that he was going to save us from our sins and redeem us in the sight of the Father. And so much greater was the joy when this realization hit. It was like an unending swelling. And such was Isaiah's joy as he was speaking, it felt as though he could barely find and speak the words.

As we are well aware, once we awake from our dreams they quickly vanish from our memories unless particularly vivid. I believe the last thing he was telling us was of the great love of God for Israel, and how his love was unending and would be forever and ever and ever. “His love for us will endure forever! He has sent us a savior who will be with us forever! Yes, the love of God is forever!” These words were like a blazing fire, literally like a two-edged sword, the way he was speaking them (Isaiah 49:2, Hebrews 4:12). They were cutting our hearts open and setting them on fire. This may sound incredibly over-dramatic, but I awoke in a great sweat and with flowing tears of joy. It was the first positive dream I had had in months, maybe years, and I felt loved and hopeful.

And this is where I would like to conclude this short reflection. For so long I have done my best to hope in God and trust that his will be done. Especially in this year of mercy as declared by the pope. But the more I focused on myself and my own lack of goodness, I began to lose the joy of my faith and the true hope that has come with the death and resurrection of Jesus. This dream, though largely absurd and bizarre, sparked a renewed excitement, even a new love and remembrance of all that God has done for us and it gave me a deeper peak at who he really is for us. I awoke bursting with verses of scripture pouring from my head – that God loves the world, that he loves us, and that he loves us enough to send us his Son to redeem us from our sins (John 3:16-17). He has come to give us joy and to give it abundantly (John 15:11). The promises he made to our ancestors and through the prophets is a living, breathing, unending promise of joy, renewal, hope and forgiveness. In all my my wretchedness and sinfulness, in all that I have done and failed to do, I too have been given a burning hope that God still loves me.

I had largely forgotten the beauty of the words of the prophets. Though often troubling and telling of calamities to come, the book of consolation in Isaiah is brimming with the living words of God. Since this dream I have been reading the book of Isaiah and am finding within every chapter words of true hope and joy. “How beautiful on the mountains, are the feet of the one who brings good news, who heralds peace, brings happiness, proclaims salvation, and tells Zion, 'Your God is king!' (Isaiah 52:7)”. Truly I had forgotten the promises of God. This word is a word that we often forget and discard, because they are hard to keep and we are constantly dismayed when ours are broken and laid waste. We can become cynical and broken when our promises are broken. But then we have this miraculous hope, the incredible and ineffable joy that is the reality of the living God. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways – it is Yahweh who speaks. Yes, the heavens are as high above the earth as my ways are above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). God has made us his promise. His ways are everlasting – they are not human and therefore they are not liable to error. As Christians and Jews of faith we know this to be true. But even so, how often do we forget this? How often do we allow our weaknesses to persuade us that even with God it cannot be so?

This is but a brief look at so much of what I have lost over the years as a result of my sinfulness and pessimism. I have for so long allowed my ways to get in the ways of God's revelation to us in the words of scripture. They are everlasting and are always there, we just need to pick up the bible and trust in those words, written thousands of years ago for all peoples of all ages of all places of all times. “Yes, as the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to provide seed for the sower and bread for the eating, so the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do” (Isaiah 55:10-11). The Father has sent out his Son, and this Son, Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, has accomplished everything that was written and is still alive and with us (Matthew 28:20, Luke 24:44-45). He has all power and has an everlasting love (Matthew 28:18). These are all things I profess I believe and are all things that have been told to me over the years by priests, parents and teachers. But often they are not unbreakable promises to me.

Yet true faith knows that the words and ways of God are truly eternal (Matthew 24:35). It is their very nature, as God is eternal. I need to ask, 'how should this influence my day? How does it influence my life?' First and foremost, this reality is a reality of true and unending joy. If I profess myself to be a Christian, forgetting this reality is to forget what I have been given. I am ashamed to admit that I have put and often continue to put my ways and thoughts in front of God's ways and thoughts. The prophets of old speak of the same joys and love that we as redeemed people now live with. It has all been written from of old. How sad it is to forget what the reality of God entails for life on earth. And to think that I have considered leaving this world, burdened by my own little sorrows and despairs. But in the face of the divine reality, how could it possibly be considered?

This little dream, though just a dream and nothing more, has been a strong reminder to me that God still loves me and that his promise has been made to me, a human being, in all my weakness and stubbornness. I too, a white male in northern New Jersey have been given the hope that Isaiah prophesied from ages ago. I am not writing this to shame myself nor anyone else, but to remind whoever might read this that you too have been given the same promise of God. That he loves you and is telling you today and every day that he has made a promise that is eternal (Isaiah 55:4-5). A promise of love, redemption and salvation. I implore you not to forget this and not to dwell on your failings and miseries. “Happy is he who trusts in the Lord” (Proverbs 16:20). Trust in the Lord's unending love for you and in the burning joy he desires you to have. In this brief reflection I strongly recommend reading the prophets again and finding all of their promises lived out in Christ Jesus in the gospels and in your own life today. I feel a great joy today, knowing that my God is my Lord and my Savior. That he is my friend and my hope. He is everything and more.