Advent 7

The Second Sunday of Advent, December 7, 2008

Isaiah 5:1-7 

Now listen while I tell you what I will do to my vineyard:  I will take away its fences and let it be burnt…it shall be neither pruned nor hoed, but shall grow thorns and briars.  

There are three voices in these verses.  First an observer sings of the gardener and of his loving planting of a vineyard.  Then the gardener himself exclaims in anger and disgust at the garden, so lovingly prepared, not yielding good grapes.  In verse 7 a teacher, perhaps Isaiah, perhaps the observer, explains that the story is a metaphor; the gardener is Yahweh and the vineyard, unprofitable and unproductive, is Israel. 

It appears to be a tale of doom, telling us that the garden will be destroyed.  But look closely.  Do you see with what care the gardener tended his vineyard?  Do you see the weeks and months of long days spent removing rocks from the soil?  Do you see the sweat running down the gardener’s face, see him wiping his brow with his sleeve?  Do you see the smile as the gardener looks at the smooth, rock-free earth and the trenches dug and ready to receive the vines?  This gardener loves his vineyard. 

In the August 28, 2008 Forward Day by Day meditation, the writer says one must do more than listen to words.  In our search for truth we must look at the character of the speaker.  “Never mind what they say—look at who they are.  Whose glory do these leaders seek?”  

If we look at the gardener, look at his character, we can be at peace.  Israel will suffer for its disobedience, will be overrun by foreigners, will have its cities ruined, and will have its people taken as slaves; but it will not be destroyed.  It is not the nature of the Creator to destroy what He has so lovingly made. 

We who seek the Christ child have been grafted into the vine.  The gardener will not abandon us, either.  We are right to look, yet again, for His coming.  It is His very nature to come to what He so lovingly planted.