Day Twelve
Rev. Scott Alan Johnson
Pastor
St. Petri Lutheran Church
Story City, Iowa
Psalm 21
Isaiah 24.1-16a
1 Thessalonians 4.1-12
There might be nothing lonelier than a Nebraska cornfield in December.
My father farms our family land in northeastern Nebraska, the same land his grandfather farmed almost 100 years ago. One December day, when we were trying to get more "natural fertilizer" spread before the ground froze, the tractor we'd been using broke down late in the afternoon and we had to leave it out there overnight. The next day Dad sent me out to drive it back to the farm so we could fix it.
It was the first really cold day of the winter - wind howling out of the northwest. It didn't feel so bad as I walked out of our acreage into the field, but once I'd cleared the windbreak and got out into the open land there was nothing to stop that wind: even my coat offered little protection. Teeth chattering, I climbed the hill toward the tractor. Once I got there, I stopped to look around. It was eerie: I was less than a mile from our farmhouse, but in that moment all I could see was the remnants of the corn harvest and all I could hear was the wind. It was late morning in broad daylight, but I had a moment of feeling utterly alone all the same.
I could imagine the folks who first broke that ground for farming, doing so without electricity or protection beyond the shacks they'd raised with their own hands, the desperation they had to feel knowing that winter was coming on. If you've read Ole Rolvaag's Giants In The Earth you know some of that despair that comes with winter on the Great Plains.
That's the imagery I get reading these apocalyptic words from Isaiah 24, only it had to be worse because at least on our Nebraska farm we believed we'd done our work well and the fallow season was entirely expected. For the people of Israel, to whom Isaiah prophesied, the withering of the earth was not expected. Their pain and anguish were perhaps more like the aftermath of a tornado strike or a typhoon - or perhaps like that of the Dust Bowl, those awful years when reckless over-cultivation and an exquisitely ill-timed drought combined to bring about a plague of dust, death and destruction.1
There is no word of hope from Isaiah in this text today. None can stand before the power and majesty of God. We will be exposed, surrounded by a world devoured and laid to waste. But in the very next chapter Isaiah does come with a word of hope: "On this mountain The Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines...and he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples...he will swallow up death forever." The Lord who lays to waste is The Lord who prepares the feast. Blessed be the name of The Lord.
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God your power and majesty are greater than we can fathom. Before you we stand exposed and alone, and we find welcome and solace only in your grace and mercy. In this winter season, as we look to the coming of your Son, be gentle with us. For we are afraid, and the wind is cold. Surround us with your warmth and love. Amen.
1 For more about the Dust Bowl, I highly recommend The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
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