Expect the unexpected.

Last Advent provided a watershed experience for me such that I now read the messianic prophecies of Isaiah differently--without the disappointment I previously experienced because of the glacially slow growth, if any, of the kingdom of God over the past 20 centuries since Christ inaugurated the messianic kingdom. The reason for my newfound comfort is that I no longer read the prophecies of Isaiah as literally as I used to. This was my mistake and the mistake, I believe, of the church in general with regard to these messianic texts.

I don't mean to be critical, because a literal interpretation is an inherent temptation built into the texts themselves. During Advent the church reads Isaiah's messianic prophecies at Mass and then reads a gospel passage that fulfills the prophecy. The fulfillment texts generally stick pretty close to a literal reading of the prophetic texts. For example: "And out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see" (Isa. 29:18) and "`because of your faith it shall be done to you,' and they recovered their sight" (Matt. 9:29-30).

I find no problem with the healing passages--it's a gospel assertion that Jesus healed physical disease in his ministry. However, I used to have a problem regarding the continuation of Jesus' healing in the present day (one of the assumptions of a literal interpretation of Isaiah is that the kingdom to be inaugurated by the Messiah is always growing into something more perfect). At times I bought into various aspects of that premise, not however with regard to my own physical healing. Having been half-blind for 20 years, I long ago gave up on seeing again with my left eye this side of the Second Coming, the messianic kingdom notwithstanding. The gospel passages somewhat dull the edge of a literalist interpretation of the healing passages of Isaiah in that healing of the deaf and blind is inclusive of a spiritual meaning of blindness and deafness--and, of course, present-day grace is able to heal spiritually.

Isaiah's passages pointing to the coming messianic kingdom describe a kingdom in which want and need are replaced with plenty, ignorance with knowledge, sickness with healing, and finally, injustice, oppression, and violence with peace, justice, and well-being. My Achilles' heel in reading these passages literally came from what I now consider an unwarranted expectation of peace and justice. Consider these passages: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares.... One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again" (Isa. 2:4). "The tyrant will be no more and the arrogant will have gone" (Isa. 29:20).

The alleviation of violence is not one of the hallmarks of our century. In fact, without doubt, our century has been more violent than any that preceded it. And what is even more disconcerting is the degree of institutional and nationalistic violence. Recently I read that on one night in May of 1945, more than 300,000 Japanese civilians were killed in Tokyo by incendiary bombs--and things have not improved much over the past 50 years.

Sadly, I don't experience the world--let alone the kingdom of God--getting better and better. As far as I can see, the world has made precious little progress since Jesus inaugurated the kingdom. My life experience is mixed. Some things are better now than when I came into the world, and some things are a lot worse.

Perhaps I'm becoming cynical as I get older--certainly a recent trip to Guatemala and El Salvador didn't improve my somewhat pessimistic life view. My read on civilization's progress is that it is not at all like a graph of the Dow Jones over the past 50 years--a relatively straight line with a positive slope. It's more like one day of the Dow, a graph characterized by a lot of ups and downs.

What can be said about a kingdom of ever-increasing peace and justice? Our faith tells us that eventually peace and justice will be constitutive parts of the kingdom, The real question is when. Are we making any progress on the path to greater peace and justice? Or will it come all at once as part of the Second Coming?

The question is whether Isaiah prophesied ever-increasing peace and justice as components of the kingdom in all stages of its development. I answer in the negative. A closer examination of the texts shows that the nonviolence in parts of the texts is not to be taken literally but as indicative of the startling and unusual ways in which God is going to break in as God establishes the messianic kingdom.

When God breaks in on our human condition, it will be done in unexpected, remarkable, and unique ways. "Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not. See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" (Isa. 43:1.8-19) "One nation shall not raise the sword against another." How's that for something remarkable and unusual? Notice how all the other previously cited verses and the following verses of Isaiah fall into place if we interpret them not as literal prophecy but as examples of the unexpected and unusual ways of God: "The calf and the young lion shall browse together" (Isa. 11:6), and "but a very little while and Lebanon shall be changed into an orchard" (Isa. 29:17). The image of Lebanon, noted for its cedar forests, turned into an orchard presents an unforgettable picture of the unexpected and the unusual.

The Acts of the Apostles provides an interesting illustration of this thesis. In the most passionate preaching of their first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas boldly preach that the cross of Jesus brings acquittal for sins and then warn the audience not to fulfill the Isaiah-like prophecy of Habakkuk 1:5: "`Look on, you scoffers, be amazed and disappear. For I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will never believe even if someone tells you'" (Acts 13:41).

If this is the primary purpose of Isaiah's texts--to get across the point that God is about to do something unique--we don't have to look very far to see that this is exactly what God has done in the life, words, and message of Jesus. The primary startling uniqueness of the gospel is its universalism--everyone falls within the scope of God's love and forgiveness. Even the non-Jew is loved by God! Even the most undeserving is forgiven by God! Nothing like this had ever been heard before.

Another significant unique facet of the gospel is the startling reversal of position: The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. After 2,000 years the church is still trying to wrap its mind and behavior around this last point, even though Jesus gave us an adequate example of his words, "The first among you shall be the last and the servant of all."

I would like to conclude with an analogy of the universal forgiveness of the cross--it's one of my favorite life-experience similes. Twenty years ago my religious community moved lock, stock, and cats to a turn-of-the-century house in Oak Park, Illinois. At the time we had two cats, a black one without papers and a young seal-point Siamese with papers. One of the first things I did was to establish a cat door. I placed it in the basement window frame above the washer--rather cleverly, I thought, as I included a hole for the dryer exhaust. Within a few days our cats were able to negotiate the cat door at breakneck speeds even in the dark.

Several months after the move, however, my relationship with the black cat started to deteriorate. He sensed that my affections were turning to the better-looking and younger cat. It was a classic case of alienation of affections. He jealously got back at me by getting into the garbage and dragging it from the kitchen onto what was previously our new beige dining-room rug. This sinful behavior cried out for requital. After discovering one of these indiscretions, I would go into a rage and search out the black cat. No matter how late it was, I would find him, pick him up, and toss him out the front door. Then, my real work began: I had to run down the basement stairs as fast as I could, take the 20-pound box of Tide, and slam it in front of the cat door. I wanted that cat out of my life forever.

In this little story, I play the role of God. You can see how little I resemble God in the end. The cross of Jesus and its fruit, universal forgiveness, is the cat door. It provides free access into the house (read kingdom) at all times--even for undeserving cats. However, God, unlike me, never repents about establishing the cat door in the first place.

"As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways" (Isa. 55:9). Has anyone ever seen the likes of such generosity and love, such compassion and forgiveness? This is the new and unexpected to which the messianic passages of Isaiah point. "See, I am doing something new!" Blessed be God forever.

By Father David Delich, O.P., a member of the Chicago Dominican provincial staff. His book Images of God (Sheed and Ward) will appear in the fall of 1999.