And the trees of the field will clap their hands

 

I finished a difficult school year last Friday – difficult for the students who struggled with COVID-19 restrictions, from distance learning to a hybrid model and back again, difficult for the teachers, for the community, and for my congregation. Yet we’ve made it. We’ve made it through the most difficult days of a truly earth-shattering experience. We have lost some loved ones who will be sorely missed, but we’ve made it.

My paperwork was finished and my classroom desk was bare. I drove home eager to see some relatives who’d traveled to Tofte for a visit. The fog was rolling off the lake when suddenly, just as I rounded the corner near Kennedy landing, the sun broke through and the greens on the hillsides seemed to virtually explode in color. A rainbow filled the sky to the northeast and from the towering white pines on the ridge tops to the tender, fluttering leaves of the quaking aspen, creation itself seemed to be applauding.

Isaiah 55 says, “You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands!” God’s good creation can hardly contain its praise for the creator and sustainer of Israel. In Christian theology Isaiah 55 speaks to the revelation of Christ to a renewed earth, redeemed in splendor from the darkness of sin.

Peace and joy can appear in such unexpected revelations. On Easter day the newly risen Christ appeared in the upper room suddenly. His first word was “peace.” The disciples’ reaction: Joy. It has been said that only after the darkest night can one truly appreciate the dawn.

It’s kind of easy to become almost numb to the beauty of the North Shore when you live here. The twists and turns of 61 can seem like obstacles to overcome between here and Duluth rather than the opportunities to really see and appreciate God’s handiwork. In a similar way, the staggering changes we’ve been through can create a sort of fog that obscures the ways that our communities have pulled together and pulled through. But we have.

Perhaps it’s time to reassess just a little bit who we are and what we share. Yes, there are great challenges we must face together… climate change, inflation, polarization to name a few, but we share a common humanity, amazing friendships, an incredible Earth, and a good God – creator, redeemer, sustainer. Through trial and hardship, through pandemic and political strife, God has not faltered, the hills sing, and the trees clap their hands.

It is for us to see this new time clearly for what it is, so that, setting aside animosities born in the dark, and in the hope of reconciliation, we may yet be filled with peace and joy.

Daren Blanck is the Pastor of Zoar Church in Tofte, MN, a Lutheran Congregation in Mission for Christ (LCMC). Pastor Daren holds a BS in Environmental Science from Bemidji State, a MS in Education from UW-Superior, and recently completed his MA in Pastoral Theology from Kingswood University in New Brunswick. In addition he studied theatre in the UK and trained for ministry through the LCMC’s Beyond the River Academy. He’s also a part-time teacher in Silver Bay.