Re-appraisal and Realism
Time for a poem. If Haggai were feeling for a wider vision it is more likely to be found in a poem than a programme and if the poem were around at the time, which is quite a possibility, it may well reflect some of the things he had in mind. Its strength is not in its detail or immediate relevance but in its timelessness and its capacity still to speak to us all.
A poem has the capacity to lift us out of our day-to-day world into a new world. It speaks to the heart rather than the mind. Short on fact it can be long on inspiration, and after a dark day wrestling with insoluble problems Haggai might well have turned to something like this for comfort, re-assurance and hope.
First, Isaiah takes the entirely unexpected, and apparently impossible, and dares to suggest it might come to pass.
Second, the desert image suggests that what the rose does every bit of life can do. Not that every part of the desert will become a rose but that every part of God’s creation has the capacity to blossom in its own way. There is room for everybody, all shades, types and opinions, as everything strives for fulfilment.
Third, it includes (perhaps especially) those who least expect to find themselves there. Of course the strong will flourish — they always do. So too will ‘the many’ and the self-confident. But in Isaiah’s vision of God’s world so too will the rest. Those who up to now have never had a chance — the rejects and drop-outs of society, the unprepossessing, the inarticulate and those unable to speak for themselves, unheard even when they cry.
Fourth, this Holy Way (v 8) is one in which fools and travellers will be protected, a safe place in which to live, and an overall feeling of ‘joy and gladness’.
Of course it is not going to happen. At least, not just like that. It’s a poem. It may not even happen at all. Haggai probably never expected it to. But a poem is not a statement about what is or what will be. It is a description of what in our heart of hearts we would like it to be, with just enough of reality to inspire us, and enable us to go on living and to cope with all that is around.