Green and Glad

Green and Glad

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
  the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
  and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
  the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
  the majesty of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands,
  and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
  ‘Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
  He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
  He will come and save you.’

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
  and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
  and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
  and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
  and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
  the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

A highway shall be there,
  and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
  but it shall be for God’s people;
  no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray.
No lion shall be there,
  nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
  but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
  and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
  they shall obtain joy and gladness,
  and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah 35:1-10

If I were still an English teacher I would point out the first literary technique in this passage: Isaiah “personifies” the landscape by saying that it is “glad”. 

It’s a poetic turn of phrase, emphasising the things that are happening to the landscape that make it a happy place for humans: the crocus blooms; spring water bubbles up; grass and reeds and papyrus cover the barren haunts that used to be prowled by predators. People can make their way home without fear of being mauled by a lion — that’s a pretty “glad” fact. But the land is not literally happy.

Or is it? Can a parched desert, a wilderness, actually be happy?

Let’s try and step out of our human-centred perspective for a second.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), the German gardener and mystic, can help us do that. Hildegard paints a beautifully garden-centred picture of God’s restorative action in the world: Love streams down with the outpouring water of the Holy Spirit, and in this love is the peace of God’s goodness. And humility prepares a garden with all the fruit-bearing trees of God’s grace, containing all the green of God’s gifts. 

Hildegard thought that everything is “greened” through the power of the Holy Spirit: humans, creatures, the earth, the cosmos. All of creation can show God’s creative love and goodness, this divine “green-ness”. Plants are particularly good at putting this green-ness on visual display. Humans, by contrast, were created to be green, but we have become shrivelled and dry, drained of our original verdancy.  

The earth can be happy, then, in its green-ness. And humans can be made happy again, because God wants to give them “all the green” of his gifts.  

The Advent period is often experienced as a dry and desolate period, a time of longing. What if, instead, we played a green “spotto” and looked for all the green shoots of love breaking through, the creativity already popping up in the world?

We can take our cue from Hildegard, again, who spots: The majesty of the Divine, who in sweet greening power sent the Word into the womb of the Virgin, from whom he took flesh, as the honey is built around the honeycomb. 

Hildegard thinks that Mary is expecting a very sweet baby!

Jesus’ humble birth puts God’s majestic love for everyone and everything on display — Jesus is green-ness incarnate. His divine love is restorative. God’s “sweet greening power” is creating something new in the midst of all our desolate wilderness experiences. Jesus is the divine green gift to us all. 

Danielle Terceiro is a 2025 Fellow at Anglican Deaconess Ministries, writing a book on the Holy Fool in the 21st century. She enjoys reading novels and memoirs that give the perspective of an outsider, the person who doesn’t automatically accept cultural norms. 

This devotional is the ninth in a series of daily email devotionals for Advent 2025 reflecting on the realities of our broken world along with the unshakable hope that love still breaks through. It explores how God’s love disrupts, heals, and transforms - breaking through darkness, despair, and injustice to bring light, joy, and renewal.

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Common Grace is a diverse movement of individuals, churches and communities passionate about Jesus and justice. We have come together as those from different Christian traditions who stand in the continuity of the historic Christian faith, centred on the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ as witnessed to in holy scripture. This series highlights the diversity of followers of Jesus across these lands. These voices may not agree with one another (or with you), but they are each an expression of longing for the God whose love we see break through in Jesus.

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