A Crowning Cry

"For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,

    for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,

till her vindication shines out like the dawn,

    her salvation like a blazing torch" (Isaiah 62:1).

The silence of a desert, ruins, desolate. The noise that is—cries, or the echo of a falling step—only augments the silence.

Still.

Dead.

Hopeless.

Crushing.

Forgotten.

Stagnant.

And then a voice cries out in the desert, echoes among the sand-stripped wall ruins: “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her vindication shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch” (Isaiah 62:1).

Silence is broken. Voice. Hope. Crying out. The Lord has appointed the prophet (or perhaps a greater Anointed One) to cry out and intercede for the righteous remnant of Zion. The righteous may be persecuted, or may feel abandoned. But there is one interceding for them. Truly, he is acting on behalf of those who wait for him even in the ashes (Isaiah 64:4; Job).

Listen—his voice still rings today. Perhaps in your season of feeling abandoned, in the crushing silence of God. Or perhaps just in a season of quietness, where you wonder if the Lord has laid you aside. Or in a season of questioning with no clear direction. But for Zion’s sake, our Intercessor will not be silent. For his people’s sake, he will not remain quiet. Indeed, his voice rings far louder and clearer today, for in these last days God has broken the silence and spoken to us by his Son, sustaining all things in his powerful word (Heb. 1:1, 3). This Mediator, the One who went to the cross, still lives to make intercession for us, in our time of need (Heb. 7:25; Heb. 4:17). He did not remain silent; he will not remain silent.

The cross may seem a distant cry, but it touches our lives today. Pause. Look. Lay down at the foot of the cross once again, where that derelict cry of his carried all our sense of abandonment. Where it broke the darkness. Forever.

His cry continues, rich with blazing promises in the bleakness of the desolation. Bouncing off in blazes against the drab brick walls, it illumines in golden glory all that it touches. Dead city begins to gleam again, shades of a promise.

“You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God” (Isaiah 62:3).

In the Lord’s hand—is not a crown placed on the head? Instead, this image speaks of comfort for his downtrodden people. To be in his hand is to be kept, guarded. Protected by the same hand that stretched forth the heavens, whose arm redeemed his people with mighty acts. We are his treasure (v. 11). And the songs of the Suffering Servant show what lengths he has gone so that we could be called his reward, his recompense, his redeemed, his holy people (v. 11; Isaiah 53:10-12). In his hand, the hand of the eternal one, we rest. Guarded. Even in the desolation.

A crown of splendor, a royal diadem—a crown speaks of royalty. As J. A. Motyer comments, “The Lord’s people will be the sign that he is King” (1).  In the Lord's acts on our behalf, in his vindication of us, in his salvation of us, we will proclaim to the world that he is King. His people displaying forth the Lord's glory like a banner is a rich theme in Isaiah: the nations streaming to the mountain; a planting for the display of his splendor; shining out like the dawn (Isaiah 2:2; 61:3; 62:1). Instead of a barren ruins, it is a radiating brilliance.

Even in our darkness and desolation, we proclaim he is King. Perhaps, in this waiting period of the time of promise-given-but-still-waiting, we proclaim him as King as we wait in confident expectation even in the darkness. We may be hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck down as we wait in silence and desolation. Yet, we are not crushed, despairing, abandoned, or destroyed as his voice is crying out, interceding for us (2 Cor. 4:8-9). We wait in the nail-pierced hands of our God.

“Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of his servant? Let the one who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God” (Isa. 50:10).

(1) J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1993), 507.