I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert [Isaiah 43:19].
What if the God we long for is already moving—just not in the way we expected?
This Sunday’s Old Testament reading, Isaiah 43:16-21 (Fifth Sunday in Lent, RCL, Year C) finds the people of Israel in exile—uprooted, disoriented, and uncertain. Forcibly removed from their homeland after Jerusalem’s destruction in 587 BCE, these displaced people have spent decades in a foreign land under foreign rule. The prophet addresses a community caught between memory and hope—remembering God’s mighty acts in the past, yet struggling to believe God might still act now.
Into that disillusionment, Isaiah speaks not only of God’s faithfulness, but of God’s newness—of the startling ways divine grace refuses to be boxed in by history.
This Sunday’s reading is the first stanza of a long salvation oracle stretching from Isaiah 43:14 to 44:5, part of Second Isaiah’s proclamation of deliverance (Isaiah 40–55). It’s crafted as a chiasmus—a literary structure that mirrors itself like an hourglass:
A YHWH delivered Israel in the Exodus (vv. 16–17)
B “Do not remember the former things…” (v. 18)
B′ “I am about to do a new thing…” (v. 19a)
A′ YHWH will deliver Israel by bringing them home from exile. (vv. 19b–21)
The pattern itself—A-B-B-A—spells “Abba.” It’s a quiet signature, a whispered reminder that beneath these movements of memory and hope is the steady presence of a loving Father.
The passage opens with imagery from the Exodus: “Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse… they are extinguished, quenched like a wick” [43:16-17]. The verbs unfold across tenses, moving from God’s ongoing nature (who makes a way) to God’s finished triumph (they are extinguished).
But just as we settle into this nostalgic liturgy of remembrance, the prophet startles us: “Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old” [43:18].
Forget the Exodus? How can Isaiah say such a thing?
And yet, Isaiah doesn’t call for historical amnesia. Instead, he calls for spiritual attentiveness. Isaiah isn’t rejecting memory; he’s resisting nostalgia. He’s saying: Don’t box God in. Don’t assume God only moves in ways you’ve seen before. Don’t mistake the pattern for the presence.
And then comes YHWH’s pivot: “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth—do you not perceive it?” My commentaries alert me to the fact that the Hebrew suggests something already budding, already pressing through the soil. This is not just promise—it’s revelation. And the gentle rebuke in the question, “Do you not perceive it?” reminds us: the newness of God often emerges in places we’ve stopped watching.
What is this new thing?
“I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” [43:19]. The reversal is complete. At the Exodus, God brought dry land through water. Now, God brings living water through dry land. Deliverance no longer looks like parted seas—it looks like sustenance in scorched places.
And this new deliverance expands beyond Israel. “The wild animals will honor me … for I give water in the wilderness” [43:20]. Even the jackals and ostriches—creatures of chaos and desolation—are drawn to this miracle. The desert becomes a sanctuary. God’s abundance spills over, creating a kind of ecological doxology.
The brilliance of Isaiah’s vision lies in its paradox: YHWH is the same—and entirely new. The “new thing” echoes the old patterns of redemption yet upends our expectations. It’s liberation again, but with different contours. Continuity and discontinuity held in holy tension.
For the exiles, this promise would find fulfillment when Cyrus of Persia overthrows Babylon and issues an edict allowing their return. But the prophet’s voice echoes far beyond that singular event. God is always doing a new thing—bringing life where there was none, abundance where there was lack, freedom where there was bondage.
Is yours a desert of grief? Is it exhaustion? Or might it be the long silence of unanswered prayer? Still, the question comes: Do you not perceive it?
And just as Isaiah calls us to recognize the new, the Gospel this week [John 12:1-8] gives us Mary—kneeling before Jesus, anointing not his head as a king, but his feet. She performs a prophetic act of devotion that no one else understands. While others are calculating value or questioning her extravagance, she perceives the moment. Her act, like the rivers in Isaiah’s desert, is unexpected. Humble. Holy.
And it comes before Jesus ever tells his disciples to do the same. Before Maundy Thursday, before the towel and the basin, Mary is already washing his feet with tears and oil and reverence.
I think that like Mary, we are called to act not because everything makes sense, but because something new is being born.
The God who once carved dry paths through water now draws living water from scorched earth. And the shape of resurrection will echo both acts: a stone rolled away, a tomb emptied, a world remade—not by force, but by the quiet insistence of new life.
Memory has its place. But it is not the destination.
The new thing is already sprouting.
May we have eyes to see it.
Even in the desert.
Especially there.
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