Everyone Has A Sandwich

Scripture — Isaiah 62:1-5 (NRSV)

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
The nations shall see your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will give.
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.

Devotion

In December 2023 (which I have to admit still feels like “last” December, which is how I originally began that sentence), I wrote to you all about my deep and abiding love for Isaiah 61 where the Lord promises that those who mourn will receive a “garland instead of ashes” (61:3).

I have to admit that I love the beginning of chapter 62 almost as much, where this imagery continues and the garland now becomes a “crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord” (62:3). All of Isaiah 61-62 speaks of the restoration of a people long exiled and devastated, and 61:10-62:5 particularly uses the language of a wedding to talk about this. The bridegroom is decked with a garland, the bride adorned with jewels (61:10); the restored land will be called Married (62:4) and the restored people will be rejoiced over just as the newly married are rejoiced over (62:5).

When I read this, I thought first of all of the many, many weddings and anniversaries I’ve seen recognized in my social media feeds recently.  People love to get married in December, whether or not they’re having a church wedding, because churches and parks and historic houses and other wedding venues often look so beautiful during the holidays. My feed for the past few weeks has twinkled with wedding candles and greenery and sparkled with beautiful red and gold and green flowers and bridesmaids’ dresses. It all looks so perfectly planned and executed.

And then I thought about something else I’d seen recently. It was a meme that said, “Everyone has a sandwich that they think about for the rest of their life.”

Our wedding was not in December, but in the middle of summer. Looking back, the pictures are beautiful, if more soft floral than holiday twinkly, but what I remember at the time is that the heat and the normal pre-wedding jitters and the lengthy task list were compounded by the fact that the venue required us to use a wedding coordinator who was unable to do her job. I woke up the morning of the wedding when I should have been thinking about robes and garlands and jewels and coming down the aisle crowned with beauty and all I could think of was “Is all of this actually going to manage to come off without significant catastrophe?” I couldn’t manage to eat. Anything. That’s when my mom and my brother went across the street to my favorite deli and got me a chicken salad sandwich on a croissant.

The wedding did happen. I don’t know if I looked like I was crowned with beauty, and it was not perfectly planned nor executed, but I got down the aisle on the strength of that chicken salad sandwich and my husband and I have been married for over twenty years as of this past summer.

And I thought of that story, and of those desolate and devastated people who heard the words of Isaiah that they were going to get beauty rather than ashes and marriage rather than desolation and delight rather than sorrow, and I thought of all the times we hope for what is perfect and twinkly, and instead find ourselves in the destruction of our hopes, and we get the love of God shown through a chicken salad sandwich.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project’s online commentary. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Work’s Ultimate Meaning (Isaiah 60ff.).