Blossom as the Rose
In the manual: Come, Follow Me lesson 39, “A Marvellous Work and a Wonder,” on Gospel Library
Start
Isaiah 35 begins in a dry desert and ends on a highway full of people singing on their way home.
Read Together
Chapter 34 ends with a land burned and empty. Right after it, chapter 35 shows the Lord bringing a wilderness back to life.
1The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.
3Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. 4Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you. 5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 6Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.
What It Teaches
Verses 5 and 6 list what happens when God comes to save his people. The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap, and those who could not speak sing. When John the Baptist sent messengers to ask Jesus if he was the one they were waiting for, Jesus answered by pointing to these same signs (Matthew 11:2–5).
The Lord also heals what no one can see. In chapter 30, he “bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.” In the King James Version, breach is also the word for the cracked wall in Isaiah 30:13, from Thursday’s lesson. The Lord can mend what our own choices have broken.
Sister Amy A. Wright bore this testimony in general conference. “I testify that there is nothing in your life that is broken that is beyond the curative, redeeming, and enabling power of Jesus Christ.”
Sister Amy A. Wright, “Christ Heals That Which Is Broken,” General conference, April 2022
Verse 3 gives us our part. “Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.” The Lord often does his healing through people who help each other up, and verse 10 ends with the ransomed coming home “with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads.”
Talk About It
Whose hands feel weak right now, in our family or among our friends? What is one thing we could do this week to help strengthen them?
Take to Church
Jesus Christ heals what is broken. Isaiah 35 shows him turning a desert into a garden, and he asks us to strengthen the weak hands along the way.