“Let me sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He digged it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry! Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land” (Isaiah 5:1-8).
There are two chief characteristics that God the Gardener was hoping to find in his vineyard Israel and Judah his pleasant planting - justice and righteousness. Instead, he sees bloodshed and hears the cry of the poor, and therefore his beloved garden will be abandoned. Keep this contrast in mind, because Paul will use similar comparisons between the Fruit of the Spirit and the works of the flesh (Gal 5:19-23). While the imagery in Isaiah 5 is part of an oracle of judgment, later the book of Isaiah will use similar imagery to instill hope in God’s exiled planting. It promises that if the people will turn to the Lord,
“...Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am. “If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.
And the LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not” (Isaiah 58:8-11).
The return of a spiritual Garden of Eden can only happen when God’s people are identified by their righteousness and justice. God’s people waited for this moment, the Messianic Age with a new beginning and a new creation. It was Christ who would inaugurate a jubilee of justice and usher in the age of righteousness, initiating a “new creation” that can be experienced only via faith and baptism, “Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise” (Catechism, No. 736).
Like the first garden, there is tree firmly at the center of this new creation. The Seed of victory promised to Eve in Genesis 3:15 has matured into a sapling of salvation. But this glorious tree’s boughs are bent into a shape that many in Israel simply could not bear: The shameful Cross is the new Tree of Life, its branches bent with the weight of the world. On it, “the fruit” of Mary’s womb was pierced and from Him will sprang forth the twin signs of new life - water for the new creation and blood representing the new humanity. He is the true source of life, healing and refreshment and yet is rejected. The Creator of the Cosmos became the Christ of the Cross: