Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
February 8, 2009
The Reading: Isaiah 40:21-31
Sermon: "Isaiah 40"
The Rev. Dr. Vicki L. Smith, Rector
The Lesson: Isaiah 40:21-31
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
To whom then will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
mighty in power,
not one is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God"?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.Isaiah 40:21-31
Feb. 8, 2009: Isaiah 40 This most beautiful passage of Scripture, Isaiah Chapter 40, was written to exiles. God’s promise “those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint,” that promise was given first to people who have been forcibly taken from their homes. The people of Israel, to whom the land was so important, were taken away from that land to live as refugees in a foreign country. They were far from home, weak, uncertain and unstable. They were as vulnerable as they had ever felt, as vulnerable as when they were slaves in Egypt, as vulnerable as when they were wandering in the wilderness. The people of Israel, to whom this promise was first made, were people in exile, struggling to maintain their faith in an awful situation in the most difficult of times.
While we are not in exile, exactly, ours too are difficult times—nationally we face a war on two fronts and an economic depression unlike any in the past 50 years. Sadly, many of us also face exilic conditions in our personal lives as well; we may be isolated from those we love—by distance or disagreement; we, or those we love, may suffer with illnesses and sorrow; we too often live in grief and pain. Charles Dickens wrote: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. God’s promise in Isaiah is written for those “worst of times;” it is given to God’s people for exactly those times when we share the sentiment of today’s lesson (in the translation from the Message): God pays no attention to us! He doesn’t care if we are treated unjustly.” This passage is God’s response when those words ring true for us.
Somehow, we people of God tend to feel that our circumstances and situations reflect on God’s grace and power, that what happens to us, or doesn’t happen for us, is God’s responsibility and God’s fault. Isaiah writes, “My way is hidden from the Lord, my right is disregarded by my God.” Somehow we always feel, when things aren’t going well, and especially when things are going terribly, that God doesn’t care anymore; that we are hidden from God and God willfully allows us to suffer.
It’s not unlike Job’s friends—you remember them—the ones who encouraged Job in the midst of his losses and sorrow to rail against God, to blame God and give up his faith. At worst, that is a pagan faith of concrete rewards—I worship God and good things happen to me; at best, it is a faith of painful doubts if we fear either that what happens to us is God’s fault, or that God doesn’t care about our suffering.
God’s answer, through Isaiah, is for all of us in those times of painful doubt; they are for all of us when we wonder why things are as they are and if God cares. God’s answer restores the right perspective to our thoughts and fears. While we may become some focused on our own struggles that we begin to think that it really is “all about us” Isaiah reminds us that God is God and we are like grasshoppers. Isaiah reminds us: God is creator of the whole world; God is creator of the stars and stretches out the heavens like a curtain. “To whom then will you compare me?” says God. “who then is my equal?” God counts all the stars and calls them by name. Our God, as the song says, is an awesome God, he reigns from heaven above. God, who is our creator, creates the whole world,----
and our situations, our struggles don’t change that. Our God remains an awesome God, no matter what happens to us.
While that is correct perspective, it would be cold comfort, except that our God, who creates us, keeps creating us. Our God keeps interacting with us and does indeed care what happens to us. Isaiah tells us that even youths will faint and be weary—human help will fade—but our God never grows weary of us, and our God never abandons us. We may be in earthly exile but we are never exiled from our God.
God’s promise, today conveyed through Isaiah, is that God abides with us always—in the midst of challenges and struggles, in the midst of pain and sorrow—and that things will not always be as they are now. “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Notice that God does not promise a return from exile, but promises instead strength for the journey, whatever our journey may be. Whatever holds us in exile, whether it be illness or unemployment, division in our families or isolation from those we love, whatever makes us vulnerable, hurting and lost, whatever happens on our journey, God promises us strength, endurance and persistence. God doesn’t promise to make it go away, God promises strength for the journey.
Our psalm reminds us “he heals the broken hearted and bind up their wounds.” Our awesome God, creator of the universe gives us the strength we need, gives us the fortitude we need, gives us the patience we need, to run whatever race is set before us. God doesn’t change the race, he changes the runner.
The exiles were still exiles, we still face pain and struggle but we don’t face it alone and we are not powerless in its grasp. God gives us whatever we need for whatever challenges we may face, God empowers us to walk any path that lies before us. The Lord will renew our strength and we shall mount up with wings like eagles, we shall run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint. Our God has promised.