Sermon on Isaiah 40:21-31, 5th Sunday after Pentecost 2020 (B), "Utterly Unlike us; Utterly Dependable"

 

            Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. Isaiah 40 has many great verses and themes in it, but in our section today God turns the tables on us. Normally we bombard God with all our questions, “why this”? “How that?” “What for?” But here God returns the favor with a packed blast of questions for us. Do you not know? Have you not heard? Hasn’t it been told to you? Who created this? Who can you compare me to? Why do you say…? Don’t you understand? It all surrounds the people’s complaint against God: “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”.

Hear that for a moment. The Israelites (and plenty of us today) think or feel God has forgotten them. He seems to be ignoring justice and we’re oppressed. Or I’m at the end of my rope, and utterly exhausted. Where’s God when I need Him? These thoughts are summed up in this cry from the people, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”. But God turns the tables on them and us, asking, “Why do you ask this? Don’t you know….” God gives four everyday observations for them to reflect on who God is. How utterly unlike us He is.

Let’s consider what those four everyday observations teach us about God, who is utterly unlike us. We’ll discover how God is utterly unlike us, and that God is utterly dependable. First, v. 21-22 invites us to consider God’s act of creation. He built the universe, stretched out the heavens like a tent, putting the stars in place. How God towers above the circle of the earth, where we all look like grasshoppers below. Anyone who’s flown in an airplane can picture us as grasshoppers or ants, dwarfed by the surface of the earth. You don’t get too far up into the clouds before we disappear from sight entirely. But one of the key themes of this passage is that we never disappear from God’s sight.

The first everyday fact then, is that we are puny and the heavens are vast. Even the “pale blue dot” of the earth is miniscule, when viewed from the outer reaches of our solar system. “Pale blue dot” is the nickname of the famous photo of earth from the Voyager space probe, looking back from beyond the orbit of Neptune, far out in our solar system. What does this fact teach us about how God is utterly unlike us? If the heavens and earth are so grand and vast, much more so is the God who made them. The grandeur of the universe pales in comparison to the God who conceived the whole plan of the universe and spoke it into existence, laying out the foundations of the earth and stretching out the heavens like a tent. Such power and wisdom is beyond our imagining. All the cumulative knowledge of all human scientists of history barely scratches the surface of the knowledge contained in the universe and its design. We need such an awesome God to depend on. Not a minor figure like the pagan gods who were trapped in nature or competing for petty control of regions of the sky, sea, or sections of the earth. God is utterly unlike them, and has no peer, no comparison, as He says in v. 25.

The second everyday fact in v. 23-24 is that princes and rulers are here today and gone tomorrow. Even in the last 100 years, there have been a handful of dictators who lasted 30 or more years. At most, Fidel Castro topped 50. The rule of presidents and other politicians in the U.S. are far more-short lived. But in any case, God zooms out to the bigger picture to show us that scarcely do they take root, are they in power, before God’s tempest blasts them away like stubble. Like straw blowing before a storm. If that makes anyone smile with satisfaction, we do well to remember that God describes our own lives like a flower or grass that quickly withers and fades away. The point is that however vaunted and self-promoting we are, however big anyone gets in their own eyes, God always sees to it that we are properly humbled in due time.

God is utterly unlike us in human judgment. We “get what we deserve” when we pick the people we elevate or remove from power. But God does not see man as we do, according to the outward appearance, but God judges the hearts of mankind. God’s judgment is not petty, superficial, or hasty. Not imbalanced by our passions, fears, or misinformation. God’s is holy and just. He has an appointed purpose and time for everyone that He lifts up or brings low. We need God to be utterly dependable because our human judgment is so short-sighted, foolish, and so often fails. Thank God that He is utterly unlike us, and utterly dependable! How much we worry about things that are completely in His control!

The third everyday fact God declares is that the stars are like orderly armies moving in a magnificent march, never out of place. V. 26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing. “Hosts” is an army, and the picture is God leading out the stars as a grand, orderly army marching across the sky. Poetically that’s what we see in the nighttime sky. Thousands of tiny points of light form their order of constellations and ranks, moving in flawless synchronization across the nighttime sky as the earth spins onward around the sun. Because God is strong in power not one is missing.

In the Army, one of the most important daily duties is the personnel status. They call it “perstat.” Every single Soldier must be accounted for. The command has absolute responsibility to not lose track of a single Soldier under their watch. God never loses track or is missing a star, much less a man, woman, or child. Not even a sparrow, a flower of the field, or a hair on your head. The God who keeps the stars of the universe marching in their orderly procession is not confused or lost by our meandering tracks and dizzying paths of all His children on this blue marble, the earth. The population of the earth is just under 8 billion people, not even a tenth of the 100 billion or more stars that make up our middling local galaxy, the Milky Way. If God is attentive to 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, not to mention the dizzying number of 100’s of billions or even trillions of other galaxies in the universe that hide behind those points of light we perceive as single visible stars in the sky, why would we question if God had lost our way?

Good luck to anyone tracking the entire human population of even our small island Maui, much less our nation or our globe. But thank God that He is utterly unlike us, with our limited, distracted attention—God is utterly dependable. Not only is every star in its place, but He knows and calls out each of us by name, and never loses one of us. If we ever fear that God might lose track of us, we must remember the infinite scope of His greatness, and the infinite detail and flawlessness of His attention. However life’s troubles might bewitch us, we should never fear that God has forgotten our way, or that He will fail in justice. His timing and His rule is His own, but God will not neglect His responsibility, on that we can utterly depend.

The fourth and last everyday fact that God brings to our attention is this in v. 28-31: that even youths and young men faint, grow weary, and become exhausted. You wouldn’t think it to look at some kids. They seem to have an endless supply of what my dad calls “kid power.” But even with all the energy of youth, we’ve all seen them drop asleep exhausted after a busy day of play and activity. Against that comparison God declares that “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.” Weariness is a sure sign of being human, as literal untiring strength is a sure sign of divinity.

Jesus shows an interesting combination of both, as True God and True Man. In true humanity, He fell asleep exhausted in the fishing boat, or sought time alone for restoration in prayer and communion with God. In true divinity, He was the very emblem of untiring love, by healing of multitudes, His strength of determination and overcoming as He faced the cross, and His giant defeat of death by His resurrection. Jesus gave shape to the words of our reading: “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. 30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they 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.” While Jesus collapsed under the weight of the cross, God bore Him up and supported Him through the help of Simon of Cyrene. When Jesus reached the end of His strength, in physical exhaustion on the cross, and breathed out His last breath, it might have seemed like the old cry was true: “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”. But how human, short-sighted and wrong it would have been to think that. Three short days and Jesus rose again!

While young men fall exhausted, Christ waited on the Lord and renewed His strength to mount up with wings like eagles, to run and not grow weary, to walk and not faint. Into His lifeless body, God breathed again everlasting energy and life, to raise Jesus up from the grave. I thank God that He is utterly unlike us, He never tires, and is utterly dependable to strengthen and renew us when we are weak! But I also thank God that Jesus truly became like us, in every way except sin, so that by His weakness, His suffering, His exhaustion, God could exhaust and weaken and empty the power of sin and death against us. That God joined Himself so closely to us in this way, to supply us His forgiveness, life, and everlasting strength.

How often have we fainted, grown weary, or reached exhaustion? Our strength is spent, our energy is flagging, our eyes struggle to stay focused on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith. How often have we reached the end of our rope, the end of our patience, the end of our willpower, and just been ready to call it quits? Thank God that He is utterly unlike us and does not run short of strength or patience or determination! Thank God that He is the Creator of all the Universe who keeps it all spinning in motion and knows where every star, every grasshopper, and every precious child of God is hidden. Not hidden from His eyes. Thank God that He is perfect in justice and judgment, and we never need to fear that our right will pass by uncared for, or that God will let injustice triumph in the end. Thank God that as often as our supply, our strength, our patience needs filling, God is utterly dependable and never wearies. He’ll faithfully renew our strength as Jesus and carry us beyond all human strength to face life without fear, without quitting, because He is the Everlasting God. And zooming in through all creation—from the universe to the galaxies to the solar system to the pale blue earth to our island, our congregation, our family, ourselves, and even the hairs on our head—it’s all numbered, known, and cared for in God’s utterly dependable plan, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.