The Joshua Victor Theory

              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...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Our text today is the reading from Isaiah 40. It’s scarcely possible for us to contemplate the vastness of the universe and the majesty of God’s glory that it displays. The incredible window seat God gave our earth to view the depths of the universe through telescopes and space exploration has stunned countless humans with the realization that those tiny twinkles of light that pepper the nighttime sky are all giant, burning stars like our sun—and often many times greater in size. And yet they are at such great distances from our own solar system, that it staggers the human imagination. Perhaps if it does not fill us with pride, we might say that because we have those glimpses of the grandeur of the universe, we can even better appreciate Isaiah’s words: “It is [God] 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 li...