Isaiah 40.12-31

WAITING UPON GOD

(Isaiah 40.12-31)

'But those who wait upon 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 40.31)

On Trinity Sunday 1966, God's gift to the Church of England stepped out of the wings on to the stage of the Christian Church!

Having spent three years studying theology at King's College, London, and a further year studying pastoral theology at St Boniface College, Warminster, I thought I knew it all!!

However, as I knelt before Stuart Blanch, the Bishop of Liverpool, that Sunday morning, waiting for him to lay his hands upon my head and ordain me a priest, I suddenly found my eyes beginning to wander upwards, under the massive central tower of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. Higher and higher my eyes climbed in this vast cathedral - the largest in England, and the fifth largest in the world - until at last the architectural features were lost in the darkness of that enormous space, some 343 feet high.

Suddenly, l felt very small. I felt like a speck of dust on the floor by comparison with the vastness of the central tower, which speaks so powerfully in its rich sandstone, of the might and majesty of God.

As the hands of the Bishop approached my head I was put in my place. I was not God's gift to the church. The church was God's gift to me in which I had been called to serve in succession to those many priests who had gone before.

The Jews, in Isaiah, were also challenged to get their life into perspective.

Deutro lsaiah, the prophet, poet and theologian, lived about the middle of the eighth century BC when the Jews were living in exile in Babylon.

Jerusalem was a far distant memory. They were miserable. They were desolate. They felt that they were hidden from God and their situation ignored by him.

'Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O lsrael:"My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God."' (Isaiah 40.27)

The God, who had once acted so decisively in their nation's history, when he rescued them from slavery in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea and wilderness into the Promised Land, now appeared to have turned his back upon them and forgotten them.

Now, it is against this background that the prophet declares his message.

And what does he say?

He does not say, 'l am sorry you are feeling down in the dumps,' because that would only encourage them to wallow in further self-pity.

Rather, he directs their attention away from themselves towards God. He invites them to get their lives into perspective. To see their lives in relationship to God, just as I was invited to do at my ordination to the priesthood.

He does this by asking a series of rhetorical questions.

'Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand

and marked off the heavens with a span,

enclosed the dust of the earth with a measure.

and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

Who has directed the spirit of the Lord,

or as his counsellors has instructed him?

Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,

and who taught him the path of justice?

Who has taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?’ (Isaiah 40.12-14)

In other words, God is the God who created the universe and needs no one else, in order to be God. He is not dependent upon you or me for his existence.

We see the nature of God revealed in the theatre of history, where,

'Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket,

and are accounted as dust on the scales;

see, he takes up the isles like fine dust.' (Isaiah 40.15)

As regards any sacrifice which might please him,

'Lebanon would not provide fuel enough,

nor are its animals enough for a burnt offering.' [40.16]

In short,

'All the nations are as nothing before him;

they are counted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.' (Isaiah 40.17)

Given such a God, which Isaiah has painted with ever increasing majesty and power, he asks his hearers how they can possibly suggest that such a God does not see or know of their current situation as exiles in Babylon.

‘Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak O Israel,

"My way is hidden from the Lord,

and my right disregarded by my God”' (Isaiah 40.27)

With a certain degree of impatience, Isaiah hammers home his message to the exiled Jews.

'Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.’ (Isaiah 40.28a)

Unlike the grumbling Jewish exiles:

'He does not grow faint or weary,

his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

and strength to the powerless.’ (Isaiah 40.28b,29)

With belief in such a God, Isaiah urges the exiled people to wait patiently for him to act. They should not lose heart.

Using the image of an eagle, he assures them:

'Those who wait for the Lord shall receive strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.' (Isaiah 40.31)

And as you and I know, the Jews did eventually return from exile. Just as God rescued the Jewish nation years earlier from the captivity of the Egyptians, so he rescued them again from the captivity of the Babylonians after almost fifty years.

You and I may not live in physical exile, as did the Jews, first in Egypt and later in Babylon. Nevertheless, we often find ourselves cut off from our spiritual home where we belong. Our Jerusalem often appears a distant dream and we often feel that God has forgotten us, or overlooked us, when things do not go according to plan.

Why does he not answer my prayers? Why must I go on suffering? Why must adversity come between me and my heart's desire?

In such situations, it is so easy to fall into the trap of making God in our image, and turn him into a household god which we can control. It is so easy to lose our sense of perspective and allow the little mole hills of disappointment - be they illness, famine, hunger, disease or even international conflict – to become mountains of disappointment which cause us to doubt in the Power of God.

At times like this, we need to renew our vision of God, as the God of Creation who reveals himself as the Lord of history. We need to remind ourselves of our place in the eternal purposes of God. Above all, we need to learn to wait and be patient.

And in that waiting, we 'renew our strength’ so that we 'mount up with wings like eagles’, ‘run and not be weary" and 'walk and not faint'.

Trinity Sunday is unique in so far as it is the only feast day of the Church's calendar which does not recall a historical incident in the life of Jesus Christ. Rather, it celebrates a doctrine - a doctrine of which we need to be constantly reminded, namely that the God of Creation, who reveals himself in history, is far bigger than the human mind can conceive or the human language express - a God who invites you and me to wait upon him in reverence and awe, seeing our lives in relationship to him, as I did on Trinity Sunday 1966 in Liverpool Cathedral.