Easter 4
Isa
40:24-31
4/21/13
You may have noticed that Michael,
our youngest son, has a lot of energy.
He is extremely enthusiastic about everything. He wants to go, go, go. He loves sports and for a couple of years now
whenever a sporting event is on – especially football – he takes part in the
action by taking his ball, passing it to himself, and running back and forth
providing commentary on what he is doing.
And we have found that this translates into the real world when he
actually plays sports. This year
Michael’s pre-K soccer team only lost one game, and it’s really not much of an
exaggeration to say that Michael scored every goal. The score in yesterday’s game
was: Michael 8, the other team 0. He’s
fast and just has a feel for it as he plays with aggressive abandon.
Now that’s not to say that Michael
doesn’t stay in one place and focus on things.
He’ll stay in one place for long periods of time as he plays with his
miniature football helmets and Hot Wheels cars.
But even then, he’s actively focused on doing something as he plays with
the items and narrates out loud what is happening.
As many of you know, Monday is my
day off. It is also “daddy day” as
Michael calls it – a day that he stays home from Pre-K and we spend the day
together. On Monday this past week, as
we always do, in the mid-morning we went out to get a slurpee. When we got home, Michael went and sat down
on the couch. The next thing I knew, he
was lying down on the couch. Soon he had
pulled a blanket over himself. I asked
him what he was doing and Michael said, “I’m tired.”
I didn’t really think that much of
it as I took care of some jobs around the house. When I returned back downstairs I found that
Michael was still lying on the couch with the blanket on him. And at that point I thought to myself, “Wait
a minute. Something’s not right here.” I
asked him why he still lying down and Michael replied, “Daddy, I am just so
tired.” And at that point I went up and
felt him and immediately could tell that he had a fever. He was tired and lying down because he was
sick.
In our text today, Isaiah says, “Even
youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted.” Living in a fallen world with all of its
challenges does wear us out – even five year old boys who are normally full of
energy. Yet in our text, the prophet
provides the assurance that God gives renewal and strength because he is the
One who has both desire and the ability to save.
In our text this morning from Isaiah
chapter 40, Isaiah writing in the eighth century B.C. speaks about an event
that hadn’t even occurred yet. He speaks
to people who have been taken into exile.
This would not happen until the sixth century B.C. when God would use
the Babylonians as the instruments of his judgment. They would conquer the southern kingdom of
Judah, destroy the temple in Jerusalem and take the majority of the people into
exile. Isaiah looks more than a hundred
years down the road and offers comfort to the people who will be in exile.
Isaiah writes, “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’?” The people of
God would languish in exile for some seventy years. Some people would be born in exile and know
nothing else for almost their entire life. The doubt – the complaint – that
could be raised was, “Why doesn’t God see our trouble? Why isn’t God treating us in a way that is
right; in a way that reflects his desire to bless his people?”
Of course, there is a great irony in
their complaint. After all, they were in
exile as a result of their own actions. When Israel entered into the
promised land Yahweh told the people that they needed to be faithful to
him. He warned that the nations in and around
the promised land were a threat. They were a threat to lead the people of
Israel away from the true God and into idolatry. Israel was not to intermarry with them and
was to have nothing to do with their false gods.
But the people of Israel ignored this. They embraced paganism, and even brought
false god’s into the temple in Jerusalem. Oh, they continued to go through the
motions of worshipping Yahweh, but as he said: “this people draws near with
their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from
me.” Indeed, God had acted justly. In the destruction of the temple and in exile
from the land they had received exactly what they deserved.
And doesn’t that often describe
us? How often are the troubles in our
life a result of our own sin? We act in
selfish and thoughtless ways … and guess what, it produces strife and hardship
in the relationships of our life. We speak angry and cutting words, and it
produces an even greater and more negative reaction against us. We look around
at the world and all the good stuff that is out there and covet it. And so we take those nice people at credit
card companies up on their offer to help us buy, buy, buy. Of course we find out that this leaves us
with debt, debt, debt that creates tension and stress in our marriage.
At the same time, we also experience
the results produced by sin in the Fall.
We experience a world where many things are no longer “very good.” We live in a world where evil actions hurt
people such as we saw in the Boston bombing.
We live in a world where people get hurt and die through no fault of
their own such as occurred in the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas. We live a world where people get sick; where
they have pain; where they get tired and worn out.
In our text, the people in exile
feel like God is not paying attention to them; like he is not acting as the
saving God he has declared himself to be.
But the good news Isaiah announces is that God is going to act.
Isaiah begins this new section of the book with words that we heard during
Advent. He writes: “Comfort, comfort my
people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her
warfare is ended,
that her
iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all
her sins. A voice cries:
‘In the
wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway
for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be
made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And
the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for
the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’”
Isaiah announces that God is going
to act. He is going to bring the people
back from exile. This is an action that
is going to reveal his saving glory. As
Isaiah writes earlier in this chapter, “Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion,
herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of
good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your
God!” Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might,
and his arm
rules for him; behold, his reward is with him,
and his
recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather
the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those
that are with young.”
God did act. In 538 B.C. the Persian king Cyrus, after he
had defeated the Babylonians, issued a decree that the people of Judah could
return home. God brought them back to
the land of Israel.
Now this action in the sixth century
B.C. was a big one since it involved guiding the events of the superpowers of
the near eastern world. And in our text Yahweh declares that he has the
power to do it. He says, “To whom
then will you compare me,
that I should be
like him? says the Holy One. 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.”
God points out
that he is the Creator sustainer of all things including the stars of the heavens.
And yet we learned during Advent
that this action in the sixth century B.C. pointed forward to something even
bigger – even more amazing. The ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah’s words took
place in the incarnation of Jesus Christ as the Word, the Son of God, became
flesh and dwelt among us. In him the
glory of God was revealed in the world.
By his death on the cross he has won forgiveness of sins for us. By his death he has reconciled us to God the
Holy One.
And now during this season of Easter
we are celebrating that God again did something even bigger than the return
from exile. On Easter in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God defeated
death. He began the resurrection of
the Last Day – the resurrection that we will share in when Christ returns in
glory.
Now I just mentioned Christ’s return
on the Last Day. We know that we are
still waiting for that. And actually, this text involves a lot of waiting. There was a wait for the return from exile.
There was a wait for the Son of God to enter into the world in the flesh to
suffer and die. There was the wait while
the body of Jesus was in the tomb for three days. It would be easy to get discouraged when
faced with this kind of waiting.
Yet Isaiah says, “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.”
God is the everlasting God. He is
the One whose understanding is unsearchable.
He never tires. Bottom line: he is God and you are not. So let God be God. Let him determine the timetable.
What you are to do is trust him; to
have faith in him; to wait for him. We
hear in our text, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he
increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall
fall exhausted; 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.”
Isaiah says that God is the One who gives
power to the faint. In fact the Hebrew
indicates he is the One who continues to do this. The God who came to us
in his incarnate Son to work forgiveness continues to come to us through
his Means of Grace. He continues to give
us strength through the good news found in his Word. He continues to give us strength through the
connection that we have received with Christ’s death and resurrection in Holy Baptism. And continues to give us strength through the
Sacrament of the Altar as he comes to us in his body and blood.
God
gives us strength while we wait so that we can love and support others who are
faint and weary. In fact as those who
are in Christ we become the means by which God supports the faint and
weary who are around us in our lives.
We wait in the knowledge – in the
confidence – that God does sustain us and that he will renew our strength. He does it as we live in this world and he
brings us through challenges and trials.
He brings us out on the other side, strengthened in our trust towards him
because we have gone though the testing.
And he will do it with finality on the Last Day. For all of the strengthening; all of the
renewing that he does now points forward to the final renewal that he will work
when Christ returns in glory on the Last Day and gives us a share in his
resurrection. As Isaiah says at the end
of our text, “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall
exhausted; 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.”
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