The Book of Isaiah is made up of three different books from different stages in Israel’s history, put together as one because of the consistent theme through all the parts.
The First Book – chapters
1-39, foresees the coming destruction and loss of the kingdom to Israel’s
fearsome enemies, because of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God’s love for the poor
and oppressed, and God’s desire for the well-being of all. The Second Book – chapters 40-55, comes from
a time much later, after the people have suffered the loss of their kingdom and
years in exile, and now are returning to their land by God’s good will – the good
will of God who still and always is especially present to the poor and
oppressed, and desires the well-being of all.
In this passage the prophet encourages the people to trust the good will of God in all things and all times.
John Claypool in the late ‘60’s was pastor to the congregation of Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky when his ten-year-old daughter, Laura Lue was diagnosed as having acute leukemia. Only eighteen months and ten days after the diagnosis, she died.
During
that time John continued in his ministry, with intermittent short leaves of
absence, and he shared as much as he could with his congregation of his and his
wife’s and their family’s struggle. Roughly
half-way through the progress of the disease – after nearly nine months of
remission and almost total normalcy, Laura Lue suffered a relapse and a
full-blown return of the symptoms of the disease on an Easter Sunday morning,
and was re-admitted to hospital on Easter Monday.
Two weeks
later John reflected on that experience in a sermon based on the same reading
we have heard today from Isaiah 40. John
titled the sermon “Strength Not to Faint.”
And one thing I have not forgotten from reading that sermon maybe 30 or
35 years ago is the strength and deep encouragement he finds in the closing
promise of the passage:
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.
“Here
I am this morning,” John Claypool says at the end of his sermon, “ – sad,
broken-hearted, still bearing in my spirit the wounds of this darkness. I confess to you honestly that I have no
wings with which to fly or even any legs on which to run – but listen, by the
grace of God, I am still on my feet! I have not fainted yet. I have not exploded in the anger of
presumption, nor have I keeled over into the paralysis of despair. All I am doing is walking and not fainting,
hanging in there, enduring with patience what I cannot change but have to bear.
“This
may not sound like much to you, but to me it is the most appropriate and most
needful gift of all [from God.] My
religion has been the difference in the last two weeks; it has given me the
gift of patience, the gift of endurance, the strength to walk and not
faint. And I am here to give God thanks
for that!
“And
who knows, if I am willing to accept this gift, and just hang in there and not
cop out, maybe the day will come that Laura Lue and I will run again and not be
weary, that we may even soar some day, and rise up with wings as eagles! But until then – to walk and not faint, that
is enough. O God, that is enough!”
I
thought about that sermon and what John Claypool shared of his experience, strength
and hope while I was sitting with Japhia in the Emergency Room of St. Joe’s
last Wednesday night and into Thursday morning – the third visit we made there
in the space of six days.
She’s
better again now. She’s once again
achieved a kind of good and manageable balance in her disease. But it was a rough week for her. Not a week of soaring or running very
far. More a week of just getting through
each day, one day at a time, without falling over or giving up.
And
all of you, in your own ways and in your own journeys, know what that’s like –
in your own life, in the life of your family, in the lives of friends and
neighbours and co-workers that you care about.
There
are times of soaring, for which we are immensely grateful. There are times of running and not growing
weary, for which we give thanks. And
there are times for us all and for others around us when it is enough – truly
enough, to be able to walk and not faint, to get through the day and the night
that follows without falling or giving up entirely.
And
how often does the strength to do that come from others? From the help and support of family and
friends that is there when we need it?
And from what someone else has shared of their experience, strength and
hope, and that we remember in our own time of struggle and crisis?
Have you not known? [the prophet says.] Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from
the beginning?
Have you not understood from
the foundations of the Earth?
[That God is big enough to
encompass and take in –
to embrace and take
on,
all our sorrow and
pain.
That God’s love is greater
than anything that
might scare us or threaten us;
greater also than
anything we think must do or must have
to
fight whatever enemy we face.
And that God is more loving and
creative in his handling of all that is –
whether good or bad,
easy or hard,
and
in his desire
to
draw all things together toward a good end,
than we can ever
imagine history and life being capable of.
And so …
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.
Just a
thought, though, about “those who wait for the Lord” – or “wait upon the Lord”
as we sometimes translate it.
My
guess is that a lot of people talk to God, and that they mean it quite
honestly. Giving thanks for what seems
good, and asking God’s help – making requests of God for what they need and
hope for in the spot they are in. And
then going on … in a way, waiting to see if God will answer their prayer, but
still getting on with things themselves in the meantime.
I
wonder, though, if as many as talk to God are also committed t0 listening to
God. And listening for God. Not just for God’s
happy “You’re welcome!” when they offer thanks.
And not just for God’s “Yes” or “No” to whatever they ask for – which
can be hard enough.
But
also for God’s quiet and often-merely-whispered “Here I am” in the midst of
whatever situation they are in – no matter how dark or painful, how tragic or God-forsaken
it may appear to be.
Israel
found, for instance, that really they did their best theology, that they found
their way into their deepest communion with God, and that they themselves most
became the people of God in the hardest times of their history – when they were
most tempted to doubt and despair, when without the trappings of worldly
success and strength they learned to wait and listen for the Lord in the midst
of their darkness, and from the underside of history and of life they were able
to see and know where and how God really is in this world to make it go ‘round.
In the
ER last Wednesday night and Thursday morning, I wonder where God really
was.
Obviously
in the kindness of the paramedics who came to the house, and of the triage
nurse who got things started?
Maybe
also in the sometimes unguarded conversation of the young couple sitting ahead
of us in the waiting room, whose simplicity and openness of life somehow helped
us all to be real?
Of
course in the kindness of the doctor who attended Japhia and who we remembered
– and who remembered us from a visit some months ago?
Was
God also present to the pain of the young woman who Japhia was asked to give
her bed to, and to her quietly distraught husband – love and solicitude and
powerlessness all over his face as he asked the nursing staff for help?
I am
convinced I saw a face of the true God in the young man – about high school
age, maybe Eritrean or Somalian, who was there at 4 in the morning to translate
for his father who had come in for some reason, and who got out of the chair he
was resting in, so he could invite me to sit in it, so I could maybe nap.
Somehow,
in all of that activity and anxiety and tedium and terror and humility and
honesty, God was present and whispering to those with ears to hear, “Here I
am.”
John
Claypool, because of the way he shared his experience, strength and hope,
helped me to listen, and to wait upon God not just beyond but also in that
present moment.
Are
there others who help you to wait and to listen for God in your present
moments?
And
are there others yet in the world that you live in, who will be able to wait
and listen for that presence of God in their present moments, because of what
you share with them of your experience, strength and hope?
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