5th Sunday after Epiphany  Isaiah 40:21-31 & Mark 1:29-39  February 5, 2012

5Epiphany2012                       Isaiah 40:21-31 & Mark 1:29-39                            February 5, 2012

Isaiah 40 includes one of the Bible’s most beloved images: eagle’s wings.  It was not lost on me this week that eagles were featured on the cover page of the Chico ER.  A quarter of the page was of a soaring eagle. A smaller picture showed 7 eagles spotted in a tree. And today we hear:   “wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles.” 

Eagles were common in the lands out of which the Bible emerged, so it was an accessible image. A quick Google search identifies 27 uses of eagle in the O.T. and 3 in the N.T. – all 3 N.T. ones are in the Book of Revelation.  Some are positive images and some are of eagles swooping down to snatch away, but they are always images of power and size – including the size of their nests. 

I was amazed to read that the largest Bald Eagle nest on record, found in St. Petersburg, Florida, was about 9 feet across and about 18 feet deep.  Can you imagine babies getting out of that?  Another recorded nest was found in Ohio.  Its attraction was its wine glass shape. It was used over and over for years – for 34 years – probably would have kept being used had the tree it was in not blown over. When it blew down they were able to weigh the nest.  It weighed about 2 tons.

The image of the eagle is used at the end of Isaiah 40 to reinforce the whole chapter. It begins with the well known words: “Comfort my people, says your God.”  Isaiah 40 also holds those words Handel made famous in the Messiah: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, and gather his lambs in his arms.”  It also holds the promise that though “grass withers and flowers fade, God’s word stands forever.”

Then, after the verses Handel put to music, we get a series of questions Handel didn’t harmonize.  Questions beginning with “Who?” “Who has measured the waters in the hallow of their hand?”  “Who weighed the mountains on scales?” Then it points out that nations we think are powerful really aren’t. “The nations are like a drop from a bucket. They are accounted as dust on the scales.” What a visual image! “Accounted as dust on the scales.”  When’s the last time you dusted your scale at home?  If you leave the dust on it, it won’t make you weigh more. Dust can’t be blamed for the numbers. Isaiah 40 likens what we think powerful - to the nothingness of dust. 

Then the questions change from “Who?” to “Have you not?” “Have you not known?  Have you not heard? Has it not been told you? Big questions – and big answers too that return to “Who?” questions: “It is God who sits above the earth. Lift up your eyes and see.  Who created these?  Who names and numbers them so not one is missing?” Then comes one last “Why?” question – a question most who have lived at least to teenage years have probably asked.  This “Why?” comes from God: “Why do you say, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?”  Then Isaiah repeats his former questions: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth...”

The poet is privy to the fact that people ask such questions – back then and now – in our hearts if not out loud. “Why does God seem to disregard what’s going on in my life, my relationships, in our community, our church, our world, the cosmos? Has God disregarded us?  These are dark-night-of-the-soul questions, but we can ask them even when we’ve just had a bad day.  We say we believe in a God who protects, saves, and rescues, yet, accidents happen, as do heartaches.  Things as they are and things as we think they ought to be don’t always match up.  And to top it off, we all have finite-ness looking us in the face.  Did you read of the Auction of the Milhous Collection? Over 500 items collected over years by two brothers – now in their 70’s. They know they can’t take it with them.  A 1912 Oldsmobile Limited, 28 other classic cars, a fabulous carousel with 42 animals (I want it if it has a warthog), antique musical instruments, even a vintage gas pump – all up for auction. If you have a trip planned for Florida in February you might keep it in mind. The brothers are doing something the Rule of St. Benedict says we should all do: daily be mindful we are finite – not in a morbid way, but a life-giving way.  We won’t be here forever, so what might God delight in from us today?

Isaiah 40 wants most of all to help his readers see that there’s no need to fear that God will disregard. Even when we die, Isaiah asserts, God does not disregard.  The description of God in verse 28 as “The Lord is the everlasting God” literally “the God of forever.”  God’s power is not limited to this life.  And startlingly, neither is it limited to what we can see or what we believe.

I was struck this week by the discussion in the New Interpreter’s Bible by a professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.  His take on Isaiah 40 is that God’s word doesn’t require our assent or acceptance to be true and abiding.  By nature it is true and abiding.  God and God’s word stand forever – whether we heed that word or not.  There may be entire generations that don’t heed God’s word, but that doesn’t mean God’s word isn’t present and alive. And sometimes God’s word is heeded in ways God doesn’t intend – like seeing it as filled with more judgment than joy, more wrath than grace.

Professor Seitz says it well: “Hearing is more than sound waves bouncing, and seeing is more than light reflecting. Each generation must be taught to hear and see aright by God.”  Isaiah knows this.  He knows the task of proclaiming is his, but as Seitz goes on to say, Isaiah also knows that “A switch must be flipped, and no human hand can touch [the switch].”  Isaiah was called to proclaim the word – which he did – but he also knew only God could“flip the switch”.

And so we too proclaim as well as we can – through word and prayer, through anthems, songs and the action you do in the world, but it is God who holds the power to help people hear and see aright. The good news is that there is no need to despair when we or others fail to see or trust how amazingly wonderful God is.  God will be amazingly wonderful whether we or our family or friends see or not.  And God will keep working on us – that we might hear and see and trust. 

That perhaps may be bit of what heaven is: when by God’s mysterious work of flicking the switch, we arrive into the fullness of hearing, seeing and trusting what has been true all along – a grace that might happen in the midst of life, at unexpected moments. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is among you.”  Isaiah 40’s closing words are as precious as any in the Bible. “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles...” 

Waiting for the everlasting Creator of the ends of the earth is not only wise,  it is freeing.  It frees us from frantic living where we grasp at life rather than receive; where we try to possess rather than gratefully inherit. The kind of waiting Isaiah advocates, as Walter Brueggemann says, sees that “initiative has passed from our hands and we are better for it, for hope is not generated by us, but always given to us. And whenever it is given, we are amazed.” 
So may we learn the wise mystery of not rushing to fix our fears, but waiting on wisdom of the Creator of heaven and earth who neither slumbers nor sleeps. This God sent Jesus to heal the sick and cast out demons, which, simply means that which depletes, discourages and diminishes.  God works always to restore hope. 

So why not wait for this God?  Waiting, Steed  Davidson of PLTS says, “is not a neutral activity.  It is waiting with hope for optimistic results because God acts in history” as God acted at creation – always for good!  Be on the look out this week for the good activity of God.  It will happen whether we see it or not, but oh the joy of seeing the hand of God at work – and the even greater joy of joining in ourselves!  God is always at work, for good!  Thanks be to God!

                                                                                                Amen

+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to the glory of God
Faith Lutheran Church, Chico, CA