Pastor Tom
Johnson, February 8, 2015
Isaiah’s words from our first Scripture reading are words of comfort to
God’s people still in exile and captivity in Babylon. Isaiah is consoling them
after he hears their cries of despair and hopelessness. “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my
God.” “God cannot or will not see what is going on in my life! He does not care
about the injustice I suffer. He remains silent. He does nothing. We are
invisible.” One thing I really appreciate about the Bible is how it honestly
confronts our dark and troubling thoughts. Also, don’t miss the honesty of the
Israelites and their boldness and courage to let God know their true thoughts,
fears, and doubts. For many of the same reasons, I appreciate the candid doubt and
unbelief I hear from friends. At last, now we’re talking! What is really
bothering you and me is not scientific theory, philosophy, or abstraction; no,
what is really bothering us is that we often feel alone in the universe. “God is not concerned about my daily life and private thoughts,” we
might say to ourselves or out loud to others. “Where is his concern for my
troubles? Where is the evidence that he is even aware of my pain, suffering,
and injustice?”
Isaiah’s answer is ask his own questions. “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.” In other words, nothing is hidden from God; maybe his ways are hidden
from us. “His understanding is unsearchable.” “No one can fathom his
understanding.” The human mind does not have the capacity to grasp the mind of
God. Later in the book of Isaiah, he will share the same thought with these
words: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says
the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:8,9). There are limitations to what we can access through our intellect. We
are not engineered with the ability to access the mind of God. This does not
mean that we embrace an anti-intellectualism. It does not mean we stop learning
about the Scripture and about the natural world around us. It simply is a reminder that there are some things that only God
understands. He alone is eternal. Only he created the heavens and the earth. He
sees the history of the universe with one glance. He stands outside space and
time in a reality that we have not yet experienced. He has a plan that has not
yet been revealed.
Our intellectual difficulty leads God to another strategy: to inspire
our imagination. We can’t precisely know or understand God’s ways and thoughts.
But through the imagination we can get close. We can explore what is
“unsearchable” Albert Einstein said it this way, “Imagination is more
important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and
understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever
will be to know and understand.” This leads us to these beautiful
words: “He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths
will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but 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.”
Do you feel the pull gravity? Does this world weigh you down? Anxiety, wearies
young and old. Despair causes even the most physically fit to fall. But not so
those who patiently trust in God—not so those who abide in Christ. You will mount up with wings like eagles! You never realized they were
there, but soon you will sprout wings that will provide lift and will help you
defy the laws of gravity. You will soar into the heavens and transcend the
problems of this world. God assures us that we have a scheduled flight. Our flight may seem delayed
but it is on God’s time. The day is coming soon when we will have superhuman
strength because God has given us his divine and now human Savior, Jesus
Christ. Marvel Comics and Xmen have nothing on God’s imagination and the special
ability he gives to us who trust in him. Whether it is Iron Man’s rocket
propelled suit or the mutant angel who grew wings in puberty, the human
imagination longs for a way to soar through this life. And that is what God promises to do—to transform our mortal bodies to
immortality. He strengthens and preserves us through his Word. He does so by
his holy Supper. This is what we have in the Gospel: “If we have been united with him in
a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in resurrection
like his” (Rom 6:5). We will rise up and defy this world’s gravity, our sin, and even death itself. “If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation, the old has passed away; behold the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). You will be able to run and walk by God’s strength. You will be able to gracefully glide and feel the wind of the Spirit give you lift. You will have a peace that transcends human comprehension. You will, as Jesus says, be like angels in heaven. You will make your final journey like Lazarus did when he died who mounted up on angels’ wings. God hears and receives our cries of despair, helplessness, and hopelessness. And, in exchange, he causes us to sprout wings.
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