Week 38: How Are You Feeling?
Isaiah 40
How Are You Feeling?
About a month and a half ago as the faculty and staff at the school where I work were frantically preparing to welcome more than 450 adolescents in masks back onto campus for the first time in more than five months, I asked the question above to one of our tech guys. While I felt honored to have been told the truth, I wasn't completely prepared for the bomb he dropped on me. He felt overwhelmed and sad, even scared. He felt we were not ready for what was to come. There was no way we could get everything done. He didn't know what to do. I wouldn't be surprised if you are feeling or have felt some of those same feelings over the last few months. I know I have. Into the darkness, there comes the Word of God.
A Word of Comfort
"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." ( Isaiah 40:1)
Historically, this word of comfort comes after a very long pause full of immense suffering. Most Biblical scholars believe that there was a 160 year break between Isaiah 39:8 and Isaiah 40:1. In that long pause the entire Jerusalem establishment was destroyed and the Isrealites were carried off to Babylon. The word of comfort, comfort my peopleechoed into a dark world marked by exile and destruction. If we think 2020 is tough (and it has been), imagine our places of worship destroyed, our lives physically uprooted and our bodies being carried into captivity (there is, as you might imagine, a powerful direct link between these prophetic texts and the spirituals of American slaves). What is the word of comfort the prophet offers? Your God is coming, your incomparable God is on the fast track back to you with power and strength. Renew your hope. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, refers to this passage and gives it a remix for followers of Jesus: the promise is even better than you thought.
A Highway for Our God
Your God is coming--despite the darkness surrounding you--his glory will soon be seen by all.
"And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
and all mankind together will see it." (v. 5)
There is a homecoming on the horizon and it is on the fast track. This image of a highway is scattered throughout Isaiah and all four gospels recount John the Baptist quoting this text from Isaiah 40: "I am the voice of one calling in the desert, 'Make straight the way for the Lord' " (Matt. 3:3; Mk. 1:3; Lk. 3:4; John 1:23). God is coming, Isaiah and John the Baptist say, make way! The mountains will be leveled so everyone can see and direct access will be restored.
Our Incomparable God
Your God is coming and he is incomparable. There is nothing that can compete with his power and care. This is the message at the center of Isaiah 40. "All men are grass... but the word of our God stands forever" (v.7-8). He comes with power (v.10) and pastoral care (v.11). He is creator of all there is and holds all of creation in his hand (v.12). The nations--yes even your conquerors, the Babylonians and Persians--are nothing before him (v.15-17).
"To whom, then, will you compare God?" (v.18)
The Mind of Christ
With echoes of Job ("Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?" Job 38:4), the prophet makes the case for our incomparable God, creator of the universe, asking "who has understood the mind of the Lord?" (v. 13). In 1 Corinthians, Paul quotes this question and startlingly, shockingly, audaciously ANSWERS the rhetorical question:
" 'For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?'
But we have the mind of Christ." (!) (1 Cor. 2:16)
This is truly SHOCKING if you know the original text Paul is referencing: the whole point of Isaiah's question was: you cannot understand God and his ways. The incomparable God, described by the prophet as completely inscrutable—whose inscrutability is a feature of his greatness--can be known and understood BY US (says Paul). Paul audaciously suggests that through Christ and his Spirit we can know and understand this incomparable God described by Isaiah, Job, and the breadth of Jewish history. To make sure we don't miss it, Paul makes the same point again, once more referencing Isaiah:
" 'No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him' —
but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit." (1 Cor. 2:9-10)
Hope in the Lord
We have the mind of Christ. It is a highway, direct access to the incomparable God, creator of the universe, holding all in his hand. The God who:
"gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak." (Isaiah 40:29)
We have direct access to a God of strength and power, a God who cares for those suffering in exile or reeling from the effects of pandemic. He asks us now to "hope in the Lord" (v. 31) and he--with his strong arm--will "renew [our] strength." His people will:
"soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint." (v. 31)
How are you feeling? It takes audacity to proclaim hope on a day like today, but that is the call of the people of God, to embody another vision for reality. A vision that stands against the death-dealing, darkness of empire, those gone by and those we live exiled among.
—Andy Kelley