Title: “Our Awesome and Tender God”
Scripture: Isaiah 40:21-31, Mark 1:29-39
2/5/06 Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Yr. B
Rev. Joy R. Haertig
When I was a kid in Wichita, Kansas, I enjoyed laying under a rather large tree in our front yard. Besides the enjoyment of shade on a hot Kansas day, it was also fun to watch the ant's hustle and bustle along, carrying little loads of various items on their backs. They were so little and I was so big next to them. Mind you, I was well aware of how easily I could just squish them with my finger one by one, but what good would that do? It was much more fun just watching them build their sandcastles in the shade of our tree.
In the reading from Isaiah this morning we hear the prophet describing God in such a way that reminded me of those ants and me underneath that tree. Isaiah writes:
“It is God who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; [it is God] that stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in.”
It is a vivid image of God so big and we, so small.
And not only is God so big but God is eternal while our lives are like dust, and the power of leaders is short-lived compared to the power of God.
Isaiah also describes God as the maker of the stars in the heavens and as a Presence that never grows weary.
With these words we are reminded that GOD IS THE EXPANSIVE POWER OF LIFE.
God is beyond even these metaphors, for no words can contain the “Isness” of God.
And while we scratch our heads at our complex world - God's understanding is unsearchable.
And just when we begin to remember God's awesomeness, the prophet tells us that God can give strength to the weary - that he can give the wings of an eagle to our spirits when we are discouraged and afraid.
When I hear these promises from the prophet, the awesome nature of God quickly becomes very near and personal.
In this way God is both WOW/AWE-SOME and near as breath.
God's awesomeness is matched by God's tenderness.
Jesus is a window into God's tenderness as he cares for the marginalized and heals the sick.
Isaiah was a window into God's tenderness, speaking to a people that felt abandoned and forgotten by God.
They were in the middle of a serious pity-party, and for good reason. They were exiled from their homeland and were living among people whose lives and faith were strikingly different from their own. They were foreigners in a very strange land and they were convinced that it was God who had put them there and that he had forgotten them entirely.
The prophet was trying to help them gain some perspective by pointing out both the awesome and the tender nature of our God.
You could say that they were like a bunch of grasshoppers that had been spending too much time looking at one blade of grass. They were unable to look back and remember, nor look ahead with hope. They were stuck in the present moment of awfulness.
He was trying to help them get a better sense of God's timeline as opposed to the brief timeline we humans live in.
As it was for the people of Isaiah's day, we have our own sense of exile - perhaps not a physical one, but plenty of other kinds that play on our sense of insecurity and hopelessness.
These words from Isaiah can help us too if we let them soak into our ears and hearts. There is power in these words to ground us in the promises of God.
Isaiah tells us, when the going gets tough - don't whine - tell stories. Look at the bigger picture of our awesome and tender God. Gain perspective.
There are plenty of stories about how religion has harmed more than it has healed, we could choose to belabor these and get stuck in front of that particular blade of grass. Or, we can remember the other stories and gain a sense of perspective that is ultimately redemptive.
Consider the faith in an awesome and tender God that provoked people to build hospitals, schools and universities.
That provided refuge for runaway slaves or victims of the Holocaust.
That built wells in villages where people had to walk miles for running water.
Consider the faith that brought people together in Richmond Beach 115 years ago to tell the stories of Jesus and to be a healing presence in the broader community.
That created the social justice mission of the United Church of Christ.
That builds houses in partnership with others all over the country and world.
That created First Avenue Service Center and the Church of Mary Magdalene in Seattle.
Consider the faith in an awesome and tender God that stands up for peace in a violent world and sends others to the front line to risk their lives.
That enables two adults to choose to commit their lives to one another and raise children with care and commitment and then carries a family through times of struggle.
That invokes us to pray for one another and has led people in the medical profession to admit that it makes a difference in a person's ability to heal.
Consider the faith in an awesome and tender God that brought down apartheid and is helping re-build a country just beginning to heal.
That enables a family to care for their elderly parents with tenderness and respect.
That works for the protection of the Arctic or our alpine forests.
Have you not heard these stories? Have you forgotten or taken them for granted? These are stories about the awesome and tender God of our faith working with us and sometimes in spite of us!
The prophet Isaiah paints a picture of the awesome and tender God we so easily lose sight of as we shelter ourselves from the bigger - wider - longer picture of power and grace.
It is so easy to lose sight of God's action in the world as we march through each day and each month expecting it NOW!
We so easily forget that what troubles us in 2006 may be healed in 50 years by the faithful actions we take today. In God's eyes, that would have only been a second or even less, in our time - and it will be wonderful.
When we feel tired or discouraged, impatient or lonely we need to tell the awesome stories of our faith that reflect the work of God. And in our impatience- let us ALSO remember the powerful promise Isaiah tells us about our awesome and tender God:
“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.”
Amen.