The Message, February 4, 2024: "Have You Not Known?" Isaiah 40:21-31
Author: Rev. Scott W. Cousineau
February 04, 2024
“Have You Not Known?”
A Message by Rev. Scott W. Cousineau
Isaiah 40:21-31
We know weary. We can understand
what it means to be weary.
There may be some of you in this
sanctuary this morning that came here carrying the heavy burden of your weariness.
There may be some of you at home in our virtual congregation that are unable to
be here because of the burdens that you bear.
You do not have to be biblical
scholars to comprehend that verse. You know what it means to be weary.
We know weary every time that we
turn on the morning, or midday, or evening news. We see and hear about the
tragedies unfolding around the world. We carry the weariness of unending cycles
of war and violence fueled by human greed and avarice, revenge and retaliation.
We carry the weariness of human suffering … the innocent lives lost,
communities destroyed … lives and livelihoods devastated by the destruction …
We know weary.
The never-ending political campaign
season and its angry and intentionally divisive rhetoric that stokes fear and
anxiety, that turns friends and neighbors into bitter rivals and even enemies
makes us weary. Political parties and candidates utilize the power of fear
because they know that a divided populace is easy to manipulate. They know that
fear can motivate donors to give, and voters to vote for FEAR of what will
happen if that evil other one wins.
Our weariness is compounded by our
news outlets of choice that heighten our fears and deepen our mistrust because
they know that will keep us watching and listening so that we can know what
horror is going to befall us next.
We are inundated with images and
illustrations and sound bites that would have us believe that we are on the
verge of a post-apocalyptic dystopian world … so we turn it all off. We shut it
down … or try to.
But, even if we are able to shut
down the noise of the media, even if we somehow shut out the news of the world,
we know weary on a deeper and more personal level.
We know the weariness of losing the
most precious loved ones … a spouse, a child, a parent. We know the weariness
of carrying that sorrow and grief around with us.
We know the weariness of health
concerns. There may be some gathered here today who cannot remember the last
time that you felt good … or well. You know the weariness of endless doctor’s
visits and hospital stays.
We know the weariness of difficult
family dynamics.
We
know the weariness of being let down by those who are supposed to love or care
for us.
We
know the weariness of struggling every day to make ends meet and still coming
up short.
We
know what it means to be weary. And there may be times when we cry out to God
like those ancient Israelites, “Where are you?! Why are you letting this happen
to me?! Why are you doing this to me?! Or to our world?! Or to those whom I
love?! Why, O God, why?!”
The
people to whom the prophet spoke in our passage this morning knew weary all too
well. They had lost precious loved ones. They had lost their homeland. They had
lost the Temple … the center and focal point of their faith and worship. They
had lost their freedom living in the bondage of slavery and exile in Babylon. They
had been mocked and ridiculed. They had been asked, “Where is your God now?
When is your God going to save you?” They had been told that Marduk, the
Babylonian deity was greater than Yahweh, the God of Israel.
And
from the depths of that weariness the people began to doubt … and wonder … “Is
it true? Has our God abandoned us? Forgotten us? Failed us? Forsaken us?”
They
knew weary.
The
prophet spoke to their pain and their weariness and offered them words of hope.
Here are the opening words of Chapter 40: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your
God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard
service has been completed …” (Isaiah 40:1-2a)
Take comfort … and know. Take comfort … and
remember.
You know that our God is great. You know that God
is greater than any power in heaven or on earth. You know that God’s power is
so great that it is beyond our knowing … beyond our comprehension. You KNOW
that. It is the foundation of our faith.
Know this also … God does not grow weary. God
does not grow faint. God does not abandon us, or forget us, or fail us, or forsake
us.
Why would God do that? God who created the stars
and named them also created us. God has known us from the time that we were
being knit together in our mother’s wombs. Why would God forget you?
Your pain is real. Your struggles are real. Your
weariness is a very real burden. You may even feel as if you are as
insignificant and puny as a grasshopper. But God created them as well. No
creature of God’s creation is insignificant to God. You are not insignificant
beloved child of God.
God has not abandoned you or forsaken you.
Yes, we know pain and struggle. Yes, we know what
it means to be weary, but it is not our God who has failed us. We have been
failed by human nature. We have been failed by human desires. We witness that
in the ugliness that we see around us in the world today. We have been “failed”
by human frailty. We do suffer from pain, and illness, and injury. Our knees
grow weary, and our backs grow weak.
But we have not been failed by God. God is with
us in every struggle. Even when everything around us appears to uncertain, when
the ground beneath our feet trembles, God is our sure foundation. God is the One
that we can cling to when all else fails. God is our sanctuary, our rock.
The gift of “wings” is a divine gift. God
protects us with divine wings as those of a Mother Hen when she hovers over her
chicks. And God gives us “wings” of our own. God gives us the strength to rise
above our challenges and our circumstances. God enables us to fly.
God is faithful. God is trustworthy. God has not
broken the covenant. God has been with us since the foundation of Creation, and
God will remain with us until the end of the age.
Comfort, O comfort my people. God is with us. God will always be with us. Amen.
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