Monday, February 2, 2015

Epiphany 5 B - Isaiah 40:21-31

Isaiah 40:21-31
The One who sits above the circle of the earth and stretches out the heavens like a curtain, who brings princes to naught and dismisses the rulers of the earth abandoned the place of ultimate power to inhabit human flesh. Isaiah didn’t know it when he spoke these words to the exhausted captives in Babylon but that is the way by which the Holy One would become intimate with the ways of the weak and powerless and exhausted. The little g gods bluster and bray “to whom will you compare us?” but the big G God demonstrates ultimate power by giving it up. The Holy One will grow faint and weary and as a young man will stumble and fall on the way to the hill of crucifixion. And when the powers of darkness rejoiced at such foolishness the Holy One stepped out of the tomb and banished them to hell. Have you not heard? Do you not know? Our way is not unknown to the Lord and our cause is not disregarded by the One who knows us so well. The unknowable, unsearchable God is as close as our own breath because the Holy One of Israel has lived our life and died our death “for us, ahead us, instead of us” (Walt Bouman) so that when this flesh is finally worn out we might rise on wings like an eagle and fly away. In the meantime we are encouraged to live the future in the present until “some glad morning…” 

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