Renewing Our Strength
By Timothy Connor
IN THE 40th CHAPTER of Isaiah the prophet addresses to us a series of rhetorical questions about God and the works of God. Who has ever taken the measure of God’s works as if they were things to be searched out as so much quantifiable matter? Who has ever taught God knowledge or given God counsel or led God along the pathways of judgment and understanding? With what can God’s likeness be compared? The answer to such questions is no one and nothing (no-thing). God is the God of incomparable majesty and might and power. The nations are but a drop from a bucket; they are like fine dust on the balance scales. The inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers. God, by contrast, sits “upon the circle of the earth” and governs the affairs of its peoples. God is the God of Glory – the God of perfect substance, of real ‘weight.’
To speak of God in these terms of transcendence, of almightiness and so on may well have the effect of placing God at a distance – a distance which we may well seek to close by bringing God, as it were, down to earth. We might protest that the heightening of God in the prophet’s discourse is accomplished at the price of the lowering of the human being. We might then, as the prophet indicates, pick out a likeness for God and fashion God according to that likeness, a likeness that can be measured and controlled and deployed according to our best lights. We might indeed select for ourselves wood that will not rot, precious metals to adorn it, and fashion rites and practices with which to worship and serve it. We might fashion a god in our own image, a god we can lead along the pathways of our judgement and understanding. But this is no God at all but only an idol. Yet we are especially prone to the sin of making and worshipping idols.
To speak of God, then, in these terms of transcendence is not by any means to fall silent, as if there were nothing we can say of this God. Indeed, the prophet names this God as the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth. And in this 40th chapter he indicates the kind of relationship which this God has bestowed on us his creatures. To this God we stand in a relation of dependence: we are like lambs carried in the bosom of the Shepherd, the flock fed by his generous hand, the weary and faint ones to whom God draws near with the gift of fresh strength. Indeed, this is the prophet’s theme: the God of Jacob is the God who returns to his people to restore their strength, a strength adequate to meet the challenges, distractions and temptations facing a people returned from exile. Those who wait upon this God, the prophet says, renew their strength.
Three powerful images of God’s acts of restoring his people’s strength are put before us: those who wait upon God will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not be weary; they will walk on and not faint. Now no matter how many kilometres a pilgrim on the Camino might be able to walk in a given day, the time comes when he must rest his aching joints and put up his blistered feet. And no matter how much a runner has trained and how good her oxygen uptake is and how well fueled her muscles are, the time comes when her lungs will break down and her body seize up. And without the thermal currents rising from the ground the eagle cannot soar effortlessly into the sky. The renewal of our strength is always gift; it is sheer grace. It comes, says the prophet, to those who wait upon the Lord. To wait upon the Lord is to listen for his voice, to attend to his Word, to lift up our minds to God in contemplation of his incomparable glory.
The Apostle Peter teaches us to know this God of all grace as “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and on the basis of his great mercy, he says, this God has given us new birth into a living hope, into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading. God has birthed us as sons and daughters in the Son and made the inheritance of the Risen One to be our own. And God is protecting us for a salvation which we are already receiving now but have not yet received in its fullness. That salvation is working itself out in us in the form of love for Jesus Christ, as genuine faith which can withstand severe testing, and as an indescribable and glorious joy. The Apostle also teaches us to know the Spirit who spoke through the prophets of this grace – and of the suffering and glory destined for Christ–as the Spirit of Christ. It is this same Spirit, the Apostle says, who was sent from heaven to bring us this gospel, this good news.
Here, then, are two matters for our reflection and response to this gospel of the God of all grace, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The first is that our lips should be perpetually full of God’s praise. These words from the 43rd chapter of Sirach [also known as Ecclesiasticus] in the Apocrypha give us rich counsel:
“Where can we find the strength to praise him? For he is greater than all his works. Awesome is the Lord and very great, and marvelous is his power. Glorify the Lord and exalt him as much as you can, for he surpasses even that. When you exalt him, summon all your strength, and do not grow weary, for you cannot praise him enough” (verses 28-30).
Second, from this gospel there comes to each of us the call to holy living, to conversion, to that daily turning to Christ which we first made in our baptism. For it is in turning to Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit that faith, hope and love are restored and renewed in us and we enter once again, in ever fuller measure, into the joy of the Lord. TAP
The Rev’d Canon Dr Timothy Connor is a retired priest in the Diocese of Huron. He teaches theology at Wycliffe College (Toronto) and Huron University College (London) and serves as Honorary Assistant in the Collegiate Chapel of St John the Evangelist at Huron.
