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Exile and Hope: Isaiah Chapter 40

The Very Reverend Sam G. Candler
The Cathedral of St. Philip
8 February 2009
The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 40:21-31

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. 
Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
but 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.
(Isaiah 40:27-31)

The date 587 BC is one of the hinges of biblical history. In the entire Old Testament, in all the Hebrew scriptures, events and prophecies swing one way before 587 BC, and the events swing another way after 587 BC.

Essentially, that was the year of defeat. Jerusalem fell, and its glorious temple devoted to Yahweh was destroyed, by the Babylonians in 587 BC. At that point, the people of Judah were marched away from the city, into exile. “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and there we wept; on the willows there we hung up our harps” (Psalm 137:1-2).

During the sixth century BC, then, the people of Judah were in exile. Remember, the land Judah and the land of Israel, were two different kingdoms at that point. Israel, in fact, up north, had already succumbed—to the Assyrians—in 722 BC. They were already in mourning. Now, the holy city of Jerusalem, in the south, had fallen. The people of Judah were also in exile.

We need not review the reasons for that exile. Perhaps they themselves were to blame, for having not heeded the direction of their moral leaders. Perhaps they had not been obedient to Yahweh. Maybe they were in exile simply because that is the way the cycles of world history proceed. Nation-states grow and nation-states fall. The tiny land of Judah was going to be no match for the Assyrians, or for Babylon, no matter how they behaved.

Prophets like the great Isaiah were full of advice. He urged moral clarity, for sure. At some times, he was wary of treaties and alliances at some times; but at other times, he urged association with foreigners like the Persians.

The chapter from which our lesson is read  this morning, Isaiah chapter 40, is one of the grand chapters of the Bible. It is quoted at major times in our New Testament. John the Baptist cites chapter forty, verse three, when he appears in the Judean wilderness crying out, “in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” That is from Isaiah, chapter 40. It was written to a people in exile.

When George Frederick Handel put together his great Messiah, in 1742, he used the comforting words of Isaiah 40:11; “he shall feed his flock like a shepherd.” The great German Requiem of Johannes Brahms also uses verses from Isaiah forty: “Denn alles fleshes es ist die grasse.” “All flesh is grass…The grass whithers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:7-8).

That great chapter of the Bible, Isaiah forty, begins “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term” (Isaiah 40.1-2). Jerusalem is in exile, in mourning, when she hears those words.

And the great chapter forty of Isaiah ends with the words we have heard this morning: “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” (Isaiah 40:31).

All of us know defeat and exile. We are not fully mature, we have not grown up, until we have known defeat of some sort of another. And, while, I pray that our exiles are not prolonged, all of us have probably known some sort of exile.

Perhaps it is the exile of divorce we have known. Our partnership, once so devoted, is now ripped apart, seemingly by forces we could not even control. Perhaps it is the exile of broken relationships.

Maybe the exile many of us face today, or we fear facing, is the exile from jobs and vocation. Human beings are created for vocation, for service, for being about the work of the good. When we lose our job, we lose our purpose and sometimes even our identity. Maybe there are some of us have yet to find that right job yet, yet to find our identity. Job loss is a type of exile.

Entire nations, entire cultures, can seem to be in exile. I pity, today, the quite dangerous countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, Somalia, and even the central Congo, and even areas of Myanmar – dangerous lands of instability and terror.

Some would say that an exile has descended upon our most developed countries during these times of economic crisis.  Where did the good times go? Wasn’t it only last year that we were singing songs and dancing gaily into the night? Now, many of us have hung up our harps by the rivers of Babylon.

This fortieth chapter of Isaiah was probably written for the Hebrews during the time of their deepest exile, when they were spiritually and physically displaced, when it looked like the end times.

But I believe this fortieth chapter of Isaiah was really written for us, today, in our own time. In fact, it is written for any people in mourning, any people displaced from familiar routines and homes. Isaiah chapter forty has been used for comfort in generation after generation since the sixth century BC.

One important theological principle explodes from these verses. Whatever exile or mourning that we are in, the sort of thinking that got us into this mess will not be the sort of thinking that gets us out. The leadership that brought on this calamity, whether intended or not, will not be the leadership that is able to get us out.

Isaiah says in chapter forty, essentially, that our human arms are too short. It will not be some sort of human savior at all that delivers us. It will be the God that exceeds our grasp, the God whose abilities exceed our understanding. “To whom will you liken God?” Isaiah asks (40:18); “To whom will you compare me, or who is my equal?” (40:25).

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary” (40:28).

That is good enough for me. I do not want a God whom I understand too well. If I can understand my God, then my God is too small for me. The only one who can truly deliver me from defeat and exile is the One who is far greater than me, and far greater than the powers that forced me into this position. This is the God in whom I hope.

These are words worth hearing again today—and maybe again and again. In whatever position of defeat we may find ourselves, in whatever state of mourning or loss, in whatever place of exile or loneliness, we have a God who is much bigger than us. It will be the mercy and grace of this incomprehensible God that saves us. That is the God in whom we hope today.

So, these are words worth hearing again and again today:

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in; 
who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. 

Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble. 

To whom then will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.  
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing. 

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my God"? 
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.  
He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. 
Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; 
but 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. (Isaiah 40:21-31)

AMEN.

The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip

Comments? Contact Dean Candler at: SCandler@stphilipscathedral.org

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