A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”9 You who bring good news to Zion,
Isaiah 40:-11
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,[c]
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
11 He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.
After hearing about Yahweh’s glory, we now have the prophet commissioned to speak. A voice says “Call out” – and he says “What shall I cry?”
The message is striking. The chapter began with comfort, but the next words don’t immediately seem very comforting. “All flesh is grass – and all its beauty is like the flower of the field”. In other words, as 40:7 makes clear, people are fragile. Life is temporary. We make things that seem impressive – but they can be brought low with just a breath.
We ought to have learnt that after two years of Covid-19. Two years of additional deaths, of more illness, of disrupted economies, of separation from loved ones. We should by now have learnt that all our plans are just like mist that evaporates in the sun.
How is this knowing that all our efforts are temporary comfortable? It is ultimately comfortable because we need the truth. We need illusions stripped away. We need to know that we cannot make something that lasts on our own. We need to look for security and safety and comfort away from ourselves.
Which is, I think, why 40:8 ends with “the word of our God will stand for ever”. Notice that it isn’t simply the word of God – it is the word of our God, the word of the God who brings us into his people. It is this God’s word that will last forever, this God’s word that brings ultimate security and safety and comfort.
It is vital to remember that it is by reading this prophet’s words, and the words of all the other authors in the Bible that we can hear God’s word speaking to us too. God, in giving us the Bible, has given us the means by which we can hear him speaking directly to us, as God’s Spirit takes those words and speaks them to our hearts.
There are all sorts of problems with the way that people have claimed to speak for God – prophets who have spoken lies, and preachers who have implicitly (or explicitly) claimed to have the only correct way of understanding the Bible. People have used the Bible as a weapon. As we can twist all God’s gifts. But that doesn’t change the foundational reality that in this book we have God speaking to us.
This advent, we should commit once again to hearing God speak in his word, and to join with others in reading it together – for it is in reading together that we will correct our individual tendencies to distort it.
And then the prophet tells the on bringing good news to Jerusalem to lift up her voice and declare this good news. This good news is quite simply God. It is the reality of God and his character. That is the fundamental need we have.
We need to know God – and therefore we need to “behold” our God – to see that he is really there – ‘behold’ is such a hard word to translated – but a lot of the time ‘look!’ Or ‘Pay attention!” is a good way to paraphrase it. It is like when one of my children shows me something. If I am distracted I tend to see ‘very nice’ – and if they are wise to my mood they will say ‘no, look!’ That is what ‘behold’ is doing here. We need to stop and to pay attention.
And here we need to pay attention to two things – which are mentioned in v10-11, and then unpacked in the rest of the chapter.
We need to behold that God comes with might, that his arm rules for him. In other words, our God is mighty and he is strong. He comes, and he brings his reward with him. That sounds a bit puzzling. But maybe it is meant to convey that when God comes, he doesn’t come for plunder. He doesn’t need anything that we have. He comes, and he brings his reward – in order to share it.
Immediately though we move from God’s might to God’s gentle care. He looks after his flock as a shepherd his sheep. He gathers the lambs in his arms, carrying them close to his chest. He treats those struggling because they are about to give birth gently and carefully.
We look in more detail at these in another post, but for now we need to see that God is both mighty and gentle. As we think about this Advent season we should let this transform how we see Jesus. He is the one who has power, and the one who cares for us gently. We shouldn’t forget either. Getting hold of this transforms us utterly. It changes how we think about the world and how we think about leadership. Or it should.
No one else in the ancient world thought like this. Their gods were like human rulers only worse, they were happy to kill and steal and destroy without a second thought. So were the rulers who the gods were modelled on. Emperors used people as tools, and no one was surprised.
In his fascinating book Dominion, Tom Holland argues that the reason we expect better is because of Christianity. The reason we expect that our politicians should not be breaking rules they lay down for others, the reason we expect that we should not be lied to by our leaders is because of the Jewish-Christian idea of a God who is mighty, yet gentle. The reason we expect that our leaders will have a sense of shame about doing wrong is because of this God.
And so too leadership in the church – we need to see that God gives us a way of leading that is gentle and humble. A way that trusts he is God and he is running this world – so we don’t have to. A way that trusts he is speaking, so we need to listen and help others listen to what he is already saying – we don’t always need a word from the Lord for someone else, but rather the grace and humility to sit with them and to learn together what God is saying.
As we go about daily life we can trust that God is powerful and that he has got us covered. Nothing will take him by surprise, and he is coming and he brings his reward with him – but that power does not mean he will trample us underfoot. He is the LORD God who carries his flock as a shepherd.
That means we can come to him with our prayers, and we can ask, knowing that he can do what we ask. We can come knowing that he knows best, and will give according to his tender care. Prayer puzzles me greatly much of the time. I don’t understand why some prayer is answered, but so much seems to go unheeded. Sometimes the answered prayer bothers me more than the unanswered prayer. Sometimes God answers over things that in the grand scheme of things seem so small – while the larger things go unheeded.
Yet the small matters to our God, and these verses are an encouragement to persist in prayer, knowing that God is big enough to bring anything, and cares enough to do what is best and to hold us in the midst of whatever pain that unanswered prayer brings us.
Chapter 40 of Isaiah goes on to unpack more of what it means for God to be powerful, and for God to care – and these verses remind us of the vital importance of holding to the reality that God is both powerfully in charge, and tenderly caring.
If we miss the first we will come to believe in a God who cares, but can do very little to actually help us. If we miss the second we will have a Sovereign King who we bow in awe before, but actually don’t really love, and we will doubt his care for us.
But God is both – and he is both in ways that are above and beyond our understanding, yet which he reveals to us so that we can catch a glimpse of how he is both, and what they both mean in reality. More on that as we move on through Isaiah 40.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 