eagles' wings

 

SERMON PREACHED

AT

St LUKE’S ON THE TAIERI (MOSGIEL)

ORDINARY SUNDAY 5 (7^th February) 2021

 

 

 

Readings

Isaiah 40:21-31

Psalm 147:1-11, 20c

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Mark 1:29-39

 

To understand the magnificent poetry of second Isaiah we have to place our passage into the context of the passage in which he originally framed it – that of course should always be the case with biblical passages. For once the historical setting of the passage is a little less important to know, except that Isaiah’s people were an utterly crushed and broken people. They had lost their spirit. We have probably seen pictures conquered or enslaved victims of colonial expansion: Second Isaiah’s people were as them.

And to them Isaiah spoke a word of hope:

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.

It is deservedly one of the most well-known and loved passages of Hebrew and Christian Scripture. Some with long cinematographic memories will remember Chariots of Fire and the stirring rendition of these words by Ian Charleson, playing the part of Eric Liddell. “They shall mount up with wings like eagles.”

It is a timeless passage, but it is at its most timely when a people are broken. In 1981, when I was a young undergrad seeing Chariots of Fire for the first of many times, I was not a broken person, nor part of a broken people. I was cock-a-hoop in the full flush of youth and of new-found faith: “they shall mount up with wings like eagles.” But my country, our country, too was a place of confidence. Waitangi Day and its Treaty were quaint excuses for a last gasp of Summer holidays, often accompanied in the Manawatu by disappointing wind and rain. Western society, too, was cock-a-hoop. Ecological and economic collapse were still only faint and largely disregarded rumours.

As it happens Chariots of Fire and the Springbok Tour occurred in the same year in New Zealand. But 1981, surely, was the year cracks appeared in New Zealand’s cosy colonial complacency. Wei began to tear apart and were brought face to face with some of the darknesses of our past. Post-contact New Zealand has had it easy in so many ways, when we think of the Hebrew People, or of the brutal conflict that nations like Myanmar, Belarus or even the United States face today, or the brutal conflict that has often been the story of colonised nations.

Isaiah though was not welcomed by his audience. He spoke of hope – but he spoke too of the cost of following the Creator God. The Hebrew people had been crushed by Babylon, but ironically even “crushed” may seem, sometimes, preferable to the demands of a God. Am I truly free if I permit a Supreme God to infiltrate my life? The Babylonians may be oppressive, but at least they’re the masters we know.

The comparisons with our own era are not direct, but there are connections. Do we really want to believe in a God who makes certain demands of us? Moral demands, ritual demands, “cognitive” demands? Or to put it another way, do we really want to believe in a God when science appears to tell us we’re nincompoops for doing so? Might not the light of God – we would add “revealed in Christ” – penetrate too deeply to our darkest recesses? Do we – can we really believe in God – and do I admit that I struggle?

Yet can we not? Can I not? Isaiah, like Jesus centuries later, answered by turning to the world around him. Who determined the earth’s measurements? It’s not a conclusive argument. But it’s an argument of love. Did both the beauty and the tyranny of our universe just appear? We can argue either way, but as we allow ourselves to be overawed by the infinite beauty and glory of the cosmos around us, something may begin, if we do not drown it out, to whisper to us. Beauty, yes, and terror, yes, but in the stories of our faith even the hint of a goodness, a greatness that may reach beyond the darkest horrors. To me it seems to, and may for for you: beyond the horror of Good Friday is there a glimpse of Light? Beyond the collapse of Empires, from which we are not protected, or the collapse of our lives, from which we are not protected, is there a whisper of something greater. Yes, says Isaiah. And they shall mount up, with wings.

And even in the cycles of history, are there not hints of hope? For four years on the international scene where we have seen the brutality of a nation handed over (in Paul’s sense of the word) to its own darkest urges, are we being invited to see a glimpse of decency reborn? And while Myanmar or Belarus today may seem dark, have there not been hints of hope in the history of nations around the world, of people around the world, of lives around us? Flawed hints, yes, but shadows of dawn’s reddening light.

As bearers of Christlight that is what we are called to live and to proclaim by actions and if necessary by words. Brutal death and destruction, corruption, insurrection and military take-over have their day, but are they the final word? A Gorbachev replaces a Chernenko, yes, and yes is replaced by a Yeltsin and a Putin, yes, but may not a Navalny yet rise despite Putin’s deepest fears? QAnon and KKK offshoots may arise in the USA, but might they not be replaced in God’s time by agents of justice and compassion even for those at the bottom of the socio-economic heap of humans and species? And sometimes it is hard to believe it, but while weeping may last a night time, joy comes in the morning (Ps 30:5).

Against, sometimes, all signs, we are called to be bearers of that joy and clingers to that hope. In a world reeling from Covid and from economic shockwaves and ecological collapse we are called to be messages and signs of hope. We are called to be hope. As our churches close we are called to be hope. As the Jesus story fades from society’s memory we are called to be agents of fresh energy in that story. We are called – and when we struggle are called again – to be “those who wait for the Lord.” We will do that by actions of love, compassion, and justice, most of us on a tiny, micro-scale. We are called, most of us on a tiny, micro-scale; called to be agents of hope, speaking words that drive out demons of hopelessness, loneliness, despair, of abuse and hatred, exploitation and corruption. We won’t be particularly good at it, but by the Spirit of God we will be enabled, as Bruno Bettleheim once put it, to be “good enough” at it. We are called to be a stumbling but Spirit-enflamed contrast society of Jesus, rumouring a world in which they shall and we and all shall “mount up with wings as eagles,” and God shall be all in all.