“Soaring, Running, Walking”

Isaiah 40:21-31, Mark 1:29-39

February 8, 2009

 

Dave Russell, First Baptist Church of Ames, Iowa USA

 

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“Hurry up and wait.”  How many times have you heard that expression?  And how often have you experienced it?

 

“Hurry up and wait” is an expression that has long been associated with the military, where you might be rushed to get into line after line only to experience endless delays.

 

But it’s not just the military; “hurry up and wait” is an almost daily part of life for many of us.  If you are in the hospital, it is hurry up and wait.  Hurry to get ready for a procedure, only to wait and wait.  Hurry to take a test only to wait endlessly to hear the results. 

 

And then there is air travel.  There is the rush to get ready and make it to the airport, often at some ungodly hour, then hurrying to get through check-in and security, only to wait and wait for the flight to actually board.  Or hurry to the airport to pick up someone only to find that there is a lengthy flight delay.

 

It is not uncommon for me to rush to get to our basketball game on Monday night only to find that the previous game started late and then went into overtime, and it is hurry up and wait.

 

Just this past week, there has been a great deal of working and negotiating and posturing and debating in order to get an economic stimulus bill through Congress.  The continuing news of more job losses has made it important to do this as soon as possible, even though pretty well everyone agrees that it may be a year or so before this legislation makes much of a measurable impact.

 

Hurry up and wait.  We can do the hurry up part – we are used to that.  But we have a hard time with the waiting.  And yet the kind of waiting we are generally asked to do kind of pales with the experience of those to whom Isaiah wrote.  In this section of Isaiah, the prophet writes to a nation in captivity.  Isaiah chapter 40 begins, “Comfort, comfort my people... speak tenderly to Jerusalem, tell her she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.”

 

Isaiah is speaking to people who have known nothing but life in exile, people who have lived with the ever-growing sense that God has given up on them.  They have heard Isaiah’s words about the valleys being lifted up and the hills made low and crooked places made straight so that a holy highway might be constructed to bring them home.  But if they had any response at all to this, it was probably something like, “You’ve got to be kidding.”  They have waited and hoped for so long that they are out of hope.  They are now the fourth generation of those who had never known Jerusalem.  Wait on the Lord?  They were tired of that.  Maybe it would be better to just make accommodation with life in Babylon and get on with life, which many in fact had done.  But it is to such dejected, worn-out hope, to such a feeling of powerlessness and resignation that Isaiah speaks.  Even in the midst of such an existence, there is hope, hope in God, hope for a stunning reversal of fortunes.

 

This is the setting of one of the better-known verses in the Old Testament – and it is one of my favorite verses of scripture.  Isaiah 40:31 says, “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.”

 

The nation of Israel had had its fill of waiting, but in such a seemingly hopeless situation, there was a word of hope – hope that Israel would not simply survive, but hope that the nation might soar.

 

And it a great word of hope for us, because we could all stand to have our strength renewed.  The image of soaring like an eagle is very powerful.  It is an image of peace, an image of rising above the cares of the world, an image of grace and power and strength.  We like that.  We need that.

 

That image is found in other passages of scripture and finds its way into music.  The choir sang the anthem “On Eagles Wings,” which is based on Psalm 91.  Turning from the music of the church to the music of my youth, I remember the Steve Miller Band hit, Fly Like an Eagle.

 

We like the image of an eagle soaring and we want our spiritual life to be like that.  We want to fly, we want to soar.  And when we are feeling hopeless, as the nation of Israel must have been feeling, that is when we need this message the most. 

 

When it comes to our familiar scripture from Isaiah, we all want to focus on the part about mounting up with wings like an eagle.  This is no surprise.  But that is not where the verse ends.  “They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

 

Sometimes we focus on what really grabs our attention and don’t notice what is also plainly in front of us.  There may be songs written about running without growing weary, but I can’t think of any about walking without fainting.  Walking without just collapsing.  We generally set our sight s a little higher than that.

 

But God’s help, God’s strength, God’s grace comes in different ways.  Sometimes, it is strength to fly, it is power to soar.  Have you ever watched an eagle in flight?  They aren’t flapping their wings all over the place.  It’s not like a hummingbird.  Eagles find a thermal current and just soar effortlessly.  It is a majestic sight.

 

And sometimes, God gives us that strength.  Sometimes, everything falls into place, and it is effortless.  It is not our doing, it is God’s doing. From time to time, we have those moments when our spirits absolutely soar.

 

Well, I don’t know about you, but to be honest, most of the time I am not soaring.  Most of the time, I am not gliding effortlessly on the currents of the Spirit.  This passage from Isaiah may be beautiful and poetic, but it is also very pragmatic, very down to earth.  Because God’s strength does not always come as the power to soar.

 

Sometimes it is the power to run without growing weary.  Life can be grueling.  It can wear on us.  And sometimes, God’s strength comes as endurance – God give us the stamina to carry on, to keep running without growing weary.  Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not grow weary in doing good,” and this is the way that God’s strength may come – the strength to continue in service.  The strength to serve even amidst difficulty, the strength to run and not grow weary.

 

But sometimes, even that seems too much.  Sometimes, running seems out of the question.  Sometimes we are overwhelmed.  Sometimes we are beaten down by demands and pressures and conflict and pain and need.  Sometimes, it is all we can do to keep plodding forward, to just put one foot in front of the other and keep going.  “Walking without fainting” might not seem like that spectacular of an accomplishment, but some days it takes supernatural energy just to keep walking.  Sometimes, God’s grace comes as the grace to just make it through the day, to just keep going.

 

I’m sure you all are familiar with the story of the U.S. Airways flight out of LaGuardia airport in New York a couple of weeks ago.  The plane took off from LaGuardia and was climbing through the sky.  But this plane would not soar.  It was only a few minutes into the flight when it ran into a flock of geese that knocked out both engines.  You probably know the story – the plane wasn’t capable of getting back to LaGuardia or making it to a nearby New Jersey airport, so the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, did a masterful job of landing the plane in the Hudson River and all 150 passengers and crew survived.

 

We may be so used to the idea that we take it for granted, but it is amazing for an airplane to fly through the sky across the country, or even across the ocean.  It is truly amazing.  But sometimes, coming back down to earth, just surviving, is just as amazing.  Soaring like an eagle is a gift.  But sometimes, just making it through the day is also a real gift.  God’s strength does not always come in the way we might expect.   

 

Mike Johnson considered this verse from the standpoint of someone in a wheelchair.  He wrote,

 

I shall never again mount up as an eagle.

Nor run, nor walk.

I can’t even sit in this chair with wheels without pain.

Thank God He has taught me how to fly.

 

When we need it the most, God gives us renewed strength.  And the key to all of this is this idea of “waiting on the Lord.”

 

I heard a story about “waiting on the Lord” this week.  A colleague sent an email.  She wrote,

 

After starting a new diet for 2009, I altered my drive to work to avoid passing my favorite bakery.  I accidentally drove by the bakery this morning, and as I approached, there in the windows were a host of goodies.

 

I felt this was no accident, so I prayed ... ‘Lord, it’s up to you - if you want me to have any of those delicious goodies, create a parking place for me directly in front of the bakery.’  And sure enough… on the eighth time around the block, there it was!  God is so Good!

 

Well, this is not exactly the “wait on the Lord” that Isaiah speaks of.  But waiting on the Lord is not the same as doing nothing.  In the Hebrew, the word for “waiting” is derived from braiding or weaving.  It is an active, expectant waiting, not a passive waiting.  It’s not like you are waiting for the next shoe to drop, it is more of a trust in God’s care and goodness, more of a dependence on God’s grace as you continue through the adversities of life.

 

In last week’s New Testament reading, Jesus had spoke in the synagogue in Capernaum and had amazed the people with the authority of his teaching.  He had healed a man with an unclean spirit.  We continue reading in today’s scripture – from the synagogue, he goes straight to Simon Peter’s house where he heals Simon’s mother-in-law.  Word gets around, and by evening the whole town is there.  Jesus healed many people.  Mark doesn’t say, but it’s not hard to imagine this going on late into the night. 

 

And literally overnight, great demands were placed on Jesus.  The next morning, he goes away to a quiet place to pray – to wait for the Lord.  And again, it is an active waiting, a time spent in prayer.  Jesus too needed to rest in the arms of God.  He too needed the strength that comes from waiting on the Lord.  Jesus too needed the power to soar on eagle’s wings – but not only that, the power to run without growing weary and to walk without fainting.

 

Many of us have had to wait through difficult circumstances.  A life suddenly turned upside-down.  A grinding and discouraging search for a job.  Caring for a parent through a long illness.  Parenting children who are going through turmoil.  Facing our own health concerns.  Some days, there is not much to do but wait.  But when we find a way to wait on the Lord, to wait expectantly, to trust in God’s grace and goodness and care, to rest in God’s arms, our waiting can be transformed, and if we can’t quite fly on eagle’s wings, we can at least carry on through adversity with God’s constant presence.

 

Of course, we don’t need to be at death’s door or seeing a loved one through a health crisis to need for renewed strength from God.  As Isaiah tells us, even youths become exhausted.  Anyone going to school will need strength.  Anyone who relates to other people – at home, at work, at school, in the community, even at church – will need strength.  Anyone who is concerned about justice, anyone sensitive to the needs of those who are hurting, anyone who works with folks living on the margins knows this need.

 

I think of so many congregations – small, struggling, worried – who need renewed strength from God, who need to know what it is to soar again.  And this is exactly what God promises.

 

Fred Anderson wrote,

There is no obstacle too high, no wilderness too wide, no crisis too deep, no delay too long for those who wait on the Lord--not simply wait, but wait on the Lord.  God lifts those who so wait on the sure and steady thermal of a love-driven Spirit that not only sustains, but enables us to soar above, beyond, through, even over the adversity.

 

Waiting on the Lord does not mean we abdicate our role.  It doesn’t mean that we do nothing, it doesn’t mean we give up our responsibility.  But it means that all that we do, we do in dependence on God, the one who restores our strength.

 

Isaiah’s words were not only words of comfort and hope for his day, they are words for us, words of hope and promise.  “Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall rise up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint.”  Amen.

 

 

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