Saturday 29th April
Read Isaiah 40:21-26
“Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23 He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
24 No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.
25 ‘To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.” (NIVUK)
Have you ever wondered why amazing and inspiring passages such as this exist? Surely it is self-evident that God is more powerful and wise than insignificant humanity. Do we really need to be put in our place this forthrightly? We are compared to grasshoppers in His sight (v22a). Three times our fleetingly brief insignificance and brevity of life is mocked as we are reaped and harvested in the blink of an eye (v24). All of our institutions and loves are zeroed out as less than nothing (v22b-23). But why? Why are we asked to look to the heavens and their vastness to feel our insignificance and its weight?
Given how frequently we are pulled up in just this area (cf Job 38-42; Psalms, etc) it seems to be something humanity quickly and easily forgets. Made in God’s image, we imagine ourselves gods. We are the centre of the universe and need constant reminding that it simply is not so. We will never be as powerful or wise as God, nor should we strive for that goal – it is after all what got us into this mess in the first place…
“Remember him – before the silver cord is severed,
and the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
and the wheel broken at the well,
7 and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:6-7) (NIVUK)
