Wednesday,
January 15, 2020
“I, yes I, am the one who comforts you. So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear? Yet you have forgotten the Lord, your Creator, the one who stretched out the sky like a canopy and laid the foundations of the earth. Will you remain in constant dread of human oppressors? Will you continue to fear the anger of your enemies? Where is their fury and anger now? It is gone! Soon all you captives will be released! Imprisonment, starvation, and death will not be your fate! For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea, causing its waves to roar. My name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. And I have put my words in your mouth and hidden you safely in my hand. I stretched out the sky like a canopy and laid the foundations of the earth. I am the one who says to Israel, ‘You are my people!’” Isaiah 51:12-16
When God spoke to Moses out of the burning
bush[2]
it was in answer to Moses’ question as to the Lord’s name; God answered, I
AM. A name presupposes and
proclaims existential character. If I
say I am carpenter, you already know I build things, and
probably have leathery hands from doing battle with wood. You know my eye will run to the plumb and
level of things and I’ll take the time to measure twice and cut once. In the same way, when you hear I AM,
the existential nature of God revealing God sets up a battle of faith. God’s name declares eternality. He was before anything (in
any sense of linear thought). He is
above all in any sense of moral or ethical consideration. His sovereignty over the universe and all it
holds is not bought, grabbed, or coronated by grant or permission; He simply IS! And with that simple declaration, the struggle
for faith is on; you either believe…or you don’t!
Enter Isaiah, a prophet to a disobedient Jewish
nation. They were a people who declared faith
in that I AM God as their God, yet, they kept wandering
away from Jehovah. Their faith was (as
Vance Havner used to say) fickle at first and fizzling at the finish.
And yet, God wasn’t done with them. As the nation languished in the shame and
pain of a national thrashing at the hands of enemies who would brutally
massacre many thousands and enslave the rest in cruel bondage, God speaks
through the prophet words of comfort; The I AM says to
them, You ARE. To a
disobedient, sinful people God speaks existential reality of unbroken
relationship. They may have been facing
an extinction event politically, but their God would hold true to His promises,
that they would never be exterminated; punished, yes…but always held fast in
the grip of I AM’s love.
Sometimes you might feel like Israel, abandoned to the predators of
life. And, truth be told, you sometimes
might BE Israel, having had a crisis of faith, punctuated
by wandering in the far country. But you
always ARE; you are His creation and the object of His
unfailing love. The I AM
says so!
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