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Morning Devotion for the Season of Advent

December 7, 2022

The Invitatory

The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading: Isaiah 40:25-31

To whom then will you compare me,

  or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and see:

  Who created these?

He who brings out their host and numbers them,

  calling them all by name;

because he is great in strength,

  mighty in power,

  not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob,

  and speak, O Israel,

‘My way is hidden from the Lord,

  and my right is disregarded by my God’?

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

  the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

  his understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the faint,

  and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary,

  and the young will fall exhausted;

but 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.

.

Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones

Many often forget to read Scripture as literature, that employs many literary forms.Here the opening lines begin with a series of four rhetorical questions, used for dramatic effect. In literature, an author may use rhetorical questions to help answer fundamental questions he may want readers to have about the theme. Not every reader may ask the same questions as they read. Rhetorical questions are a way for authors to plant critical questions in their readers' minds.

 Such rhetorical questions in Hebrew can also have the effect of an emphatic statement: “Surely you have known! Surely you have heard!” This is not new information provided by the prophet. But like a good prophet, he draws the people back to the confessions that profess their identity. How is it possible that the exiles could be delivered from Babylon? The prophet announces that the truth is impossible to deny. It has been told from the beginning. This final rhetorical question culminates in a short series of quickly pulsating lines: surely you know, surely you have heard, surely it has been told to you; surely you understand the foundations of the earth. If so understood, how can one believe in the possibility of any other god at work in our world? This God, and this God alone, stands above the world, creating a place for those who are like grasshoppers to live. Yet this same God is intimately involved in the historical and political machinations of human life. “bringing princes to naught and making earthly rulers as nothing.”

The final verses have a more pointed focus. The lamenting people ask why; they say, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God”? The weary and exhausted are those who have felt abandoned by their God–and their circumstances do little to deny such a thought. The poet acknowledges their weariness; moreover, suggests that such weariness does not deny God. The God of Israel is the “everlasting God,” and the “Creator of the ends of the earth.” This God is the one who not only created, but creates; the One who not only brought nations into existence, but remains in control of world political affairs.

The promise of an end to exile and renewed strength seems impossible to believe because the people’s current plight is so impossible to deny. And what seems irreconcilable is, in fact, not because of the identity of the One in whom they confess. While “His understanding is unsearchable,” His identity is undeniable. He is the Creator who recreates, shaping and reshaping the world and all who live in it. This particular passage marks a major transition in Hebrew prophecy. Up until this point, prophets delivered words of judgment. Now we have a prophet whose main theme is one of consolation. How fortuitous that such a passage should follow Sunday’s Adult Forum.

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

    hallowed be thy Name,

    thy kingdom come,

    thy will be done,

        on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

    as we forgive those

        who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

    but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

    and the power, and the glory

   for ever and ever. Amen.