The assigned readings for this week relate the experience of ancient Judah at the end of 50-year exile from their homeland (Isaiah 40:21-31) and a 1st century woman living with a fever that threatens to separate her from her community and her role in it (Mark 1:29-39). For these ancestors in faith, there was a very real sense that God’s face had turned away from them.

This predicament is one that that we all experience at some point in our lives. In some of the most beautiful poetry in all of scripture, Isaiah captures the desperation and sense of abandonment felt by our ancient ancestors. And he calls them to remember. To remember God’s vastness seated “above the circle of the earth” (v. 22). To remember God’s power which “brings the great to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing” (v. 23). To remember God’s attention which numbers and names the stars of heaven (v. 26). And calling all of this to mind, Isaiah asks:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? 

Has it not been told you from the beginning? 

Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? . . . 

The Lord is the everlasting God, 

the Creator of the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 40:21, 28)

At the heart of this great poem stands Isaiah’s reminder to our ancient ancestors and to us who also long to see God’s hands at work in the world, that the majesty and might of God that is visible in all of creation is not for the purpose of the powerful, but is always intended for those who faint and grow weary.

God’s majesty and might is for the grieving refugees of Gaza who have lost everything, as well as hostages who must certainly feel as though the world has forgotten them. God’s majesty and might is for the burned-out teacher or caregiver and the parent struggling to find a way forward for a hurting child. God’s majesty and might is present for every patient enduring the impact of a harsh treatment and every elder whose memory grows dimmer each day. God’s majesty and might is present for the one whose pronouns are ignored and whose sexual identity is mocked as well as every organizer seeking justice.

The Lord does not faint or grow weary;

the understanding of the God is unsearchable.

The Lord gives power to the faint, 

and strength to the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary,

and the young will fall exhausted . . . (Isaiah 40:28b-30)

We know what it means to feel hidden and disregarded. And in these moments the threat of God’s silence is real. In this time of God’s silence, hope, or anything resembling it, can feel impossible to hold onto. For some it is too much to bear. And yet as Christ’s people who live in this time between his resurrection and his promised return, we are asked to remember that God’s promises are for all who are faint and grow weary.

The story of God from the beginning of creation until the end of time is one of becoming entagled with all in this world who are weak and growing weary. God desires the reconciliation of all things. And in the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has already begun this work. God looks upon the most hidden and challenging moments of our lives and says, even here, I am with you. Even here, I see you. Even here I am at already at work bringing life from death. Even here, I will raise you up.

This promise is ours and we cling to it in hope.