Believe (Is 40.1-11)
Believe
Advent 2: Isaiah 40.1-11
Jason Procopio
I have a recurring nightmare (some of you know this).
In the dream, I’m in line at the post office…and that’s it. I have nothing to listen to, nothing to read… I’m just waiting. All night long. And it’s miserable. I wake up stressed and annoyed, every single time.
So for guys like me, who hate waiting, Advent one of the most important seasons of the year.
I didn’t grow up with Advent, so I, like many people, simply thought that Advent was the time before Christmas. It’s what we have to get through to get to the tree and the presents (and okay, sure, baby Jesus).
But as we saw last week, Advent is not just what you have to get through to get to Christmas. Advent is a particular season of the year in which the church intentionally slows down and learns what it is to wait.
The story of the Bible is a story of waiting and fulfillment. On multiple occasions, the people of Israel found themselves in situations in which they were waiting for something they didn’t yet have: most notably, in the period between the Old and New Testaments, when they were waiting for the coming of the Messiah.
And we too, now, are waiting: waiting for the return of Jesus Christ, when he will come and renew us and renew this earth and bring us home in the new heavens and the new earth. The story we see in the Bible is actually the story we’re living now. So we have very good reasons to learn to live it well.
That’s what we saw last week. Now, for the rest of the month, we’re going to look at a series of actions, a series of verbs, that God gives us to help us do that. Last week’s verb was “Wait”. This week’s is “Believe.”
Turn with me to the book of Isaiah, chapter 40; we’re going to be reading verses 1 through 11.
As you turn there, let's remember where we’ve been so far. Last week we were in Psalm 44, which was a pretty serious lament from the people concerning a desperate situation they were in. It was painful, and sorrowful, and at the end of the psalm, the psalmist prays for God to act…and then it’s just over. We never get to see God’s response to the psalmist’s plea.
And that’s why we’ve come to Isaiah 40. Because in this chapter, we see God respond to that kind of desperation, clearly showing the people that he is not indifferent to it.
The situation in which he responds is similar to what we saw last week.
When Isaiah writes this, he has just warned the people that because of their the faithlessness of King Hezekiah, the people will be exiled to Babylon (Isaiah 39.5-7). Jerusalem would be almost completely destroyed, its people carried off to live as prisoners in a foreign land.
So chapter 40, although it was written before the Babylonian exile, was meant to be an encouragement for the people during the Babylonian exile.
Put yourselves in their place for a moment.
God’s chosen people, who live in Jerusalem and its surrounding cities, have been occupied and exiled to Babylon.
The exile has devastated the people. They have lost everything: their home, their culture, their religion, their identity (we see in the book of Daniel that they often received new names upon arriving in Babylon)… They are far from the temple in Jerusalem, which has been sacked and desecrated.
If ever there was a situation which would call for the kind of lament we saw in last week’s text, this was it. The question on everyone’s lips would have been, So this is life now? How long will this last? When will God return? WILL he return?
And in God’s word given through the prophet Isaiah, God responds to their desperation. And through the prophet, the people are given the strength they need to believe that they will not be waiting forever.
The Wait Is Almost Over (v. 2-5)
He says (v. 1):
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem...
Now just stop here for a moment to try and feel where he’s going with this.
If you’re a naturally empathetic person, you’ll probably understand this; but even if you’re not, becoming a parent will probably do it for you.
There are some wounds you see your kids suffer—it’s part of the territory. At the beginning their suffering is almost always physical. They cry when they get a shot. They cry when they fall down. It’s never fun to watch it happen, but you know what’s going on—you know the scale of the pain—so even if it’s not fun, you know they’re okay.
But when they get a little older, you start to see them getting hurt by things that aren’t so easily measured. They get bullied at school. Or they get hurt by harsh words you said without thinking.
It’s hard to watch your child endure physical pain; but watching them cry because their heart is hurting… That’s almost unbearable. All you want to do in those moments is pick them up, and wrap them tight in your arms, and will them to know, It’s going to be okay. I love you. I’m here. It’s going to be okay.
We have to see that from the very beginning of this passage, this is what God feels toward his people. He sees their pain; he sees their longing and their desperation. And even if it is their own sin that brought them there, his heart goes out to them, and he wants to comfort them.
So he doesn’t just send Isaiah to do it for him; he commissions multiple voices (the word “comfort” here is plural) to announce his comfort to the people.
The Holy Spirit inspires Isaiah to write this down, so that the people know that God is comforting you. He is speaking tenderly to you. He is reassuring you that everything will be alright.
That is the tone of this passage; it is a wonderful gift.
And the comfort he is sending to his people is rooted in the fact that their pain is coming to an end.
V. 2 again:
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
So the people is in this horrible situation, exiled in Babylon, far from their home and the temple of their God…and yet God tells Isaiah to comfort them. Why? Because his divine discipline is finished; he has forgiven them.
Notice that he speaks in the past: the people’s warfare is ended, their iniquity is pardoned. It sure doesn’t seem that way, because they’re still in the warfare, they’re still being punished, it seems, for their unfaithfulness. (And in fact, these words were written before their pain ever even began.)
This can be confusing for us, who live in the West in the 21st century, but the people who first heard this word would have understood. It was common practice in the writings of the Old Testament (and even sometimes in the New) to speak in the past tense about things that will happen in the future.
They spoke this way to show just how solid their assurance was that these things would happen. The end of their warfare, the end of their punishment, was absolutely certain—so certain, in fact, that God could speak of it as if it had already happened.
The people found themselves in a desert which they themselves had made: a wilderness in which their national identity and their health and their provision were absent. And it is into that wilderness that God sends Isaiah to tell the people that he is coming—God is on his way to deliver you.
V. 3:
3 A voice cries:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
So this is a picture. At one end you have God, who is coming to his people; and on the other end, you have the people, waiting for him. And between them is the most treacherous road imaginable: full of holes and bumps and detours.
And the picture he gives here is of God literally telling this road to make itself flat for him. Every hole will be filled; every bump will be flattened. It’s the difference between off-roading in the forest and driving on a newly paved road.
What he’s saying is, “God is coming, and he’s coming fast: no obstacle will stop him or make him late in arriving.”
And then he says what will happen God arrives. V. 5:
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together...
This is what they have been waiting for.
This term “glory” is sometimes hard to define. When the Bible talks about God’s glory, it’s talking about everything God is—all of his divine attributes (his power, his eternity, his wisdom, his knowledge, his love and his wrath)—made visible.
And the people exiled in Babylon remember the stories of how God had manifested his glory in the past, how he had made his attributes visible through his works. Remember what we saw last week—the stories of God’s faithfulness to his people were told from generation to generation. They remembered how God has manifested his glory through mighty works in the past, through protection and deliverance and care.
So when they hear Isaiah say that the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, they hear the only thing they’ve been wanting to hear all this time. Because seeing God’s glory would mean seeing all of his attributes put to work to fulfill his promises.
This is the rescue they have been hoping and praying and desperately searching for, for so many years now.
You will see his glory. Everything broken in your exile will be restored. You will come back home, and I will be your God.
And how can they be sure it will happen? Because he said he would. V. 5c:
…for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
When God promises something, he will do it.
The Word of the Lord Will Stand (v. 6-8)
And that is where Isaiah turns next. God wants to remind the people of the long-term faithfulness of his word.
V. 6:
6 A voice says, “Cry!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
When we are suffering, time always seems to stretch.
Have you ever had a root canal? Root canals don’t take a long time—forty-five minutes at the most. But good grief, do those forty-five minutes feel like an eternity.
Or think of how it feels to wait for a really important phone call. The time you spend waiting for the phone to ring, to find out whether or not you got the job you applied for feels interminable.
So it’s easy to forget in those moments that no matter how long you feel you’ve been waiting, in comparison with eternity, it’s a blink. It’s nothing.
Human beings, he says, are like grass. All the beauty of humanity lives only as long as they are still standing. Human beings, by their nature, are finite. They are temporary. They are of little consequence.
And in comparison to that temporariness, Isaiah holds up the word of our God. When he says that, he’s not talking about the Bible as such, but rather God’s plan, his decrees, his revealed will.
And God’s word will always stand. It is permanent, while we are temporary. It is consistent, while we are futile.
Millenia after you all are gone, dried up and dispersed like last summer’s grass, these words and these promises will still apply. They always have, and they always will.
Again, what a comfort for those Israelites who have been exiled far from their homes! What God has promised to his people, he will continue to accomplish for his people. The glory he willed to show his people in the past, he will show his people again in the future.
Now in the context of this chapter, what is the particular word of the Lord which will stand forever?
The promise that the Great Shepherd is coming.
The Shepherd Will Come (v. 9-11)
I think what happens in v. 9 is absolutely fascinating.
In v. 1, God comes to Isaiah and sends him to the people of Judah exiled in Babylon, telling him to declare to them that their God is coming to save them.
And in v. 9, Isaiah does the same thing. He speaks to these exiled people, and tells them to tell the exact same thing to their people.
9 Go on up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good news;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your God!”
So the people who are waiting for their deliverance are given a message. And this message is so full of strength, so full of assurance, that they can go out and declare it to others.
What is that assurance? V. 10:
10 Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
The first assurance they have is the ruling power of the Lord. The God in whom you hope, the Lord who is coming, is not incapable. He is not weak. He is lacking nothing. He is the all-powerful God of the universe, and he is coming for you, people of Judah. Why?
Because you are his people. You are the people through whom his kingdom will come.
In other words, God’s reward, his recompense, for his victory against his enemies is the delivered people themselves. We saw this last week, in Psalm 44: God delights in his people. His people, delivered from bondage by his power and might, are his treasure.
And he is coming with all of the force of his rule behind him, determined to act, because his people are in bondage, and he plans to take them back.
How can they still be afraid after receiving such assurance from the mouth of God?
He will come, and he will come in force. And when he comes, he says (v. 11):
11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
This image of a shepherd can seem strange to us today—we don’t get to see many shepherds in Paris—but it is a frequent image in the Bible. Lambs can’t do much on their own—they are small; they’re not terribly powerful; they need constant supervision and guidance from their shepherd.
And one of the constant marks of the shepherd we see in the Bible is his tenderness. Because lambs are small, because lambs are weak, the shepherd comes as a protecting force, carrying the weak in his arms when they can go no further, guiding them with his staff when they are lost.
The point is that the comfort God tells Isaiah to proclaim to his people, he himself will give to his people. The care he promised through the mouth of the prophet, he will give them.
It’s important to see the complexity of the picture this passage gives us of God, and how its complexity is reassuring.
God comes to his people as a tender shepherd…but also as a conquering king, coming to rescue them from their enemies.
He is a tender shepherd and a conquering king…but also a gracious provider, giving them the one thing they have been waiting for all this time: a vision of his glory, and the fulfillment of his promises.
Now remember: at this point, he hasn’t come yet. The people are still in exile in Babylon. Their situation has not changed.
But knowing that God is COMING would give them the strength they needed to wait for him.
Our daughter Zadie is eighteen months old. She doesn’t sleep well. Almost every night, she either has a nightmare, or she wakes up in her room, realizes she’s alone in the dark, and gets scared.
So what does she do? She cries. She screams to get our attention.
And because I’m a light sleeper, and Loanne has insomnia if she wakes up enough to actually get out of bed, most nights I’m the one who gets up. She cries, I get up, and the second I walk into our living room, Zadie stops crying. Because the floor in our living room creaks really loudly.
So Zadie hears the floor creaking, and she knows I’m coming.
I’m not there yet. I’m not in the room with her, I’m not holding her. But she knows I’m right outside, that I’m almost at her door. And that alone—simply knowing that I’m coming—is enough to give her comfort.
That’s what God is doing here.
He sends this word through Isaiah to tell his people, I’m coming. Don’t be afraid. I’m on my way. I’m almost there. So that they might be comforted and strengthened while they wait.
believe
The words of Isaiah in this passage would have been an immense comfort, first for the exiles in Babylon. Had God abandoned them in the exile? Would they be waiting forever? Was there any end in sight?
The resounding answer of this text is, No. The wait will be over soon. God’s word will stand forever. The shepherd will come.
And he did come. The Lord sovereignly worked for their release from exile, as we see in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. They returned to Jerusalem, they rebuilt the city, and they rebuilt the temple. God fulfilled his promises.
But this passage would continue to be read by those who came after.
After the book of Malachi (the last book of the Old Testament), the prophets stopped speaking on God’s behalf. Between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament, some four hundred years passed. This period saw the reign of Alexander the Great and the rise of Hellenism—the integration of Greek language and culture—throughout the empire. It saw the Maccabean revolt. It saw the rise of the Roman empire.
And once again, it seemed that God had abandoned them. The prophets had fallen silent. God had promised to send a Messiah—a Savior—to deliver his people… But now they had been waiting for centuries. Rome had risen to power and taken up occupation in Israel...and still, no Messiah had come. No prophet had arrived.
Did God really have nothing more to say to his people? Had he simply abandoned them to their sin after bringing them back from exile?
And to those reading this passage from Isaiah at that time, again, the answer would have been, No. The wait will be over soon. God’s word will stand forever. The shepherd will come.
And he did come.
At the beginning of the gospel of John, we see John the Baptist preaching in the desert, using the same words we see here in Isaiah 40. When the priests and Levites came to question him, asking him who he was, he told them (John 1.23):
“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
John prepared the people for the coming of Jesus Christ, and when he came, he identified himself as the God of whom Isaiah spoke here. In John 10.10-11, he said,
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
We see this cycle of waiting and fulfillment over and over again in the Bible.
And today, we find ourselves smack in the middle of another cycle. The last cycle—in which we are called to believe in something we haven’t yet seen.
Christ lived, died, was raised. Because of his finished work, the comfort God extends to Israel here has already been given to us—our iniquity is pardoned in Christ; Christ has received from the Lord’s hand all of the punishment for our sins.
After being raised, he ascended to the right hand of the Father, and he promised that one day he will return again.
The Lord will come with might, and his reward is his people, redeemed by the blood of his Son.
All flesh—not just the Israelites, but all of humanity—will see God’s glory.
That day is what we are waiting for. That day is what we are longing for. And it is for that day that we have these sure and certain promises.
And it’s really important to say that; it’s important to be specific about what we’re waiting for. Because if you’re not specific about what you’re waiting for, you could unwittingly adopt a mentality that says you don’t have something that God says you actually do have.
For example, sometimes when we talk about the return of Christ, and how Christ could come back at any moment, people get nervous. We understand that his return is a good thing, but at the same time there’s a lot we want to do in our Christian lives before that happens. We don’t feel like we are where we should be; we haven’t yet grown in holiness as we’d like to; we can’t yet say that Christ is our all.
And we want to be able to say those things before he comes back. We want to “fulfill our destiny” before Christ comes back. We want to be “useful for the kingdom” before Christ comes back. And we’re afraid of what might happen if we don’t get there before we see Christ face-to-face.
Can I just encourage you, if there’s a part of you feel this way?
Whatever you do in your Christian life—between the moment of your conversion to the moment you will see Christ face to face in heaven—does absolutely nothing to change the way God feels about you. You could be the most powerful minister Christianity has ever seen—that won’t make God love you more. And you could be the most forgetful screwup in the history of the faith—that won’t make God love you any less.
The only thing you bring to the table is the faith that God gives you. When God looks at you, he sees the image of himself he put in you when he created you, and he sees the faith in Christ that he has given you.
So in terms of where you need to be in your life before Christ returns…you’re there. What needs to happen in your life before you see Christ face to face has already happened. He already loves you with an infinite love. He is already infinitely pleased with you.
When we talk about waiting, that’s not what we’re waiting for, because that’s already happened.
In the same way, we’re not waiting for him to change our present circumstances.
People often read certain promises of Scripture and immediately apply them to their current situation, when the promises in question were specific promises given to specific people at specific times.
There are zero promises in the Bible that God will actually change the present situations in which we find ourselves. The promise of the Bible is that he will change us, and give us what we need to endure and have joy in him regardless of our present situation.
So there too—whatever needs to change in your life before Christ returns has already happened. You already have everything you need to have before his return.
It’s not that these things aren’t important. It’s just that these things are not what we are waiting for.
We are waiting for the day of Christ’s return, when he will come and make all things new.
And waiting for that day will actually change the way we see our current circumstances, the way we see our progression in holiness.
This has been a hard work for more than one of us. Many people here are suffering and struggling to varying degrees.
We all have moments, and even long seasons, of suffering, and I can tell you that on a week like the one we’ve had this week, what the Bible describes when it talks about Christ’s return is almost unimaginably beautiful. When you’re hurting, nothing sounds better than a place where there is no more hurting; where there is no more death; where there is no more crying or mourning or pain—where tears of sadness only exist in memory. On a week like this one, reading texts like Revelation 21 make us ache.
Because it is everything all of us want…but we’re not there yet.
This is our exile. This is the world we live in while we wait for Christ’s return.
And that glorious day, when we will finally arrive at the new heavens and the new earth in which God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, feels so far away.
But in this horrible wait—in our exile—God says: No. The wait will be over soon. God’s word will stand forever. The Shepherd is coming.
So I’d just like to encourage you this morning—if you’re suffering, know that God’s providence has not stopped, and that he wants to comfort you in your suffering. He sent his Spirit, the great Consoler, to live in you, and he wants to comfort you and speak tenderly to you, and remind you that these things you’re suffering will not last. One day Christ will return, and right ever wrong, and fix everything that is broken.
If you’re struggling with sin, and you’re frustrated by how slowly your own holiness is progressing, God wants you to know that his promises to you are far stronger than the sin you’re struggling with. Isaiah spoke of the temporary nature of man—All flesh is like grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The good news there is that the sin of our flesh is just as inconsistent, and just as temporary, as we are. Our sin is powerless against the promises of God—like the grass, like the flower, it withers and fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it.
Your sin is no threat to God’s plan; no matter how great your struggles seem to you, they will not last. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
If you are waiting for an answer to prayer, I’ll be honest with you—I don’t know how God is going to respond to that prayer. But I do know that God knows what you need, and he will not be late in giving it to you. No matter how great this obstacle seems, how much it seems like your happiness depends on God giving you what you asked for, you don’t need it half as much as what God has already given you.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”...
10 Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
Brothers and sisters, learn to wait with perseverance.
Because the wait will be over soon. God’s word will stand forever. And the Shepherd is coming.
