*Reader’s note: The next few posts will be a few short reflections from Lent readings.
I did something silly. Last Sunday (Feb 11), I went for an 8KM run with a friend at 1:30pm, in the middle of the day’s heat. The temperature hovered at around 41-43 degrees. My heart rate was easily in the high 170 bpms.
We finished the run, and I said, “Aaron, I think I’m going to pass out - I need water.”
I then proceeded to hose myself down and sit in the shade. After about 15 minutes my body had settled, my heart rate was coming down, and we were laughing.
This came to mind when reading Isaiah 55. At the beginning of the chapter, Yahweh, ever compassionate and kind, invites his people - who had experienced much worse than running in 41-degree heat - to come and find rest.
Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
But the foundation of this rest is found in a call and response. A charge the prophet proclaims to the people to “seek… call.. [re]turn,” back to God who longs to pardon.
“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
Let the wicked one abandon his way
and the sinful one his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord,
And as they return, as they seek, as they call God pardons. The prophet confidently tells the people, that when you seek, call, and turn, God will answer. Why? What kind of God is this?
Let’s keep reading…
My word that goes out from my mouth
It will not return to me empty
but will accomplish what I desire to achieve the purpose for which I sent it
Walter Brueggemann comments on this verse this way:
“Yahweh’s word of promise…is not idle chatter or religious fantasy. It is substantive utterance carrying with it the full weight of God’s majestic rule…. Yahweh’s word is not empty; it will work!”1
God’s Word is not an empty inconsistent promise. It is steady and true. Faithful in and out of season.
Many are currently experiencing soul pain, physical ailments, relational droughts, financial stresses and groanings too powerful for words. Yet amid this pain, we can recall the promise that God hears, that his word is not empty, that in Christ God comes near. He brings the water to nourishment to our bones.
This God seeks, calls, and turns to us because we are too weak ourselves. Why?
Because God’s name is compassion. It is love. It is Immanuel. God with us. May we take heart that the heat will pass, that all things will be made new.
And until his return, I’ll do my best not to run in 40+ degree heat again.
Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66, 161.