The election this week was another reminder of an experience that we repeat again and again in life – winning and losing. I’m not going to say much about winning because not many of us are handling success poorly. I’ve never had someone come to my office and point out that they had too much money and too great a job and it was tearing them apart.
Isn’t it more often the case, that if you are 90% successful and 10% failing, when you come to church, how do you spend your time in prayer? You start with 10% thanks, and immediately spend 90% on weeping, wailing, and the gnashing of teeth.
The truth is that the human body was not created for failure. The original design documents were programmed for success. Creation was supposed to be a creative challenge that would test us and then we would always win. How’s the design working for you?
The election makes such a perfect picture of this because you don’t win elections with a half effort. There were at least 20,000 races decided last week across America. In each case, people were exposing themselves to publicity, hard work, and the certain knowledge that with 60,000 people running from several parties, 40,000 would experience a significant life failure by Tuesday evening.
Most of us prefer to fail in privacy. Now, here is the issue. To be happy, you have to weave all of your life experiences into a coherent story. Is life just a series of a few wins, some painful losses, and a gradual decline in retirement? Is there some reason to have hope that carries you through a hard moment?
We’re going to look at a great passage in the Bible today that says that God offers you the strength to win. As usual, the reading is filled with too much hope and peace to be believable, but I hope to persuade you that you are already in the winners circle and you should just pick up the garland and dance. Let’s be willing to experience hope in worship
Isaiah looks earlier in chapter 40 at the night sky, and marvels that God "knows all the starry host, and calls them each by name. Because of his mighty strength, not one of them is missing."
But Isaiah's mighty God, in complete charge of the universe, also knows our frailty. This is the same God who sent a son to earth to experience life as we know, to live through victory and defeat, working with an imperfect body, pushing on in weariness, and knowing that death brings its own conclusion to the most successful life. Be assured, he writes, that your way is not hidden from God, for his might is matched by his tenderness.
So God offers us new strength for today. God plans victories for our lives tomorrow. And God offers us lives that find victory instead of failure in death.
God offers new strength for today. His picture is the eagle. In that day, people saw the moulting of eagles as renewing their strength. People noticed that eagles lose their feathers in moulting. So the new feathers that allow them to fly again was renewing their strength. And that is God’s offer to us.
You have been grounded in life. You have had enough failures that you no longer try to fly as high. This is not God’s design for the Christian life. Expect renewed strength.
One of my favorite scenes from Harry Potter is where he visits the headmasters office for the first time. He climbs the stairs but no one is in the office when he enters. Harry looks around and there are dozens of interesting objects in the office. He notices a large bird that looks like a parrot. But as soon as Harry looks at it, the bird gives a cry and bursts into flames. The whole thing burns down into some ashes within moments and then the headmaster enters the room. Harry tries to explain that he had nothing to do with the destruction of the bird. And Dumbledore laughs and says, that is only my phoenix. Phoenixes are mythical birds that burn up and restart when they start to fail.
That’s exactly the picture for you and me. God does not deny that you have struggles, difficult emotions. God simply asks that we put aside denial, shame, judgmentalism and imagine what we can do if God simply gives new strength.
You received in the mail this week, the blue brochure called imagine. It’s introduces our stewardship campaign for this year. But stewardship always starts with some measurement of what we have. If your life is truly mostly loss and failure, then you have little to offer God in return in stewardship.
But God says, I will renew your strength. Launch out and take a new step spiritually this year. Maybe it’s a long walk each day to help you be more thankful. Maybe it’s a commitment to sleep earlier each night to get more strength. How is God offering you that renewal of strength?
You are created for victory. Your body, your skills, your spiritual gifts are all designed for winning. One of the reasons that you don’t feel better is that you are living half the life that God built you for.
God plans for our life together to be victorious tomorrow. This whole passage is to convince the people of God that they should move back to Israel from exile. The road was long, Their strength would fail many times. But God is promising to remember their frailty and give them what they need if they make the effort.
In this stewardship campaign, we want to take on more bills for our congregation. We want to protect our worship team, our media team, our Sunday school team, our choir resources, and the property that protects them. We want significant help going from our church to needs around the world, in Cambodia, in India, in Honduras and Bolivia and Mozambique and the Philippines. I’m asking you to tithe. My invitation is much less daring than God’s call for people to walk 1200 miles back to a homeland that few of them remembered. I hope that you will decide to tithe or take a concrete step towards that in your own life of giving today so that our church can Imagine the vision statement of this Annual Conference in your program.
After this service today, we will commit the ashes of Eileen Gibson in the Prayer Garden, the first person to be so remembered in a garden that she gave generously to provide. Eileen moved to New York City to begin life here when she was 58 years old as a single person without family close by. I truly believe that Eileen knew the truth of this passage that God renews our strength and makes life possible beyond even our hopes and dreams.
The God who renews us again and again in life offers us the everlasting arms of God at life’s end. In verse 11, Isaiah tells us that he gathers the lambs in his arms. Many people have little hope in life because the certainty of death. But God is waiting to take us into the arms of God. God is pictured sitting above the circle of the world, waiting for us to walk through the door and join the new kingdom. These times we have now are times of testing and training, with victory certain here and even more so in the age to come. Will you believe? Will you imagine? Will you participate? Are you in victory?
