ON EAGLE’S WINGS
I was talking with my mother on the phone the other day. She lives in Sun City, Arizona, of course. She said, “It’s been a little cool around here. I think the temperature is only going to get up to 71 today.” I was talking with Ginny Chandley on the phone the other day. Ginny, of course, is a member of this church who is spending the winter in Florida. She said, “It’s been a little cool around here. I think the temperature got all the way down into the 40s the other night.” I was talking with Gary and Chris Lafferty the other day. The Laffertys of course, are members of this church who recently returned from a vacation in Florida. When they started to talk about the weather, I put my hands over my ears!
We’re northerners. We’ve grown accustomed to suffering through brutal winters. In fact, I recently came across an essay of sorts entitled, “You know you’re a northerner when….” Listen to this.
- You know you’re a northerner when you know the four seasons as winter, still winter, not winter and almost winter.
- You know you’re a northerner when you design you children’s Halloween costumes to fit over a snowsuit.
- You know you’re a northerner when driving in winter is actually better because all the potholes get filled with snow and ice.
- You know you’re a northerner when 33 degrees feels like a heat wave.
- You know you’re a northerner when, if you don’t go out for lunch, you miss the sunrise and the sunset.
- You know you’re a northerner when, if the school district had snow days, the kids would never go to school.
- And last but not least, you know you’re a northerner when…you think the start of deer hunting season is a national holiday.
We’re northerners. We’ve grown accustomed to suffering through brutal winters. Yet we also know that our suffering is merely temporary. In spite of what Punxsutawney Phil might say, we know that spring is on its way. We know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
Such was NOT the case for the Hebrew people in the passage I read from the book of Isaiah. They were suffering, and there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel for them. Let me explain.
Isaiah was a prophet to Jerusalem from 742 until 701 B.C. Scholars tell us that chapters 1 through 39 were written at about that time. Scholars also tell us that there was a second Isaiah and a third Isaiah. Second Isaiah – recorded in chapters 40 through 55 of the book of Isaiah – were written around 540 B.C. And Third Isaiah – recorded in chapters 56 through 66 of the book of Isaiah – were written around 537 B.C.
Are scholars being a bit ridiculous here? I mean, after all, what difference does it make? The fact of the matter is, it does make a difference. For one thing, the historical situations were vastly different. For example, the passage I read from chapter 40 was written about 45 years after the city of Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians. After Jerusalem’s conquest, the Babylonians deported a large number of the Hebrew people to foreign lands. Families were separated. People lost their homes and their businesses. For 45 years many people were living in seclusion. And they cried out to God for deliverance.
Chapter 40 of the book of Isaiah is God’s answer to their cries. A distinctive theo-logical conviction implicit in Second Isaiah is that the God of Israel is responsible for both the creation of the world and the course of history. In other words, because God had the power to create the world, he also has the power to impact history. And at that time, King Cyrus of Persia was on the rise. He would ultimately conquer the Babylonians and allow the Hebrew people to return to Jerusalem.
The people were in need of what we call an oracle of salvation. Patrick Miller, in his book They Cried to the Lord, describes the oracle of salvation this way. He writes:
Prayers for help, as we have seen them in the Scriptures, often arise out of the most desperate of human situations – terror, pain, fear, despair, the threat of death. What is it they seek and how does God respond in those situations of varying degrees of human need?
The oracle of salvation is our best indication. There where the human condition is at its worst and no mortal can sufficiently help, where people are terribly frightened, God speaks the only word that matters: you don’t have to be afraid. That is not a word that can ever be given with any finality by human beings except as mediators of the divine assurance. For it is not simply a word of consolation. It is rooted in the reality of God’s presence and God’s power: I am with you; I will help you.
The oracle of salvation is God saying to us, “I am with you; I will help you.” That’s exactly what the Hebrew people received in the waning verses of Isaiah 40. God said to them, “They 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.” God was true to his word. For soon, Cyrus of Persia conquered the Babylonians and the Hebrew people returned to Jerusalem. And it wasn’t long before they began rebuilding their temple.
We all need an oracle of salvation now and then. We all need to be lifted up on eagle’s wings on occasion. My own family was in dire need of that a number of years ago. And by the grace of God, our prayers were answered.
In the spring of 1997, my wife was diagnosed with Sartoli-Leydig cell cancer, a rare form of ovarian cancer. Our own research indicated that no woman over the age of 40 had survived it. At the time, she was 35 and I was 37. Our son, Rob, was 8, our daughter, Mariah was 5, and our “baby” Travis was but 3. I was faced with the prospect of raising three kids on my own. She was faced with the prospect of not seeing them grow up at all. When something like that happens, you feel like you’ve walked off the edge of a cliff. You’re simply hanging there, waiting to fall or to be lifted up. Your fate and your future are out of your hands.
My wife spent much of the summer of 1997 in the hospital. One week in the hospital with 7 to 8 hours of chemotherapy a day, then two weeks out, then one week in, and so forth. My mother-in-law came to live with us. Now I know a lot of you are mothers-in-law and you don’t appreciate mother-in-law jokes. Let’s just say it was good for my wife but it was hard on me. Still, we couldn’t have done it without her and I told her that at the end of the summer.
I remember when we told the kids about the illness. Rob was lying on the back of the couch and used the remote to turn the T.V. volume up. He understood, and he didn’t want to hear. Mariah and Travis sat wide-eyed on the couch. They didn’t understand, but they knew enough to ask, “Are you going to die, Mommy?” How hard it was to tell them that we just didn’t know!
Now at that time I was just getting involved with contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer is listening prayer. I mean, if prayer is defined as conversation with God, then what kind of a conversation can you have if you do all the talking? We need to listen for God as well, and that’s what contemplative prayer is all about.
So I’m in my office and I’m deep in prayer. I’m listening for God, but my thoughts are about my wife. Suddenly, I sensed four words. I did not hear voices – I’m not crazy. I sensed four words. They were, “She will be fine.” The question that immediately popped into my mind was this: Does that mean she’s going to live? Then I sensed those same four words again: “She will be fine.” Then suddenly I knew – whether she lived or whether she died – she would be fine. And if she would be fine, then the kids and I would be fine too.
We received our oracle of salvation. We were truly placed on eagle’s wings. It was far and away the most significant spiritual experience of my life. You never get over the fear that a cancer might come back. But we’ve been on eagle’s wings for nearly 12 years now.
We receive our oracle of salvation – we receive our eagle’s wings – when we are fully reliant upon God. Unfortunately, we do not tend to become fully reliant upon God until we are at the brink of catastrophe. How different our lives might be if we turned to God before disaster struck. But it’s human nature, I guess, to not turn to God until it’s almost too late.
Yet there’s one more thing that needs to be said. I described how the oracle of salvation came on an individual basis – on a personal level. I suspect many of us can relate to that. Yet the oracle of salvation in the book of Isaiah came on a national level. It came not to one individual, it came to a people. What does that say to us today?
I think it says this. Our nation is mired in a pair of wars. Our nation is suffering from economic unrest and unemployment is on the rise. Everyone seems to want some sort of bailout with little regard for long-term consequences. And now there’s the Freedom of Choice Act making the rounds in Congress. The Freedom of Choice Act could potentially allow minors to have abortions without parental knowledge, and require even religious-based hospitals to conduct abortions on demand. You can about imagine how the Cath-olics feel about that. It’s legislation that our President has promised to sign into law.
Do we want God to help us, or do we believe that this is merely a trend and that our elected officials will be able to lead us to the promised land? In that regard, I think of a quote attributed to Will Rogers. He once said, “I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.” Of course, we could probably just as easily insert the word “Republican” here as well. I am not disparaging the political process. I am simply saying that some things are just beyond human wisdom.
When our nation is ready to give up on human solutions and turn to God for help, Isaiah indicates what we need to do. We need to turn to God in faith, in hope, in trust, and in love. Then God will deliver an oracle of salvation. Then God will place our nation back on eagle’s wings. After all, as Isaiah clearly indicates, the God who had the power to create the world has the power to impact history as well. The question is, have we reached the point of desperation yet…such that we’re willing to release the reigns? Amen.
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