Scripture: Isaiah 40: 21-31
Sermon: Fingerprints of the Triune God
Topics: Trinity, paradox, time, matter, human beings
Preached: May 30, 2021
Rev. Mike Abma
Preamble
Isaiah is a long book often divided into 3 parts.
The first part, chapters 1-39, Isaiah the prophet afflicts the comfortable.
In the second part, chapters 40-55, Isaiah the prophet comforts the afflicted
Chapter 40 begins this second part.
Israel is in exile.
Israel is suffering and has a sense that God has abandoned them.
And chapter 40 is God’s comforting response.
40: 21-31
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?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
23 who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25 To whom then will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
mighty in power,
not one (star) is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
‘My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God’?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
30 Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
31 but those 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.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
INTRODUCTION
“Comfort, Comfort my people.
Speak tenderly to them.”
This is how Isaiah 40 starts – with comfort and tenderness.
God’s people are exiled, and suffering, and lonely and wondering “Where is God?”
And Isaiah the prophet proclaims, “Here is your God!” (40:9)
This seems a fitting text for us after living for 15 months with this pandemic,
living with restricted lives,
and perhaps also living with the question: “Where is God in all this?”
Isaiah 40 is a wonderful passage
in which God reveals His Majesty, His Bigness, His Might.
In this passage, God describes himself as “Beyond”
* beyond compare — who is like Him?
* beyond comprehension – how can we begin to conceive of the one who
has created all the stars, all the galaxies.
* and even beyond words — can we even begin to fully describe the
wonder of God?
The word we use to describe how God is so beyond the confines of Creation
is the word “transcendent.”
God is so above us, so beyond us,
that we truly are like grasshoppers, as verse 22 says —
perhaps we might say this summer, “like cicadas.”
But in a key way, the transcendent character of God is also part of Israel’s
complaint.
They thought God is so BIG,
He is so far above us and so far beyond us,
that ours lives must be just puny and insignificant to Him.
God has this huge cosmos to care for.
No wonder our way must be hidden from God.
No wonder our cares must be overlooked by God.
To this, Isaiah answers, “That is absolutely NOT TRUE.”
“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God.
He is the creator of the ends of the earth.
He not only knows the numbers of stars in the heavens above.
He also knows the number of hairs on your head.
God is not only far above us and far beyond us.
He is also very near us. He is right beside us. He knows exactly what we are going through.
This nearness is called God’s Immanence.
How is this possible?
Well, it is possible because the depth of God’s knowledge is unsearchable.
He not only knows all things, but he cares for all things — great and small.
This is the theme of this chapter –
the paradox of God’s Transcendence and His Immanence.
The paradox that He is both beyond us and above us,
yet still near us, and with us.
TRIUNE NATURE OF GOD
The people living in the days of Isaiah
probably had a murky sense of the “immanence” of God.
Those of us living centuries later,
have a clearer sense of “God with us.”
Why? Because of Jesus.
Jesus is described as “God with us.”
Jesus is described as “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15)
Jesus is described as “the exact imprint of God’s very being” (Heb. 1:3).
The incarnation of Jesus makes God’s nearness literal.
It makes his nearness flesh and blood.
And Jesus promised to remain with us through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Through the Spirit, we remain in Christ, even as Christ remains in us.
Because we remain in Christ.
we belong, as adopted children, to the Father.
What I am describing, of course, is the Triune nature of God.
But here is a potential problem — we sometimes think of salvation history as being a little bit like a hockey game with 3 periods.
In the first period, God the Father is on the ice. The Old Testament.
In the second period, God the Son is on the ice. The New Testament.
And in the third period, God the Spirit is on the ice. That is Now.
So what is the problem with this?
The problem is that it separates the Oneness of God too much.
God is One.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit do all things together in a bond of love.
At all times and in all places, God is One.
FINGERPRINTS OF THE TRIUNE GOD
Take this chapter, Isaiah 40, as an example.
In this chapter, God emphasizes that He is the Creator of all things,
visible and invisible.
What we should realize is that the blueprint for his Creation
is in the eternal unity of love
that exists between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God wants his Creation to reflect who He is.
For that reason, I think we can find the fingerprints
of the Triune God in many of the wonders of Creation.[1]
So if you do not mind,
I am simply going to name what I think are some of those fingerprints.
Let’s start with Time.
Time is part of this Creation.
We all have a sense of time.
We all sense that there is a past, a present and a future.
But as we contemplate these 3 phases of time
we realize that we cannot really
separate the past, and the present, and the future.
They always remain connected,
dwelling in each other, so to speak.
And the more we contemplate this unity we call time,
the more mysterious it becomes.
We all know time exists.
We all know we cannot live without it.
And yet, scientists and philosophers cannot really explain it,
or even fully define it.
Time – a fingerprint of our Triune God.
How about another basic part of Creation – matter.
Break things down small enough and we get atoms.
Atoms are the building blocks of all matter.
And what are atoms made of?
Atoms are made up of Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons:
Protons with some mass,
Neutrons with some mass,
and Electrons with hardly any mass at all,
with the character of whirling around the protons and neutrons.
These are the 3 building blocks of all atoms, and all matter.
Atoms – seemingly another fingerprint of our Triune God.
I could go on with other fingerprints of our Triune God –
like the 3 primary colors of red, yellow, and blue;
or the harmonics of music, in which 3 notes can be heard together as one chord, yet still 3 distinct notes;
but I want to get to us human beings.
What about us Human Beings?
From the time of Plato and Aristotle, we human beings have been described as having 3 parts — Mind, Body, and Soul.
All three parts are essential to being Human.
You can’t have one without the others.
From the beginning, we human beings have been described
as being created in the image of God.
Isn’t if fair to say that we human beings
are the clearest fingerprints of our Triune God?
FINGERPRINTS OF PURPOSE
We are so used to talking about fingerprints
in the context of crimes,
in the context of evidence to solve terrible things in the past.
But what if God’s fingerprints
are actually evidence or signs that point to wonderful things in the future?
The theologian David Bentley Hart writes that
God created the universe
to conform to his infinite love for his Son.
and that God created all things
in the joy and light of his Spirit.
He writes that our Triune God
created the vast universe with a purpose —
the purpose is that the Creator and Creation
once again are united together in love,
and once again dance together in joy.
The purpose is that
all creation enters into the orbit
of the love, and joy, and harmony
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.[2]
In the book of Isaiah,
the third section, chapters 56-66
contain some of the most delightful pictures
of what this beautiful future will look like:
Isaiah 60 — all the nations coming to the brightness of God
Isaiah 61 — even the lowliest will experience everlasting joy
Isaiah 62 — we shall be a crown of beauty and God will delight in us
Isaiah 65 — God is creating a new heavens and a new earth
and weeping will be over.
One glorious picture after another of what God is working to accomplish,
and what our hearts are waiting for.
CONCLUSION
“Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.”
This is perhaps the most well-known verse of this whole chapter.
But what does that phrases “Wait upon the Lord” mean?
Does this mean we can sit around twiddling our thumbs, waiting for God to show up?
No, that is not what this verb means.
This is not a passive verb – waiting around doing nothing.
This is an active verb.
This means we actively look for God,
we actively seek out God,
we actively expect to find God
and the fingerprints he has left
in this Creation he so dearly loves.
It means looking forward with hope,
running forward with anticipation
walking forward with eagerness,
because we know that God is working his purposes out,
his wonderful
his glorious
purposes.
AMEN
PRAYER
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Triune God, beyond all praising,
We thank you
For creating us
For redeeming us
And for working so that your purpose of all creation’s redemption
Will one day be done.
Amen
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