We live in a challenging time – I don’t need to tell you that. Next month will mark a full year since we have been living with restrictions on how we live and interrelate with other people, and it must be said, it takes its toll. There are, as I see it, two different groups of people who are affected by all this, and in different ways. There are people in the medical professions, doctors, nurses and others, people in the service industries, essential workers, and those working from home, many of whom have to care for children and supervise their home schooling – and then there are the rest of us. The first group is largely stressed out, stretched to the limit, and when one is feeling those stresses, one can sometimes lose a sense of direction in life. Things can become so demanding that one does not know where to turn next. But for the rest of us, forced into a type of isolation that we are not accustomed to, the danger is quite different – we can simply become so bored that we lose a sense of purpose in our lives. “What do I next? Do I check out Facebook; do I turn on Netflix, again?” … and on and on it goes.
Distracted; purposeless. Neither of these things is good, and I think we can gain an insight into how to deal with these problems by looking at the life of Jesus. We have a little insight in the Gospel today, and I want to refer to a portion of what you just heard proclaimed:
Mark 1:32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to Jesus all who were sick or possessed with demons.
1:33 And the whole city was gathered around the door.
1:34 And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
1:35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.
Jesus went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. Jesus, for the three years that we have of his recorded life, led a very intense, stressful life – in many ways similar to the stresses many are facing now. Everywhere he turned, there was some one wanting to be cured of an illness, granted some favour, or taught some mystery of faith. That takes its toll – and Jesus managed these stresses with prayer. He who was both God and Man incarnate, needed in his earthly, human life to keep in touch with his divine nature. And it is such an instance that we hear of today, when Jesus gets up early in the morning, while it was still dark, to be alone in a deserted place, to pray.
We are assured in the first reading today from Isaiah, and also in the psalm, that when we go through such trials in life, we need to make a place, keep a place, for God. Because when we reflect on God, and the nature of God, things are put into perspective. We can be lifted out of our egocentric, and often unhealthy, preoccupations, and gain a broader, wider picture of what our lives are really about. Isaiah cries out in a plea to God’s people:
40:21 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?
40:22 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;
40:23 who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
And again, in the psalm:
147:4 (The Lord) determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.
147:5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.
These words remind us that there is much more to this world, to the universe that we inhabit, than our little lives – and we do well to remember that. The God that created each of us, who gave us life, is the God who created all that is.
he … sits above the circle of the earth, and … stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; … he brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
Yes, this is old-fashioned language, reflecting a cosmology we no longer believe in – but it is a poetic insight into the place of God in relation to his creation, and our place in it. But lest you think I am trying to belittle the trials that we are undergoing at this time, that is not my purpose at all. Because that same God, who created all that is, cares for us, small and seemingly insignificant as we are. God loves us, and cares for us. As the psalm tells us:
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.
And so to return to return to the prophet Isaiah:
40:27 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"?
40:28 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.
40:29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
40:30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
40:31 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.
The Lord gives his power to us, who are faint and frail; he gives us the strength to carry on, when we may feel utterly overwhelmed. If we trust in the Lord, and wait for his guiding hand, we shall, as the prophet says, renew our strength, we shall mount up with wings like eagles, we shall run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint.
Amen
Sermon at Trinity Church, Cornwall, Parish of the St. Lawrence, Diocese of Ottawa - The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany - February 7, 2021 - The Venerable Frank W. Kirby
Image Attribution: Jesus Mural of Faith, Hope, Love, and Peace, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56412 [retrieved February 13, 2021]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/36847973@N00/3342340183.