Richard Davenport
April 6, 2025 – Fifth Sunday in Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21
The more you study science and medicine, the more you come to an appreciation for how amazing the human body really is. The immune system is one of those things that I find absolutely mind-boggling. It has so many different parts, so many different cells that each have their own special role and each is necessary for the system to function. One of the things HIV shows us is that all you need to do is knock out one part of the system and the whole thing starts to fail.
You see crazy things on the news from time to time too. Mom driving her kids to school and gets in a bad accident. She’s battered and bruised but her kids are in danger and somehow she suddenly has the strength of a bear, enough to rip the crunched door out to rescue her kids. You’ll see a dad respond with superhuman reflexes to pull his kid out of the way of a car that’s skidding out of control.
None of that even includes the great feat of mental and intellectual talent, the scientists, the mathematicians, the people who can speak 7 or 8 languages, or create spectacular works of art. Nor does that account for those who can accomplish amazing feats of physical strength, endurance, agility, the gymnastics, the marathon runners, the people who push the boundaries of what we think is physically possible. People are capable of truly amazing things.
The way we are built, the way we are created, from the very greatest feats of human achievement, to the tiniest cells at work in our body, all of it is a marvel and a wonder. It is also one with limits. In spite of the wonders of the immune system, people still manage to get sick. People die from diseases all the time. Though some people can run faster, jump higher, lift more than others, they still have limits. Though even everyday folks are capable of amazing things when necessary, they are still everyday folks with everyday minds and bodies.
There’s the perception when you’re young that you’re more or less invincible. It’s not all that surprising. Kids’ bodies can take more abuse before they actually get injured. They’re more flexible. They recover faster. Playing all rough and tumble just doesn’t bother them as much.
I don’t think most kids really think about getting older either. There’s the common question kids get asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” But I think for most kids it’s more a question of what they like. They imagine being an engineer or a fighter pilot or a doctor or whatever, but they aren’t really thinking of themselves as being a 45 year old truck driver with a bad back and a mortgage to pay. They just have the impression that time will pass, but things will be more or less the same forever.
As you get older, you gradually realize that life doesn’t work that way. You can work all you want at trying to keep things stable, to keep them the same, but it just isn’t possible. You discover the wonders of adult responsibilities, working, doing chores, paying bills, all of the basic stuff that kids don’t really think about because they don’t have to worry about them. But it’s more than that. At some point you also discover the sadder, harsher realities of life.
Most of the time, sickness is a passing thing. It brings you down for a day, or maybe a few, but then you’re back to normal. But, sometimes it lasts much longer than that. Sometimes it takes a serious toll. Sometimes it has lingering effects that you never really recover from.
Injuries are often small cuts and scraps, bumps and bruises. Occasionally things are a little more severe and take a few weeks to heal. Sometimes injuries occur that never really get fixed. Life has to adjust to what the body used to be able to do.
At some point you come face to face with something you sort of knew was out there somewhere, but never really thought about and never had to deal with. At some point you face the reality of death. Eventually you see that, whatever you thought about your life and how it might go, it will someday end in a wooden box in the ground.
Faced with the realities of both life and death, things change. We may not think about it all the time, at least not when we’re younger, but we can no longer say there is an endless road that lies ahead of us, full of twists and turns, hills and valleys, that stretches on to the horizon. No, the journey may be adventurous or it may be mundane, but one way or another it will come to an end. We’re all basically just batteries that expend a little more of our energy each day. Some of us have more, some have less, but we all run out eventually.
Listening to God’s message to Israel in the Old Testament reading today, you can see that playing out. Despite their might, even the soldier and the warhorse are eventually spent. They only have so much life in them and when it’s gone, there’s nothing left. Their strength is their entire purpose. They aren’t there to be decorative. They are there to be strong, to go to war.
God calls their attention back to the Passover. There they were, all of the Israelites from the entire nation of Egypt. Hundreds of thousands, even a million and more people all gathered on the bank of the Red Sea, newly freed from slavery. But Pharaoh had second thoughts. He didn’t want to be the butt of all of the jokes, people laughing at the great and mighty nation of Egypt that can’t even manage a few slaves. His pride took precedence. So he sends his army to reclaim his lost slaves. Chariots and horsemen, mighty warriors thundering down on the defenseless mass of Israelite civilians. If it came to it, I’m sure there would be courageous men from the Israelites who would take up any weapons they could to try and defend the women, children, and elderly, but they would have no real chance. The Egyptian weapons are deadly and their armor protects them. Their horses would trample anything or anyone who got in the way.
God escorts the Israelites out into the midst of the sea, making a path for them to cross safely. The Egyptians don’t fare so well. They fall in the muck and cannot rise. They watch as the walls of water crash down on them and sweep them away. Their might comes to nothing.
That’s a good thing, at least if you’re an Israelite. But then, a few weeks later, when the Israelites stand at the edge of the Jordan and refuse to enter, God declares they will have the same fate. It won’t happen immediately, but at some point over the next forty years, each of the Israelites standing there will fall in the wilderness, never to rise.
It’s like one of those inflatable people they have outside of car dealership and such to advertise sales. One minute you’re flailing around, full of energy, like an 8 year old who’s had too much sugar and the next minute, the fan turns off and you’re floating slowly to the ground, never to rise. God has done great things in the past, destroying all of his enemies and bringing them to nothing. But, in the end, the same happens to you. Your strength is gone, your energy spent. You collapse and come to nothing.
It's probably not at the forefront of your mind when you’re young and full of life, but as you watch you life slowly trickling away and the end seems very near, you start to wonder. He saved Israel before, but now what? It looks like I’m going to suffer the same fate. It doesn’t much matter that he did great things before, because here I am, stuck in the same position.
God speaks to Israelites who have been sent into exile. They were once a strong nation, prosperous and mighty, but now they have come to nothing. What are they to do now? All they can do is wait for the clock to slowly run out. What else is there to do?
You watch your own life slowly ebb away. God has done great things for you in the past, but what are you going to do now? What is he going to do now? There is nothing to do but sit as it all fades away.
God’s lesson here is a hard one to learn. Looking at the harsh realities ahead of us, there are times we look back and see how well things went in the olden days. We see how God cared for us and provided for our needs. There may have been some difficult days, but we got through them ok. But now, things are looking pretty bleak. It doesn’t appear there will be any relief from what ails us now. People keep looking for solutions, keep thinking maybe there’s an answer out there somewhere, but we are not rechargeable batteries that can just be plugged back in for a little while and be good as new. When our battery runs out, there’s nothing left.
The past work of God is good and worthy of consideration, but he reminds the people not to dwell on the past as if these things are gone and forgotten. Do not look wistfully at former things, wishing you could go back to that time. Instead look forward. Look to the new things God is doing. God is never done. He is always planning and implementing new and exciting things. He is always at work on behalf of his people. The Israelites in exile look back at the Passover and wish they could go back to those days. God tells them that instead of going back to that, he is going to do something new. They will see God work in power once more, when he moves a pagan emperor to let his people return to their homeland.
God reminds us of that too. Our hopeless pining for the days of old, when life was good, isn’t helpful to us now. Look to what God as done for you in the past, then look to what God will do for you in the future. You may not see it, but he promises it will happen.
It’s for this reason that the church walks through the life of Christ each year. Each year we see it play out yet again. The world lost in darkness and sin, thinking there was no end in sight, finally sees the birth of the promised savior. The savior who confronts sin and Satan head on, dies. His disciples and followers look back to the good ole days and wish things hadn’t gone the way they did, when instead they should have been looking to the future. God was not done working. Everything fades to black, but then everything is suddenly and miraculously made new. Jesus, in his humanity, rises again, renewed and reinvigorated.
Lent is a trek through bleakness and gloom. It looks like a trek to the end. Jesus’ body drops from the cross, his energy gone. He is lifeless. But then God does a new thing, a new work, a new marvel. He gives life where there is nothing but lifelessness. Where there was once nothing but empty waste, now there is beauty and vibrance.
Our sin is in the thinking there’s nothing more, nothing ahead of us, nothing that God can or will do. But we repent, even daily, and are made new. Our continuing walk through the Easter season and into Pentecost reflects our time here and now. We look back at all that God has done and give thanks for it. However, God is still not done. Someday, your battery will exhaust. You will fall lifeless to the earth. But then you will rise again, just like Jesus, renewed and reinvigorated. God will continue his work in you and through you, just as he has always done. Do not despair, for God has many more wonders to show you.