The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
August 24, 2002

Try a Heavenly Perspective
Isaiah 51:1-6

On Christmas Eve 1968, one image radically changed our perspective of earth. That evening, the crew of Apollo 8 hosted a live television broadcast from space. The astronauts pointed their camera out the window and gave us earthlings our first glimpse of our home planet.  

Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell said, “The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth.” The three-man crew ended the broadcast by taking turns reading from the book of Genesis, sharing with the world their new appreciation for the vastness of God’s creation. That new perspective, seeing earth from space, made our big world look smaller, more fragile than ever before. 

Perspective matters a great deal. Your viewpoint determines how you see the world. Looking down on the world from outer space seems at first glance to give God’s perspective. Yet, the Bible tells us that God is not out there somewhere, but with us here in our day-to-day lives. Before Jesus’ birth, the angel Gabriel announced that Jesus would be Emmanuel, “God with Us.” So what is the perspective of our with us God? 

This morning’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah invites us to try a heavenly perspective on the world. The proclamation in Isaiah is poetry. I want to take just a minute, or minute and a half tops to give you a little context for the poem and look closely at the lines. Then we’ll move ahead to see what it might mean for us. 

This poem dates to the time when the Jews were returning to Israel from exile in Babylon. The people had been away from their homeland, living under foreign rule. Now they are returning to find Israel in ruins. They are comforted in this poetic proclamation with a promise of new life and offered a change of perspective. 

Look with me at the reading from Isaiah in your bulletins. There is a pattern of four paired lines on a topic with three drawing it out further, followed by four more paired lines and, three drawing it out further. The first four lines of verse begin “listen,” “look,” “look,” and “for.” These four paired lines are about Abraham and Sarah. Those who want to live a Godly life are asked to look to the example of Abraham and his wife Sarah, the great ancestors of all the Jews. Abraham and Sarah are referred to as the rock from whom all of Israel was cut.  

Then the next three lines draw out the analogy further. The lines Beginning “for,” “and,” and “joy” bring out meaning from the example of Abraham and Sarah. Zion, the poetic name here for Israel, is called a desert, a wasteland, and a wilderness. Just as Abraham and Sarah were comfortless and barren, as they had no children in their old age, so the land of Israel lies comfortless and barren at this time of return from exile.  

As God acted in history to give Abraham and Sarah a child late in life, how much more will God now act in history for Israel. The Lord promises to comfort the waste places, make her wilderness like Eden and the desert like a garden. The Lord will once again fill the land with joy, gladness, and thanksgiving. This is great news to returning exiles. 

The next four lines, begin “listen,” “for,” “I,” and “the” These lines are reminders of the judgment that caused the Jews to be taken captive by the Babylonians. The nation had grown unjust. God reminds the people to give heed to Godly teaching and justice. Salvation and hope are closely tied to Godly teaching.  

Then we come to the final three paired lines from our reading this morning, the ones beginning “lift,” “for,” and “but.” Here the prophet provides a different perspective. This new perspective does not offer what sounds like good news.  

“Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
            and look at the earth beneath.” 

Now we are to take ourselves up to the heavens and look back at earth from that new perspective. Not unlike the view from Apollo 8 during that Christmas broadcast. Now as we dangle above the earth and look back at this fragile home on our island in the vastness of space, Isaiah proclaims the good news,  

“for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
the earth will wear out like a garment,
and those who live on it will die like gnats.” 

Now that’s a cheery little verse on a Sunday morning. The heavens will vanish, the earth wear out and those who live on it will die like gnats. Of course, if those of us who live on the earth will be as hard to kill as the Sand Gnats we have here in Camden County, then maybe we aren’t so fragile after all.  

But the perspective here is that from our heavenly vantage point, we see creation is winding down and those of us who live on the earth die in a short time compared to the vastness of eternity. We are too small to grasp the immensity of the infinite.  

Blaise Pascal wrote, “Is not our span of life infinitesimal in eternity, even if it is extended by ten years?” Pascal himself lived a shorter life than he must have imagined for himself when he penned that line. The 17^th century French Philosopher, died at the age of 39 leaving his great work “Pensées” as unfinished notes. His own life is a good example of what he wrote, for if Pascal had lived to be 49, his life would have been no longer when compared to eternity.  

Rather than a depressing revelation, the final verse of our reading from Isaiah shows why this is good news. We are not finite beings. Our finite and all too short lives have eternal significance as the salvation God gives us is forever. God’s deliverance will never be ended.  

Jesus kept this eternal significance at the forefront of his ministry. That is why Jesus got exasperated with people sometimes. The people with whom he lived and to whom he ministered were often focused on an earth-bound view of life, while Jesus was constantly trying to get them to see things from a heavenly perspective. This is why when someone would come to Jesus for healing, sometimes he would forgive their sins, then heal as a sign that they had indeed been forgiven.  

For Jesus, coming to a new birth, through a relationship with God, mattered more than physical healing. Jesus knew the people he healed would get sick again. Those he raised from the dead, like his friend Lazarus, would one day die again. However, all who came into a saving relationship with God through him would die only to gain new life for all eternity. From that perspective, the healing of the heart, mind, and soul mattered so much more than merely healing the body alone. 

Jesus concerned his ministry with eternal matters. This is why Jesus said, 

“Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:31-33 NIV). 

Look at the world from God’s perspective and see that even if heaven and earth passes away, the love of God available to you through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit will never pass away. When you come into a relationship with God, that relationship cannot be broken by the power of death. Paul wrote that neither life nor death could separate us from the love of God. Nothing can separate you from God’s love.  

All who live on the earth may die like gnats compared to the vastness of eternity, but that is OK because God created you for eternity. Death is not the end, but a new beginning. You are an eternal being.  

Look again at those spacecraft views of earth. Long before we could take in the world in one glance from space, God could keep watch on each of us. As vast as our world is, nothing in it is distant from God. Our with-us God is with each of us in bad times and in good. Try that heavenly perspective on and take a new look at the world. Sure, everything will be just as chaotic at times. Bad things will continue to happen in the world. But the evil of this world is not the final answer. Evil’s days are numbered, while God’s salvation is forever and God’s deliverance will never be ended. 

Amen.