He Comforts the Grass
The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Trinity – 11/10/2024
Isaiah 51:9-16
Rev. Christopher W. Brademeyer
That portion of God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our Old Testament lesson from the book of the prophet Isaiah in the fifty-first chapter with special emphasis on verses twelve through fifteen which read as follows:
“I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass, that you forget the Lord your Maker, who stretches out the heavens and who lays the foundations of the earth, that you live in constant terror every day because of the wrath of the oppressor, who is bent on destruction? For where is the wrath of the oppressor? The cowering prisoners will soon be set free; they will not die in their dungeon, nor will they lack bread. For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord Almighty is his name.’”[1]
Thus far the Scriptures.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We human beings have a complicated relationship with understanding ourselves. We seem prone to either overestimate or underestimate ourselves. That is to say, we tend not to be accurate in understanding ourselves. Either we fall into arrogance, over-inflating our sense of self and falsely putting ourselves up and forward, or we fall into a kind of despair, where we see ourselves as rubbish, fit only for the waste bin.
The reason that we tend to do this is twofold: first, there is a bit of truth to both positions. We are sinners and we desperately desire to find something in ourselves that isn’t full of sin. The truth is as sinners we are in fact rotten and miserable. There is no opinion low enough to exceed the wretchedness and horror of sin. But, it is also true that we can behave and accomplish things, being capable of a great many things here in this world that impress each other.
But here’s the thing, this doesn’t really matter in eternity. Our accomplishments are temporary; time and other people will unmake them all. And this insecurity about what we do feeds into our understanding of ourselves.
Which leads to the second reason that we have these two contradictory opinions of ourselves: arrogance and pride have a inverse relationship with despair. When we puff ourselves up and strut around in pride we will eventually experience a fall into despair, depression, and the like. Similarly, the only thing that seems to pull us from the pit of despair is some accomplishment or victory that we can use like a great lever to pry ourselves from this pit. And so we swing back and forth, from one to the other. And this, as I think most of us realize, is a maddening existence, one that drives us to the brink and back again.
Even more fundamentally, this is a flawed approach to self-understanding. It turns out that we are incredibly biased when looking at ourselves, depending on mood and our disposition, we are either going to be very charitable looking at ourselves or overly critical.
What we need is an objective, unbiased look at ourselves. And, interestingly enough, our Lord gives us just such a view through the prophet Isaiah. Here in chapter fifty-one the Lord calls us grass. Grass, as you know, is not a terribly valuable thing. It is cut down as a nuisance for lawns. It is burned when it gets to be too long or to thick. It does serve as hay, but compared to many other things hay is not very valuable under normal circumstances.
The purpose of this, of God calling us grass is to remind us that there is a great chasm of power and value between us and God and to remind us that we are here for a short while. Grass grows for a season, then died back to the root. We, when compared to eternity, are only here for a short while. In addition to this, we are sinners who have no right to demand anything from God.
And even worse, so many of us human beings forget our God and Maker, the one who gives us all that we have each day in spite of our sins. And how do we human beings, as sinners, thank Him? Forgetting His mercies, ignoring His ways, living against His will. And this is only the beginning of the ills of humanity.
This then is the first thing that is true of us: we are mortal, our lives our temporary. And knowing this, our sin, and our dependence on God leads to fear, even cowardice.
But this is not all, we also see that this God does not threaten to bring ruin on us, He does not promise to fulfill what we fear; instead, He promises freedom. The Almighty God, for the sake of His Name, due to His character, due to His love for us sinful creatures comes to us in blessing. Both in the gifts we receive each day, but also and most fully in the coming of His Son, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself into death for our sins and earned for us forgiveness and life everlasting.
This God is the Almighty. The great monsters of legend, the evils of humanity, the greatest of sins, even Satan himself, cannot stand before Him. His power is absolute, His might without limit. And He chooses to use this might to free us from sin and death, to grant us forgiveness, absolution from our sins, and bestow on us life without end or measure.
And how do we know that this is true? Firstly, we see that God has great power in the world around us, that His strength, His might stretched out the heavens and pulled dry land from the seas. This God is He who made the greatest of redwoods and the smallest of plankton with but a Word. The work of His hand and the strength of His might is all around us. And the God who can make all of this from nothing is able to do anything He pleases. Secondly, He has told us what He wants. Namely, He wants all of us, particularly you, to be saved, to be brought from sin into righteousness, through death into everlasting life, and from iniquity to holiness.
So now where is the wrath of our oppressors sin, death, and the devil? Why do they roar and foam? All they can do crash on the might of God like waves on a great and unbreakable rock. There is not a power that is able to withstand God. And His power is shown to you not in condemnation and destruction for sin, but in His mercy and grace given through His Son and bestowed on you by the power of the Holy Spirit through His Word and sacraments.
Having an honest picture of ourselves is scary and potentially difficult. So long as we base our views of ourselves in our own selves from our own observations, we will never see the full picture and we will be left lurching from prideful arrogance to despair. Instead, we should submit to what God says of us, both the parts we do not like to hear and those that we do. We must admit our shortcomings, our sins, without fear. And, even more, we must see ourselves as the blessed recipients of God’s grace and mercy, poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. This then is the accurate view of ourselves, objective, fair, and perfect assessment of our condition as human beings: we are sinners, this is true, but God has granted by His grace us to be far, far more than sinners. He has made us His, adopted us as sons and heirs of every promise earned in the death of Christ.
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
[1] Isaiah 51:12-15 English Standard Version
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