Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Jenny, Marlene, and Heather! Inspired by Isaiah 40.31, the images in this service reflect the gift of renewal through the Holy Spirit.
PRELUDE: “All Hail King Jesus” (Moody)
OPENING PRAYER:
God of gladness,
We enter your presence
with praise on our lips,
and thanksgiving in our hearts.
The gates of your goodness are always open,
and your faithfulness extends to every age.
Tend us, Lord, and remind us
that we belong to you alone.
Amen.
HYMN OF PRAISE: “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, who rules all creation;
O my soul, praise him, at all times your health and salvation.
Come, all who hear:
brothers and sisters draw near,
joining in glad adoration.
Praise to the Lord, above all things so mightily reigning,
keeping us safe at his side, and so gently sustaining.
Have you not seen
how all you needed has been
met by God’s gracious ordaining?
Praise to the Lord who will prosper our work and defend us;
surely his goodness and mercy will daily attend us:
ponder anew
what the Almighty can do,
who out of love will befriend us.
Praise to the Lord! O let all that is in me adore him!
All that has life and breath come now with praises before him!
Let the Amen
sound from God’s people again:
gladly with praise we adore him.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
God of mercy,
you know how we feel before we feel it.
When frustrated, you understand.
When weary, you know how much.
When angry, you always forgive.
Abide with us, Lord, even when we struggle,
Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.
SPECIAL MUSIC: “On Eagle’s Wings (Joncas)
FIRST READING: Psalm 147
How good it is to sing praises to God,
how pleasant to laud the Most High.
You are building Jerusalem, O God,
and gathering the scattered exiles of Israel.
You are healing the broken-hearted,
and binding up their wounds.
You count the number of the stars,
and call them all by their names.
Great are you, O God, and mighty your power;
yes, and your wisdom is infinite.
You raise up the lowly,
and bring down the wicked to dust.
Sing to God in thanksgiving;
make music on the harp to our God,
who covers the sky with clouds,
who prepares rain for the earth,
who makes the hills green with grass.
You give the cattle their food,
and the young ravens when they cry.
You set no store by the power of a horse,
nor by the strength of a warrior’s thighs.
But your delight is in those who revere you,
in those who rely on your mercy.
SECOND READING: Isaiah 40.21-31
21 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
23 He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
24 No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.
25 “To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.
27 Why do you complain, Jacob?
Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?
28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
HYMN: “We praise you, Creator”
We praise you, Creator, in earth, sea, and sky:
our Ruler, our Maker, our Sovereign most high.
Each new generation lifts voices in praise;
how good your creation, how gracious your ways!
Each springtime the blossoms bloom fragrant once more;
each summer and autumn brings forth its rich store.
With witness compelling our praise and our prayer,
creation is telling of your faithful care.
Your wondrous works teach us, Creator, to trace
the limitless reaches of your love and grace.
Your grace dwells among us, your love goes before:
from eldest to youngest we praise and adore.
REFLECTION
Often called the king of all birds, we might better say the eagle is the king of all symbols.
If we begin in the middle of the story, we arrive in Rome, where the symbol of the eagle is second only to a certain shewolf and a couple of hungry lads. Rome’s legions took the eagle on campaign, where it became symbolic of both the might of Rome and the fate of individual legions. This would be the moment to recommend Rosemary Sutcliff’s wonderful book The Eagle of the Ninth, exciting interest in Roman Britain since 1954.
After Rome, the eagle remains a symbol of empire, with various royal houses sporting the bird, wings outstretched, sometimes adding an extra head or two for effect. This, of course, crosses the Atlantic, where our pretentious neighbour to the south adopts the eagle as their own. To be fair, they were trying to recreate the Roman Republic in America, so the eagle makes a lot of sense.
That’s the forward view, how about looking back in time? Among Canada’s First Nations, the eagle is considered a messenger to the Creator, lifting prayers to the Spirit world, providing courage and strength. It was no accident that Elijah Harper held an eagle feather while defending the rights of his people back in 1990, a moment that is considered a turning point for Indigenous people in Canada.**
Within the Christian church, the eagle is most often associated with St. John the Evangelist. Beginning in the second century of the Common Era, thinkers such as Irenaeus made the connection between John’s homily to the Word (found in John 1) and the eagle, symbolizing “the gift of the Spirit hovering with his wings over the church.” We’ll have to leave Matthew (a man), Mark (a lion) and Luke (an ox) for another day.
In the Hebrew Bible, the eagle is a symbol of swiftness (often related to conquest), nurture (offering shelter), and renewal. It is this last attribute that takes us to the reading Marlene shared today. But before we look at Isaiah 40, there appears to be one passage where swift rescue, shelter, and renewal happen all at once. From Mt. Sinai, the LORD spoke to Moses: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself’ (Ex 19). The Lord then asks for faithfulness, and a willingness to keep the covenant God made.
On to Isaiah 40, where we heard what is the second most familiar part of this remarkable chapter. The first most familiar of is best shared in the language that G. F. Handel knew:
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
So the context of Isaiah 40 is forgiveness, an end to exile, and a return to the land. And without jumping to the end of the story, we already know that the renewing spirit of the eagle is for those returning from exile, those charged with rebuilding the holy places. This, then, is the context for those who first heard these words:
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
But those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
This is the moment that the preacher encourages you to make your own homily, connecting our time to the anguish of exile, the desire for return, and the need for strength. I’m not saying these sermons write themselves, but we live in a time when the need for shelter and renewal has never been greater. Likewise, our need to trust in God has never been greater, but it is this trust that cries out for greater understanding, as much as connecting exile to our time. For a place to start, I might recommend Proverbs 9.10:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The first dimension of trusting God is acknowledging that we can’t fully understand God. In this case, fear seems more a case of bewilderment, or confusion, which is always the starting point for gaining wisdom. To say you don’t understand something, or you need to learn something, is the first step on the journey to gaining wisdom. And this takes us back to the middle section of Isaiah 40:
25 “To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
Those who love the Book of Job will immediately hear God speaking from the whirlwind, reminding Job that God is God and Job is not. To be fair to poor Job, he was simply talking to his mates when the Most High finally had enough of their ignorance. And the question they asked—why do people suffer?—remains a question for all time. Where is God in the midst of plague and disaster? Is God cause or cure? Or both? (Spoiler alert: I do not believe that God sent COVID or caused it to happen).
But I know I’m not the first to imagine—if only for a moment—that COVID is some form of punishment for our misdeeds. Climate change, loss of habitat, unsustainable farming practices: all these trends have a hand in zoonotic diseases, those moving from animal to human. And the spread of the disease, more active under populist and authoritarian regimes, just adds another layer to this question of human foolishness.
Back to the Book of Job, we know that there is no connection between wickedness and suffering, yet we also know that God remains unsearchable. We can never fully understand the ways of God, but we can trust that God will bring rescue, shelter, and renewal in the midst of crisis. We can trust that God will bring comfort and forgiveness in the midst of our foolishness. And we can trust that God will give us new strength, to soar on wings like eagles, to run and not grow weary, to walk and not faint.
In John’s extended description of the Last Supper, Jesus offered comfort to his disciples, he washed their feet, and he promised the gift of the Holy Spirit. “Soon,” he said, “the Holy Spirit, whom God will send in my name, will teach you and remind you of all that I have said to you.” This is not a promise to reveal the unknowable mysteries of the Most High. This is a promise to help us remember everything Jesus said and did. It is a promise to send the sustaining power of the Spirit upon the church, and it is a promise to send the Spirit of the eagle—so that rescue, shelter, and renewal will come to us, now and always, Amen.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
God of love,
We come before you with many needs.
We are beset with worry:
for our friends and family,
for our congregation,
for the community we inhabit,
for the nation we love,
for the sad and the lonely,
for the hurt and oppressed.
Day and night we struggle,
for fear of the future,
and fear of an illness,
that remains overwhelming
and beyond our control.
Sustain us through these times,
giving wisdom to leaders,
and insight to researchers,
and patience to all who need more.
Find us, Lord,
in the midst of this moment:
comfort those in grief,
and ease those in pain.
Help us abide in you,
walking in the light of your goodness,
now and always,
Amen.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
HYMN: “Come now, almighty King”
Come now, almighty King,
help us your name to sing, help us to praise;
one God all glorious, ever victorious,
come and reign over us, Ancient of Days.
Come now, incarnate Son,
your life in us begun, our prayer attend;
come, and your people bless, come, give your word success;
stablish your righteousness, Saviour and friend!
Come holy Comforter,
your sacred witness bear in this glad hour;
your grace to us impart, now rule in every heart,
never from us depart, Spirit of power!
To the great One in Three,
eternal praises be for evermore;
your sovereign majesty may we in glory see,
and to eternity love and adore!
BLESSING
Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23
God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.
*https://www.sarahshaidaarts.com/haida-symbols/ **https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/elijah-harper-the-man-with-a-feather-who-changed-the-course-of-history
