No Equal
December 13, Second Friday of Advent
Light first (Hope) and second (Peace) purple candles
At the beginning of each school year, teachers across every grade level give their students pretests. These tests don’t count as a grade, but are simply to see where the students’ baseline of knowledge in that particular subject is coming into the new year. Did what they were taught in previous years stick in their memory and understanding? Again, a pretest isn’t to shame students but to help their teacher know where to start with that year’s instruction. Isaiah gives his readers a pretest on their knowledge of God’s power in creation and the fact that He has no equal. The questions are yes/no and short answer:
Do you not know Who is above all?
Have you not heard of the LORD God’s mighty deeds?
Has it not been declared to you from the beginning?
Have you not considered the foundations of the earth and how they were created?
To whom on earth will you compare Me?
Who is My equal? Any time, any place?
Okay, we, and Isaiah’s audience obviously need to review because we’ve forgotten everything over the summer break!!
Read Isaiah 40:21-26
God is over all! He created and sustains all things by the power of His word. Humans and all creatures are like tiny grasshoppers in comparison, much like our view of people and cars looking out the window of an airplane, but even smaller. The atmosphere we live under is the tent that God spread out for us, with exactly the right balance of gases needed for life and growth.
Human rulers are nothing compared to God. Human leaders, those who are honorable as well as the wicked, experience brief moments of greatness. Their existence, power and influence are completely under the LORD’s dominion. He decides when they rule and when they are done. I don’t know about you, but that is comforting to me, especially in the political realm. While we should most definitely engage in the election process and think deeply about our country’s ideals, voting for the candidates who most closely align themselves with our governance philosophy, ultimately God is sovereign over every election, every appointment and every leader’s term in office.
Look Up
In verse 26, God encourages His people to look up at the stars, these beauties that He created. He brings them out by number, calls each of them by name and He hasn’t lost one yet. I’m reminded of similar language in Genesis 15, when the word of the LORD came to Abraham in a vision to enter into a covenantal promise, before He changed his name. God had made an earlier promise to make Abram a great nation, yet Abram and Sarai still had no children. So when God said that Abram’s reward would be very great, Abram was confused. How could that be, since he was still childless? God took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them…your offspring will be that numerous.” (Genesis 15:5) Abram must have looked up and realized that if God could create each star and throw it into place, He could provide descendants just as numerous for him and his wife. Genesis 15:6 confirms this: “Abram believed the LORD, and He credited it to him as righteousness.”
More importantly, in verse 26 Isaiah encourages his audience to “Look up and see!” which literally translates to “lift up your eyes on high.” It’s as if God is saying, “Look up and pay attention; otherwise you might miss the most important star, the Dawn from on High!”
“When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set into place, what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?” Psalm 8:3-4
Reflect on your answers to the pretest questions. How has today’s passage renewed your understanding and awe of God? Celebrate how much our God values us, views us as significant, even compared to the vastness of His creation.
Sing both verses of Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus:
Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel's strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear desire of every nation,
Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.
Pray and ask the LORD for a renewed perspective on your God, who has no equal.
Blessings,
Gay B Brown