“The heavens are like brass”
“I feel like I am shouting at the ceiling!”
“If God loves me why does he not answer my questions, my plea for help?”
Many of us can identify with moments when heaven is silent and God appears deaf to our earnest requests. These are the times when the Lord’s way is hidden from us and the world feels a cruel and lonely place.
The middle section of the book of Isaiah contains prophecies written to exiles living at the promised end of their detainment in Babylon. However, as their release draws near a new and mighty empire (The Persians, under Cyrus the Great) threatens to invade Babylon. For exiled Judeans, the future appears more uncertain than ever, and the promises of God increasingly brittle.
Yet… spoiler alert! In chapter 45, Cyrus the Great, Isaiah prophesises will be God’s surprising agent of hope and homecoming.
“This is what the Lord says to his chosen one,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I hold
in order to subdue nations before him
and disarm kings” Is 45:1
That the source of their fear would be the means of their salvation is well beyond the exiles’ craziest dreams, and Isaiah’s shock is recorded for us in v15:
“surely you are a God who hides himself”
Perhaps he might have put it this way:
“this is an unexpected twist, you gave us no hint of this Lord!”
Certainly, no one could have imagined that God would use a pagan king to make the highway in the desert that would lead the exiles home.
God’s “hiding” we discover, is not God absconding from responsibility, action or intimacy. Rather it’s a way of saying that his strategies are beyond our comprehending and his plans are hidden from our view. God’s providential care over our lives and his commitment to bring salvation are at work, even when we don’t see it. This is the stealthy sovereignty of God, whereby his secret faithfulness serves to move all things towards the day when he will be all in all.
In this time of global uncertainty and tensions I find great solace from Isaiah’s prophecy which shows that even in the advance of a global superpower, God works to move forward his plan of salvation. Isaiah tells us that even in the exertion of untrammelled human power God works to subvert and repurpose human action for the sake of salvation.
This is manifest ultimately and fully on the cross. Where evil did its worst work and God did his best. What was intended for evil was re-created by the sacrifice of Jesus to bring life in its fullness and the restoration of all things under their one true lord.
Isaiah 45 reminds me that behind the horror headlines and the despicable deeds that we humans are capable of, the invincible purpose of God’s salvation marches on.
He is still God!