Epiphany
Celebration of God
Manifested in the World
February 2, 2015

 Scripture Reading: Isaiah 40:21-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
   Has it not been told you from the beginning?
   Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
   and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
   and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
   and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.  — Isaiah 40:21-23

Isaiah is challenging God’s people to have perspective. The people he was addressing were seeing the trees and not the forest. Problems grow insurmountable when they are all that we can see. Isaiah gives us a glimpse of God’s view. This is truth for today just as it was truth those many centuries ago.

The peoples of the earth seem to me to be running scared. Part of this is cause by the contagion of fear that happens when bits and pieces of news travel like electricity from one group to another. Our reaction in the United States to the recent Ebola case diagnosed on our shores was part wise learning from previous error as most medical facilities reviewed their protocols for dealing with contagious diseases, but it was part hysteria. Living in a world of instant information and a growing need for instant gratification contributes to both unjustifiable overreaction and the sense of not being able to do anything about everything so we do nothing at all.

The good news is that God created all beings to adapt to new environments. Just as the printing press changed the transmission of information some 700 years ago and the world changed because the masses gained greater access to knowledge, so too will we adapt to all that is changing about us. The thing we need to hold on to is that God is the one sure constant in our lives and that is all that really matters.

Prayer: Lord, give us glimpses of your perspective when we are blinded by the issues that beset us. Help us grow in spirit and in truth so that we might be sources of strength too. Amen.