Even when you turn grey I will carry you.

 

Friday, December 15, 2023


Psalms 11; 14

Isaiah 46:1-47:4

Revelation 14:1-12


Even when you turn grey I will carry you.


God made you. God bore you. God carried you, and God saved you. And look at the words God spoke through Isaiah for the people then, and us people now: God will bear; will carry; will save. Everything that has happened is because God made it so, and God will continue this good work to the end.


Did any of us have a helping hand in the decision to send Jesus to live as one of us? Did any of us help in the incarnation, where Jesus was born of the virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit? Did any of us hang on the cross to die for the sins of anyone else? The entire history of redemption is an act of God.


Some people would take a physical artefact and bow down and worship it. God is flabbergasted at their idiocy. But that is what idolatry is: the foolishness of human selfishness taken to its extreme. We are not like God, and God is not like us. When we read these words from the prophet we realise that we cannot make God in our own image.


All through these repeated statements from God in Isaiah we hear two things: first, we cannot make God to be like us. Secondly, no-one should ever want to make God like us, because God is so amazingly generous and loving that His transcendent beauty is unattainable by mere humans.


When we sing that, “nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling” we are responding faithfully to what God has told us in these prophetic words. Because in this is love: not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent His Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.


To be numbered among those saints in heaven who are in such a blessed state that they see the Lamb on His holy mountain in all His glory is an inspiring call for endurance. Trusting God is a test of endurance. But it is not a difficult test, because God will carry us there. Even when we turn grey, God will carry us.

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