“God Cares for Us!”

Isaiah 46:3-9 – July 9, 2023

            I have wonderful memories of being a mom of small children. I would be fascinated to see their endless awe, wonder and amazement. Small children love discovery and inquiry, they love Finding Out New Things. With discovery and exploring come the possibility for falling down, bumping elbows and skinning knees. Not to mention falling flat on your face! I remember washing the dirt off various owies, putting band-aids on knees, fingers and elbows. Sometimes, a small person would climb up in my lap, ready to rest and be cuddled.

            Here in Isaiah 46, we listen to the prophet talk about the Lord. Listen to this message for the remnant of the nation of Israel: ““Listen to me, descendants of Jacob, all you who remain in Israel. I have cared for you since you were born. Yes, I carried you before you were born. ⁴ I will be your God throughout your lifetime—until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.”

            Except, this is a different image of God than we have heard about in other parts of the book of Isaiah. As we have said during the past few weeks, not a strong, mighty, and fearsome Deliverer! No! Instead, we have a another, different view of our Lord. This image is nurturing, warm and mothering.

            I don’t know if anyone here remembers baby slings? A long piece of fabric or material that mothers use to carry their small (and even not so small) infants right near their hearts. And sometimes, as with indigenous mothers, they might carry the child on their backs, secured in a sling of fabric. What a caring, comforting way to carry an infant close to a mom’s heart!

            This image from Isaiah 46 is similar – nurturing and comforting! The God of Israel is “carrying” God’s people close to God’s heart. Like a mother, who carries the child in her uterus for nine months, and afterwards carries it close to her heart. When the prophet actually wrote these words, it had to have a powerful effect upon the nation of Israel. Imagine, actually feeling that God bore them up, and held both them and their burdens close to God’s heart!  

            As we reflect upon our powerful God, God is also creative and caring. We can see that the Lord does not simply wind up the world or the universe like a huge watch, put it down on a forgotten shelf and then go away for centuries, even eons. Remember, verse 4 tells us “⁴ I will be your God throughout your lifetime—until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.”

            Just as the nation of Israel is reminded that they have experienced God’s power by constant benefits, as John Calvin’s commentary on Isaiah tells us, but God diffuses power – and creativity – through all God’s creatures, so that everyone feels God’s strength and energy. As well as Divine caring and salvation! [1]

            This metaphor used in verses 3 and 4 is so expressive. Who has not seen a pregnant mother, or a mother with a young infant? God compares Godself to a mother who carries a baby in her uterus. We hear the Lord speaking of times past, when humans were (and still are) given testimonies of God’s grace! We all can be thankful and grateful that God nourishes not only the people of Israel, but God nourishes us, too! That is, if we are okay with thinking of ourselves as babies and young children in our nurturing, caring God’s lap.

            Alyson Rockhold writes in her article on Isaiah “I sense God’s arms wrapping around me. I hear a gentle invitation to lay down my weary head. In my mind’s eye, I imagine God patting my hair like a mother comforts an overwrought child. It is in intimate moments like this that I experience the mothering God. As a child, I would run to my mother with every skinned knee and broken heart. Her acceptance was total, and her presence never failed to soothe me. Now I’m grown, and an ocean separates my home from hers. Still, in moments of sadness and struggle, I long to feel like a child in my mother’s arms: completely loved and totally accepted. I rediscover this in the Lord’s embrace.” [2]

            In past weeks, this sermon series has focused on Scriptural images of God that are not the usual images put forward. Even referring to God as “mother” might stretch our Divine vocabulary! God as spirit, yes! I would like all of us to think about widening our understanding of God. God is a divine Being beyond male and female, since male and female we all were created in God’s image, in the beginning.

            Here in this summer sermon series, we look at a dozen instances where the Scripture clearly uses feminine imagery and metaphor to explain how God relates to us! We are certainly not referring to any sort of Mother Goddess, or ancient fertility symbol. I know that kind of earthy worship involved agriculture, fertility, sexuality, and even temple prostitutes.

No, this is definitely not what we are focusing on! Neither am I only glorifying God as “Father,” putting human fatherhood and the Divine as Heavenly Father on some sort of lofty, unreachable pedestal. No! As we can see, the Scriptures “consistently merge the images and metaphors of the fatherly God with motherly compassion and love,” [3] as these Scriptural and maternal images tell us repeatedly. Both fatherly and motherly images of our God.

            I encourage all of us to pray with these images. We can all come before God in prayer, climbing up into the Lord’s loving, nurturing lap. Not only can we be grateful for mothering and nurturing of earthly mothers and those who care for us as mothers, around the world.  We can also be thankful for our ever present, sustaining and caring God. Join me in bringing thanks to our Lord for God’s enduring, everlasting care and nurture.

No matter how big or small we are, no matter how grown-up or childlike we may be, we all can say “thank You, God.” Alleluia, amen.

@chaplaineliza

(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and  A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!

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[1] https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/cal/isaiah-46.html

[2] https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/05/09/god-mother-faith-prayer-240581

[3] https://juniaproject.com/biblical-maternal-images-for-god/