Hitting the Wall (Isaiah 40:21-31)

This is my sermon from The Bridge worship service at Woodmont Christian Church on August 19. As always, this is the manuscript so it's the gist of what I said, but not entirely what I said. It is also a revised, remixed, and rewritten version of one of the first sermons I preached when I was in seminary.

So last Friday I almost died. My wife E.A. has been going to spin class for several months now. She seems to like it and has made a point of staying committed to it. I run but have always heard that these spin classes are a good source of cross-training. So at some point I commented that I might like to try to go to a class with her. We kind of danced around me going for about a month because our children were on break and I traveled a lot this summer. But last Friday, with the boys in school, I joined E.A. at Krank Fitness just a few blocks from here.

Part of me was worried because summer has thrown my fitness regimen off a bit. Then there was another part of me that was not too concerned because I have been a runner since I was in high school. Why would I think that I would not have any trouble with a spin class? Because there’s a seat! In my arrogance, I thought, “If I could sit down while I was running, I could go twice as far and twice as fast.” This was the first of many stupid thoughts that traversed my mind on this fateful morning.

Before we started, I got on the stationary bike and sort of pedaled a little bit to get used to it. I could tell that this exercise was going to tax some muscles that didn’t normally get used, but I was not worried. The whole point was to work on some muscles that didn’t get as much attention while running. So we begin our 30 minute spin session which was to be followed by 30 minutes of strength training. The music is thumping and our instructor is telling us to speed up, get out of the saddle, increase the resistance on the bike, lower it, go up and down and back, up and down and back. And it’s tough. 

Now if I were sensible, I would have said to myself, “Christopher, this is your first time. You should probably take it easy.” But I said, “Shut up, sensible voice, you’re not the boss of me!” Now I made this ill-advised decision for two reasons. One: my wonderful wife was right next to me and even though we have been married for 13 years, I still want to impress her. And two: I have a long history of making poor decisions when it comes to my body’s aerobic limits. I threw up after multiple track meets in high school. I have run to the point of seeing spots…on numerous occasions. For the most part, I’ve gotten better about these things. I take things slower. I’ll stop and walk if I need to. But apparently if you put me next to my beautiful wife in a room where a guy is yelling “Push! Push! Push!” all of that goes out the window.

About 15 minutes in, the sensible voice has been replaced by my body screaming to me “Shut it down now!” My legs felt fatigued. Sweat was cascading down me like Niagra Falls. But, no, I decided to push on through. I would not slow down. When we were instructed to sprint at the end, I sprinted. Light headedness be darned.

Finally, we got to the end and stop. I got off my bike and I immediately realized that I have made a terrible mistake. My jello legs have me walking across the floor like I’m on a ship at sea. My head was simultaneously throbbing and feels light. I’m supposed to do 30 minutes of strength training next and that was the part I was actually worried about before all this. 

I go over and sit on a box, trying to chug water. I feel like I am going to throw up. E.A. knows something is wrong. This is not the first time I have nearly driven myself to throwing up in an effort to impress her; the other time involved a carnival ride, but that’s an illustration for a different sermon. She checks on me because she is understandably concerned. I tell her that I feel bad but that I want her to go on and do the strength training. Then I slid around the corner, crawled through a bathroom door, lied down on a slate floor, and prayed for the cool embrace of death to come for me. It was not one of my finest moments.

I had hit the wall. Then I tried to fight the wall and the wall won. “Hitting the wall” is a common term in running and other endurance sports. Scientifically speaking, it’s when the glycogen in your muscles it totally depleted. The result is that your energy is completely sapped. In addition to fatigue, one can feel dizziness and, in some extreme cases, individuals have experienced hallucinations.

Anyone who has run long distances or done any kind of sport that challenges one’s endurance is familiar with The Wall. People talk about The Wall the same way that sailors spoke of sea monsters who loomed at earth’s edge ready to devour all that crossed its path. The Wall is an ancient road beast of yore that will hunt you down and tear you limb from limb. Once you have hit the wall, you wonder whether you’ll ever be able to take another step forward.

The people who first heard the words of the prophet Isaiah which we read today probably felt like they had hit the wall. Scholars believe that the prophet’s original audience was living in exile. In the early 6th Century, the mighty nation of Babylon was the preeminent superpower of its time. It conquered lands far and wide and eventually set its sights on the nation of Judah. 

Over the course of many years, the Babylonians ripped many Judeans away from their homeland and carried them off to live in exile. The Babylonian invasion reached its horrifying apex when they ransacked and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. This tragedy was utterly devastating to the Hebrew people; even more than having their homes taken from them and being hauled off to a foreign land. The Temple was the spiritual, cultural, and political center of their world. More important than all of that, the Temple was believed to be the dwelling place of God. And it was completely destroyed.

When your entire world falls apart, it can raise many soul-wrenching questions. And the people of Isaiah’s day were wrestling with many of them. They wondered, “Has God abandoned us? Does God hate us now? Is Yahweh not strong enough to hold back the pantheon of Babylonian gods? Were they the real gods?” They wondered what was to become of them as a people and whether they should assimilate to become just like their conquerors. They wondered whether they should hold on to their faith even when the Temple was gone.

William Butler Yeats once wrote: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” That is where the people around Isaiah found themselves. Things had fallen apart and chaos seemed to trample everything they knew underfoot. They wondered if they would ever be able to take another step forward.

The context of this passage is a dark place and it is place with which you and I are familiar. We cannot fully grasp the utter devastation that the Hebrew people were experiencing. I don’t want to equate the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian exile with many of the present day trials that we face as fairly well off United States citizens in the 21st Century. Yet I do think that we have a grasp on the kind of questions and doubts that these women and men faced.

If we are honest with ourselves, and I hope we are especially in this place, there are times when you and I have hit the wall. They are times when we wonder if we can take another step forward. There are times when we feel like we have nothing left. They are the times when we feel like God is far away or maybe not even there at all. These moments can happen in one fell swoop; a dramatic loss or an event that transforms into a crisis of faith.

It can also be gradual; the small moments that slowly chip away at you, that tire you out and wear you down. I hope you know that the Wall is out there lurking. Odds are there are going to be times in which you are going to be tired, beaten down, and wonder how much more you can go forward.

I hope you don’t find yourself in that position. I hope that you listen to yourself. I hope you are not like me in that spin class ignoring the warning signs. Take care of yourself. Ask others for help. But if you find yourself tired and unsure whether you can go on then Isaiah has a word for you just as he did for his original audience. The prophet tries to resuscitate the flagging hope and resolve of God’s people. He knows that it will be an uphill battle because the days seem dark. 

The first thing of which Isaiah tries to remind his community is that God is great. Sitting here in a church that might seem like an obvious statement. Of course, God is great. God is God. Yet we must remember that in this day and time, the question of Yahweh’s greatness was quite valid. They were in a cultural context in which there were gods and goddesses galore and though the Hebrew people believed in one God, they had to wonder whether they had chosen the wrong side. When a nation so thoroughly annihilated another such as Babylon had done, it was believed that the victorious nation’s gods had proven themselves greater than the defeated deity.

Isaiah’s people likely wondered if Yahweh had lost and what is the point of worshipping a weak God like that? And though we are in a church, we shouldn’t take the question of God’s greatness for granted either. We may look at the suffering and hurting in the world and wonder where God is in that and if God is indeed great.

So that is why Isaiah has to begin where he does. He adamantly affirms that God is not weak. God sits above the earth. Everything is like a grasshopper to Yahweh. This is the One who stretches out the heavens. The One who could decimate earth’s mightiest forces with just a breath. Nothing in all of creation—not the so-called gods of Babylon, not any army, not any militia, not any king, dictator, nor any ruler—could conquer the Creator of All Things. This God is great, massive, powerful. This God does not grow weary and is greater than anything of which we could ever conceive. 

Isaiah grabs his people by the shoulders and begs of them not to lose sight of God’s greatness and goodness despite their present circumstances. And sometimes that is all it takes. The early Christian thinker Origen noted that the admonishment “Lift up your eyes” occurs often in scripture. When we consider the greatness and grandeur of creation and the God who made it, there is comfort. It helps us to get out of our own heads.

Yet if Isaiah’s encouragement had stopped there, I bet many people would have not been comforted. “So Yahweh is powerful and mighty? Big whoop. What does that do for us here in exile? Has this great God ditched us for someone else? Because we feel completely powerless and alone?” That is why the second point is so critical: This great, mighty, inconceivable God cares about you. This God looks out for the powerless and gives strength to those who feel like they cannot go on. For the ones who wait upon God—those who trust in and put their hope in God—God will help them conquer the Walls that life throws at them. 

Both sides of Isaiah’s point are needed. If God is powerful but does not look out for those who are weak, then God just works in the same way the rest of the world works. The powerful win and the powerless have little hope. On the other hand, if God is with us but is not powerful then that God’s presence is little comfort. But God is great and God is with us. Those two together make all the difference.

All of which brings us to the most famous part of this passage where it says that those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint. And I have to believe that the way Isaiah phrases this is a hat tip to all of those who have hit the wall. Typically in lyrical poetry, especially when inspiration is the aim, the language builds. Things become greater and greater. For example, in U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name,” Bono sings he wants to run, he wants to hide; both of which are run-of-the-mill actions. Then he wants to tear down the walls that hold him inside. That’s a step up. It’s not easy to tear down a wall. Then he wants to reach out and touch the flame and that’s where we need to stop Bono because he will get hurt doing that.

If Isaiah 40 was like “Streets” we would expect Isaiah to tell us that those who wait on the Lord will walk and not faint, run and not grow weary, and soar on wings like eagles. That eagle imagery is always what captures people’s attention and we think that soaring on wings like eagles is the point. We might feel like failures if we are not super-Christians barreling through every wall.

But soaring on wings like eagles is not the point. The point is to trust in God and keep moving forward. I went to spin class with E.A. again this past week and I learned that my job was not to be a super-spinner, but to just keep moving forward. I have to build up and gradually work towards pushing with all of my might. If you are doing wonderfully in your walk with God, great. God will help you soar on wings like eagles. If you are able to run, then God will help you to not grow weary. But if all you can do is hobble through your pain, your doubts, and your questions, then God is there to make sure that you do not faint. The point is not what we do. It is that God is there for us in the midst of all of it. Even when we hit the wall. We need that reminder that we are not alone.