Epiphane week 5

Psalm: Psalm 147:1-11
Old Testament : Isaiah 40:21-31
Gospel : Mark 1:29-39
Epistle : 1 Corinthians 9:16-23

Welcome to the first week of February and the fifth week of Epiphany. Our theme this week reflects the sovereignty of God.  Psalm 147, like so many others, declares the power and majesty of the Lord. The Lord counts and names the stars, cares for the creatures, and builds up Israel, the afflicted and the hurting. Again in Isaiah, the writer proclaims it is God alone who sits on the throne above the earth.  God judges the rulers of the earth and it is he who has the power to plant them or blow them away in a storm. As we saw last week in Mark, and again this week, Jesus has power over the demons and is able to heal the sick. 

These three passages reflect the idea that the Lord is in control and in charge of the happenings on earth.  God’s sovereignty can be both a comforting as well as an unsettling idea.  I heard that after Hurricane Katrina Trevecca no longer sung the song Indescribable. The second verse says:

Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night
None can fathom

After Hurricane Katrina, this song made some uncomfortable and seemed to blame God for the disaster that struck.  I don’t want to be critical of their decision, but it seems that it was either not sing this song or maybe not read the Psalms which express the same sentiment instead of dealing with the theological difficulties it presents.  Hurricane Katrina is an example of what we call natural evil and it presents one facet of the “problem of evil.”  The problem of evil is the difficulty of justifying belief in a sovereign all powerful God with the fact that evil, be it natural or caused by humanity, is a fact of life.  Many solutions have been offered to this problem.  They either limit God’s sovereignty by elevating human freewill or maintain the total sovereignty of God by pointing towards the greater good argument.

In the Wesleyan tradition, we hold the freewill argument that God has essentially limited his sovereignty in order to make space for humanity.  I think this fits in nicely with the biblical story as a whole; not the least of which is the fact that we serve a God who humbled himself by becoming a man and dying on a cross to redeem creation. (Phil. 5-11) I don’t think any of these “solutions” are full proof (as if we can put God into a box), but it is important that we recognize the problem and seek solutions for ourselves.

I just finished reading Genesis, and am currently reading Joshua, and just thinking of the history of Israel in Egypt and the Exodus.  For over 400 years, Israel was in bondage with no word from God or even a hint that Yahweh, the God of Israel, was real.  If we were to ask someone in year 200 if God was sovereign what would their answer be? I think it would probably be no.  It can so often seem like God is not control and that humanity just has the ability and power to do whatever we want.  However, even if we limit the sovereignty of God, or are stuck in year 200 of 400 years of slavery, the biblical story testifies that God is in control enough to accomplish his ends.  God, through persuasion, using natural agents or through divine intervention, is able to accomplish his divine plan to bring about redemption and New Creation.

It is this that we must testify to, even if our own life circumstances might not bear witness to the power of God. Isaiah wrote during a time when Israel was again suffering and under a foreign power.  But the author still writes, “He gives strength to the weary, And to him who lacks might He increases power.” (Is. 40:29) Even though Isaiah was prophesying judgment and exile, he writes that God would still be with his people. Some Israelites were going to be born, live, and die in exile, but the greater Story of God is that God is in control despite our individual circumstances.  God gives us strength to walk through this life-- even in exile.  God is in control to fulfill his greater purposes.

I hope this makes some sense. I know many people have thought about these issues before. My hope is that each week I can present a new or provocative topic to springboard further reading, research, or discussion for all of us.  This post only begins to scratch the surface of divine sovereignty and the problem of evil.  So hopefully if this post didn’t make sense or you think I’m wrong you, will at least be propelled to explore these ideas further.

Grace and Peace