How Firm a Foundation

Isaiah 43:1-7

Here is a wondrous response to our continual fears about the presence of God in the midst of suffering. As God speaks to the prophet, there is no shying away from the truth that life can be hard and that our suffering is around all of the time. God acknowledges the presence of flood, fire, and famine--both literal and metaphorical. But the great promise is that God is with us through every experience with more than enough power to see us through them. 

No wonder early American hymnologists found here the basis for the wonderful hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.” As this hymn became a piece of our American faith expression, times were anything but easy. Settlers were establishing a foothold on the frontier, facing countless challenges as they sought to carve a place on which to stand from the wilderness. Along the Blue Ridge Parkway as it leaves North Carolina and enters Virginia, there is an overlook peering hundreds of feet down to the ruins of a homestead farm. The walls of mountain and encroaching forest tell of hardship, deprivation, and pain in trying to eek a living there. Even those who lived in the cities of the time--hardly even a faint glimmer of what we call cities--faced challenges from disease, want, and the fickleness of the world. Life was hard. But the promises of a firm foundation were found in the prophet. God undergird all that was. Through faith, they could set their feet on God’s own power.

A beautiful image--a baby making the transition to being a toddler begins by resting her tiny feet on those of her parents who “walk” her through the motions of ambulation. She will not fall because mom or dad holds her up. When the legs give way, there is support. When the feet stumble, firm hands lift her. Those big feet are a strong foundation.

And that is God with us.

Now we live in a culture and time that does not like to admit the need for help or weakness of any kind.  To be told that in the presence of God, we are back to dependent toddlerhood seems a slight or an affront. 

It is not meant to be.

Rather, see it as an invitation into grace. Grace is another item we speak a lot about in our time without knowing the first thing of it. Watching the public response to personal failure is telling. Someone rises before us in a heady state of accomplishment, and before long, the nibbles of doubt come--they are not who they seem to be; there are skeletons waiting to be exposed; they cannot be that good--it is a sham and a lie. Fearful times breed fearsome responses. We feel threatened, so we lash out at anyone who seems to be better than we are--they cannot be that good, they have to be as bad as the rest of us. We wind up existing in a morass of muddling. We settle for not quite right because we come to believe there is no other truly real state of existence possible. Grace dies. The only way to resurrect it is to admit we have a problem. 

Do you recall that familiar childhood hymn, “Jesus Loves Me?” Do you remember what it says so easily? “I am weak, but He is strong.” 

I have warm recollections of that song. I remember singing it in Sunday School and in our church’s summer day camp. I remember being little and away from Mom and Dad for the first extended periods of time. I remember the sudden shock of realizing that they were not there and I was with people whom I did not know really well enough to believe they could be sure and trusted.

ASIDE: They were actually incredibly nice people who shaped and formed me with their care and nurture, but as a six year old, I didn’t know that yet.

When a teacher would lead us singing “Jesus Loves Me,” it became a prayer of hope and comfort, even for a small child. “Yes, Jesus loves me...”--I am going to be okay; “Yes, Jesus loves me...”--Mom and Dad will come back to get me; “I am weak, but He is strong...”--this God person is good. 

Well, consider reentering that innocent state of humility again. As a six year old, I knew enough to know I could not be self-sufficient--in fact, that state of being did not even appear to me. I needed grown ups to help me. I needed other people to make it through a new and unsettling experience. I needed the presence of the other children who were going through what I experienced. We were in this together. Think for a moment how such an attitude could really and effectively help us get through our now very adult conundrums and conniptions. If we see our need for each other, our need for a power greater than ours, and insight deeper than anything we can raise within ourselves, then there is hope. There is a gateway into community and communion. 

Faith really is about relationships. “For God so loved the world” (see? God chooses to connect to us) “that he gave his only Son” (see how deep that connection is?) “so that whoever believes in him” (see? hope comes through connection) “may not perish, but have eternal life” (see? there is redemption through faith--through our risking connection by admitting our need for God). As we connect to God who loves us, we find the strength to connect to each other. We can risk it. There really is nothing to lose. Our communion with God provides the firm footing from which to walk into the world.

I think we know this better than we admit. 

Isn’t it interesting how our love for “How Firm a Foundation” never really wanes? We list that as a hymn on Sunday, and we all know everybody is going to sing out and bounce along with it. We know our need for God, we just have a hard time admitting it because we have been schooled in not admitting our need for much of anything.

Get over it.

I do not mean that crassly. We ARE incomplete. We ARE fallible. To find help, we need to admit it and live with it and within it. That is not a painful, shameful step. It is healing grace. God will see us through whatever is before us--flood, fire, or famine in every one of their forms.

Stand on the foundation of God--God can support all of us.