Archive: “All Flesh is Grass….”

As nation rises against nation, can this depressing statement comfort us?

By Rev. Dr. John Oswalt, Associate Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature, Asbury Theological Seminary

Part I

The voice said, “Cry.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is as grass. …

What is Isaiah saying? He means that human power is strictly and severely limited. On the face of it, this seems hardly the comforting word Isaiah was told to deliver in the chapter’s opening. Yet it was what the Judeans, living in captivity at the time of this prophecy, desperately needed.

Mighty Assyria had been replaced by mightier Babylon. What chance did a tiny band of exiles stand in the face of that accumulated wealth and power and pomp, the flower of human achievement at that time? Little did the Judeans know that this fair flower’s day was already nearly over and that within a few short years Babylon’s empire would disappear forever. If the Judeans asked what chance they and their God stood against Babylon, they were asking the wrong question. The real question was: what chance did Babylon stand against God? And the answer was none, if Babylon was relying on its own permanence. “All flesh is as grass … but the Word of our God abides forever” (Isaiah 40:6,8).

How desperately we Americans need to hear this word today. We need to apply it to our enemies, before whom we grow frustrated and fearful. “All flesh is as grass. …”

But even more we need to hear it of ourselves, for we can never receive the comfort of God as long as we say, “In God We Trust ” upon our coins and yet secretly believe that our power will carry us through. Like James’s doubleminded man, we can receive nothing from God (James 1:8), so long as we are trusting primarily in ourselves.

If anything good can be said to have come out of the dreadful debacle of Viet Nam, perhaps it is this: we have learned that human power is strictly and severely limited. For let’s face it—we, the world’s greatest superpower, were beaten. I am pretty hawkish on the Viet Nam question. But that does not change the fact: we were beaten! Some wouId say it was a rigged fight, that we were never really able to bring our full power to bear. But that’s part of the picture, isn’t it? All flesh IS grass—even America’s. The question now is: what will we do with this knowledge? Will we shrivel up and die of despair? Or will we launch out into the depths of true greatness by casting ourselves upon Him whose Word abides forever?

And if the American nation needs to hear this word, so does the American church. We are faced with several disturbing trends. Not only is general church membership declining, but there is an even more galling disinterest among our fellow citizens in what we have to say. In 1960, 70 percent of Americans between 20 and 30 years of age thought religious issues were significant to political questions. Today, less than 20 percent think so. It is one thing to be hated; it is infinitely worse to be simply ignored.

How shall we meet this situation? Every church periodical has suggestions. Some suggest better management procedures. Others call for better utilization of plant and of human resources. Still others call for streamlined organizational structure. This one says innovative worship. That one says small group ministries.

Every one of these ideas has value, and given the right time and situation, will bear fruit. But every one of them, in itself, is of that deadly “can do ” philosophy endemic to the Old Man, which says, “Just stand by and watch me, God, and I’ll bring in Your Kingdom! “This was what Gideon had to learn. God had to show him the truth embodied in the words of a much later prophet, “Not by might, or by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts ” (Zechariah 4:6).

Rudyard Kipling, poet laureate of England, was seized by the truth of this when he was commissioned to write a poem in honor of Queen Victoria on the 60th anniversary of her inauguration. The British Empire stood at the apex of its glory and the occasion was one of great self-congratulation. In that setting, Kipling’s somber poem “Recessional ” was as welcome as a Salvation Army officer at a stag party. But Kipling saw with a clear eye that all flesh is as grass and the flower thereof fadeth:

God of our fathers, known of old —
Lord of our far-flung battle-line —
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet
Lest we forget — Lest we forget!

 

The tumult and the shouting dies —
The captains and the kings depart —
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

 

Far-called, our navies melt away —
On dune and headland sinks the fire —
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

 

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the Law —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

 

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard —
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard —
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!

Part II

“To Whom will you liken me?” (Isaiah 40:25).

The exiled Judeans were faced not only with the political crisis of the power of their captor, Babylon. They were also faced with a religious crisis. Had not the God of their fathers been proven irrelevant for this new day? Oh yes, it was said He had delivered their ancestors from the power of Assyria. But He had not delivered them from the power of Babylon. Didn’t this demonstrate the superiority of the Babylonian gods over Yahweh, Israel’s God?

Do you see the analogy to our own times? We hear people saying, “The God of Jonathan Edwards, George Washington, and Francis Asbury is no longer relevant to our situation. This is a new day. We are faced with the chaotic forces of nature, of society, and of our own psyches threatening to destroy us. Somehow we must come to terms with these forces now before it is too late. We can no longer afford the luxury of time spent cultivating a radical trust in a personal God who will settle for nothing less than ourselves. If we are ever to attain that most desirable of all states—security—we must use every effort to lay hold of the sources of power in nature, in society, and in ourselves.”

There is nothing new about this philosophy. What I have just described is paganism. To be sure, the Babylonians personalized the chaotic forces of nature, society, and psyche over which they sought to gain control, while we treat those forces as impersonal abstractions. But the goal is the same—personal security. And the means are the same—discovery of and manipulative use of elemental power without self commitment. This is what idolatry is: to make God in the image of this world, to limit Him to this world, in order to gain power over Him. Whether this involves representation in some visible form or not, the principle is the same.

But the irony is that this is the surest way to lose control. For paganism, whether in ancient or modern form, can never answer the two ultimate questions—Whence? and Why? And without those answers life becomes a riddle.

Power? Security? For what purpose? Unless we know where we have come from, we cannot know where we are headed. Pagan religion was fascinated with origins, just as our modern sciences, both physical and behavioral. But what if the answer to our origins and our meaning lies outside of the physical universe? Then indeed we are in the dark. Unless, of course, the Source of what we are is a Person who could speak to us.

This is exactly the taunt God directs toward ancient idolatries – and ours. Can nature tell you what she is about any more than you can tell yourself what you are about? Of course not. “Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? ” (Isaiah 40:21). Only the Uncreated holds the keys to our existence. If there is any power, any security, they are to be found in the Creator who is beyond our control and manipulation. Psalm 2 puts it well: “Why do the nations rage and the people imagine a vain thing. … He who sits in the heavens will laugh.”

The One who hung Orion in place can be amused at our petty posturings and our claims to have explained Him away. The marvel is that He has not flung us away because of our blindness and our heavy-handed attempts to make Him do our bidding. Instead, He longs to be known by us. While we cannot manipulate Him, He wants to give us power and He wants to give us security, if we will only abandon ourselves to His love (Isaiah 40:28,29). Truly He is without compare. There is none like Him, in Heaven or on earth.

Part III

If His real nature is revealed in His longing to comfort His people, to speak to their hearts … if human power is severely and strictly limited … if God is God without compare, then what is our proper response? The word of Isaiah, the prophet of prophets, again seems strange. He says we should wait upon the Lord. How strange! He tells a captive people caught in despair and dejection to wait. He tells a great nation looking to its past and future, searching for some sense of direction, to wait.

What is waiting in the Biblical sense? Waiting is not that frustrating deferral of expectation, that anxious wondering whether what we hope is so, is so. Rather, this word, the equivalent of “hope” in the New Testament, expresses a calm and confident anticipation. It is a part of God’s solution to our problem. The attitude of waiting is evidence of God’s care and concern. It is not a grim stoicism which says, “My head is bloody but unbowed.” Instead, it is a joyous sonship which declares, “This is my Father’s world!”

But even granting this positive aspect, waiting still involves accepting another sense of timing than my own. Why wait? First of all, because whatever is accomplished in our own strength is ultimately deadly. Remember Abraham and Sarah? They had the promise of God that they, far past the age of child-bearing, would have a child. They must have wondered how God would do this amazing thing. How normal it seemed to take the accepted, the legally demanded, but human, way. So Abraham went in to Sarah’s handmaid. Given the standards of the day, it was a perfectly moral act. But a moral act is not necessarily an act of faith, and whatever is not of faith is dead. This was abundantly true in the case of Ishmael. This was Abraham’s child, not God’s. And Abraham’s child is Adam’s child. In place of the reconciliation God longed to bring into a torn world, there was only deepened alienation; in place of humble praise, sad pride; in place of a glad legitimacy, a bitter sense of illegitimacy.

So it is with all of our works to which we try to attach the name of God. Oh, the difference when Isaac was born! This was God’s answer, not man’s! Isaac’s birth could never be mistaken for anything but the miracle of grace it was.

The world no longer looks to see the adequacy of the church. It knows that answer. Rather, it looks for the adequacy of the church’s God. “Wait upon the Lord.”

Why wait? To remind ourselves that the battle is not ours but the Lord’s. Things had gone so well for King Saul. His first great test at Jabesh-gilead had been met successfully. The people had responded wonderfully to his Spirit-fired leadership and the eastern enemies had been driven back. Now came the decisive confrontation with the main enemy—the Philistines. They were entrenched on the central ridge and Saul’s troops would be forced to attack uphill from their camp at Gilgal in the Jordan valley, a prospect dreadful enough to chill the heart of any general.

But Saul accepted the challenge and called out the people. Again they responded wonderfully. But Saul had come in his life to a crucial point that comes to any moderately successful servant of God – the point where one begins to ask if one’s own abilities, skills, sense of timing, and charisma were really the explanation for the successes. One person was missing from Saul’s company, the prophet Samuel who would convey God’s blessing on the endeavor. They waited and he did not come. They waited some more and still he did not come. Finally, a week having gone by, Saul grew desperate. The people were beginning to drift away. So he made a fateful choice. Believing that timing and superior forces were essential to victory, while God’s blessing was merely desirable, he tried to manufacture the blessing himself and get on with the fighting.

Of course, Samuel appeared at that moment, for God’s moment is only one moment after our fear and pride drive us to cry, “I can wait no longer.” That is the crisis moment. Will we take affairs in our own hands, believing we hold the key to success? Or will we, having crucified that fear and that pride, choose to wait, knowing that God and His blessing are the only essentials. In either case, God’s moment is the next one.

Do you see now why Jesus said what He did on His Ascension Day? “You will be my witnesses … but wait. … ” The Hebrew believers had come increasingly to the understanding that their only hope of achieving that holy life which their hearts cried for, but their wills refused, was God Himself coming to live in them in His Spirit. This is what the ministry of Jesus was about, as John the Baptist said, to take away our sins so that God could abide in us and we in Him.

In John 15 and 16, Jesus called God’s Spirit “the Comforter.” When I thought of that I raced to my Greek Old Testament to see how they translated the word “comfort ” in Isaiah 40:1. You guessed it! The same word: parakaleo. “Comfort ye my people? Speak to their hearts? The Comforter is come!” To broken-hearted, despairing, frustrated Jews, Jesus said, “This is it! He’s here! But wait.”

Surely if I had been there I would have shouted, “We’ve already waited 20 centuries; how long, oh Lord?” God’s moment is the next one. What a tragedy if the disciples had gone out to witness without waiting for the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to come. The Church would have died a-borning. But they did wait and we benefit from that decision today.

Will America wait today? Will the Church wait today? Will our difficulties drive us to further frenzied activity or will they drive/call us back to the Fountainhead? Make no mistake. This is not a call to passively sit on our hands, for no Old Testament prophet ever proposed such a scheme. Instead, it is activity of God’s choosing, at His timing, and with His resources. Isaiah 64:4 reads, “For since the beginning … what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him.” Paul paraphrases it in I Corinthians 2:9, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love [not wait for] Him.” Was this change a case of unwarranted license? I think not.

Paul puts his finger on the heart of it. Those who wait in His presence are those who love Him, and those who love Him are those who daily say, “Not my will but Thine.” For this is to say, “my way and will and time and resources are Thine.” This is to walk and not faint. This is to run day after day and not be weary. And this is to be alive to those moments when the Spirit says, “Now!” And we can spread our wings to catch His freshening wind and soar, and the world will know this is not Ishmael, but Isaac.

Comfort ye my people …
All flesh is as grass …
To whom will you liken me?
They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.
Wait, I say, upon the Lord.