“…they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
– Isaiah 40:31
For this pictrure, I wanted to emphasize the difference between trusting in YHWH and trusting in self or “flesh” or any other form of support. In Isaiah 40, the repeated theme is that the Lord alone is the source of hope and strength for His people. Those who trust in their own strength will eventually be put to shame, those who trust in the Lord – though they are weak – will be upheld.
In this picture the efforts of the flesh are pictured as grasping, desperate, angry hands and those who trust in them are doomed to failure. Conversely, The woman is depicted as trusting in/waiting for YHWH, who has shown Himself to us supremely in Christ and climatically at the cross.
The wound in Christ’s hand is at the center of this woman because it is only by Jesus’ work on the cross that we are able to hope in the Lord and wait for Him in confidence. Also, the woman’s arms are outstretched both as a way of echoing v. 31 (mount up on wings like eagles), and also (and more primarily) in order to represent the biblical teaching that it is by our joining Christ in His crucifixion (and resurrection) that we are made alive in Him….our lives in Christ are to be “cruciform,” that is, marked by a loving outpouring of self….and I wanted to show that here….
