Upon Your Descendants

Isaiah 44:1-8
Pentecost / Confirmation
May 24, 2026
William G. Carter

But now hear, O Jacob, my servant, Israel whom I have chosen!

Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you in the womb and will help you:

Do not fear, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen.

For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground;

I will pour my spirit upon your descendants and my blessing on your offspring.

They shall spring up like a green tamarisk, like willows by flowing streams.

This one will say, “I am the Lord’s,”

And another will write on the hand, “The Lord’s,” and adopt the name of Israel.

Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts:

I am the first, and the last; Besides me there is no god.

Who is like me? Let them proclaim it; Let them declare and set it forth before me.

Who has announced from of old the things to come? Let them tell us what it yet to be.

Do not fear or be afraid; Have I not told you from of old and declared it?

You are my witnesses! Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one. 

Across the hall, in a desk drawer, is an old church photo directory. It’s from 1969. Not all of you are in it. Those who appear look faintly familiar. Some of you never age.

Thumbing through the pages, you realize so many people have come and gone. It’s a continuing reminder that a lot of folks pass through a town like this. The highways lead elsewhere. People keep moving. The church keeps changing.

About ten pages in, there’s a picture of Little Timmy. That’s what I will call him. Short hair, freckles, clip-on tie, his head tipped slightly to the right. His eyes were full of wonder as his family gazed at the Olan Mills photographer. So full of promise. On the cusp of his future.

Little Timmy was one who moved away. Recently he came home, sat in the old family pew. He wasn’t wearing a clip-on necktie this time, but I could still pick him out. During the sermon, he tipped his head the same way he always did. I don’t know if he kept his eyes open during the prayers. I wasn’t peeking. But he worshiped with us. Sang the hymns. Stayed to the end. At the door, he shook my hand. Then he said, “You know, it’s still here. I was glad to be in church.”

This is my way into that old poem from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah was writing to people who belonged to God, a people whose lives stretched across many years. When the prophet wrote down his words, a lot of those questioned if their faith had a future. They didn’t know if the harshness of life would thin out the crowd. They feared their religious community would age out and disappear. These are, of course, recurring worries.

And Isaiah says three things to them, three things I pass along to all of you.

The first is essentially a question: “What kind of God do you think you have?” What kind of God has claimed you? And before anybody responds, the prophet reports on what God had revealed to him. God is the first and last, the A and the Z, our beginning and our destination. Like it or not, God will outlast us. God will outlive us. And God stands outside of the passing of our time.

That means God is separate from the rise and fall of our fortunes, our whims, our movements, our situations. All of us will come and go. Before we ever appeared, God turned on the lights. When we are done, God will stick even longer and will turn out the lights even further. This was Isaiah’s modest way of saying to time-bound people, “Get over yourselves.” It’s a good reminder of the limits we know - or will come to know. Point number one: we live our brief lives within the span of God’s eternity.

Here is his second point, this God who is independent of us, who is more than our projection, and greater than our dreams, still steps into our circumstances, into our conflicts, and into our broken dreams.

You see, Isaiah – at least, this Isaiah - was writing to people whose country had fallen apart. The world as they knew it had come unraveled. The tough news is that they had largely brought on that collapse by themselves. It happened in all kinds of ways. They had bowed down to riches. They were intoxicated by their own arrogance. They were distracted by their independent pursuits. Most of all, they conveniently forgot they lived in a world full of needs right outside their doors.

So, God interrupts to say, “Hey, who gives you life? Who fills you with faith? Who can be trusted, outside of yourselves?” Again, not waiting for an answer, God provides a promise: refreshment. Renewal. It will come like rain on a burned-out lawn. It will surprise you like streams in the wilderness. The prophet preaches the promise in poetry. The message was inspiring, but a little ambiguous. 

And then, to make point number three, the prophet specifies the future. Isaiah points to the horizon to say, “There will be children. They will have faith.” And how will this faith come? God says, “I will pour my spirit on your descendants.”

Sound familiar? It’s the same promise as Pentecost! As we heard the apostle Peter preach to the curious crowd fifty days after Easter, “God declares, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall preach. Your youngsters will see visions; your old duffers will have fresh dreams. The Spirit will come on them and they will speak.” (Acts 2:17-18)

One more way of saying we are not bound by our fears. We are not silenced by our circumstances. We are not restricted by your diminishments. We are not held back by all those who came and went, or who still come and go. The promise is that God will come. God will breathe. The church of the Risen Christ will speak. For the people of God live, not by bread alone, but by every word God speaks.

I like how Little Timmy said it, “It’s still here.” What’s still here? The creaking old building? Yes. The aging congregation? There’s nothing wrong with aging. It means you’re still alive. But he sensed something else: the Spirit, the Spirit of God. The Spirit is here. And it animates everything we speak, everything we do, everything we sing, everything we pray. It’s still here. And it’s a gift.

The people come and go. In Little Timmy’s day, this congregation reported 300 children in Sunday School. That might have been an inflated number. Or maybe not. And these days, how many of those 300 still go to church? Not as many as we could hope.

His generation was my generation, so I did a quick survey of my own confirmation class. We had about twenty seventh graders when I went to confirmation. Two of us went into the ministry, and then one quit. Another went Catholic (we thought she should have become a nun). Another classmate told me he is thinking about returning; we will wait and see. And the rest of them, where did they go? Scattered to the four winds. We can obsess about that demise. We bark about how it used to be. But that is missing the point. 

The point is this: the Holy Spirit is still here. God’s promise continues to be fulfilled. God will come to the next generation, too, and the generation after that. This is what we celebrate. Not what we are missing, but what we are given. Like Little Timmy said, “It’s still here.”

I took another look through that 1969 photo directory. All the people that I never met, the few that I’ve gotten to know. If they had their say, I think they would declare Christ is still among us. This congregation continues to evolve. New visions are given to us. Old dreams are shaken until the fantasies fade and the real possibilities take root. In all those years since Little Timmy’s mother clipped on his necktie, new elementary schools were built to handle the Baby Boom; in time, they consolidated. New homes sprang up like Monopoly houses, as this whistle-stop railroad town became a suburb. Route 6 added stop lights, Penn DOT widened the lanes, thousands of people passed through. And all those kids about my age - where did they go? God knows! They were scattered like old Isaiah’s tribe, blown like dandelion seeds into the world.

And yet, we still have believers. Doers. Singers. Prophets. Servants. Children of God. And it was obvious enough to Little Timmy for him to come back and say, “It’s still here.” The Spirit of God is still here. And that’s the Good News. People still hear God speak. Some of them do what God invites them to do. Today, three smart young men will profess their faith in Jesus Christ – and there will be plenty more to come.

Didn’t we hear what the prophet says? “I will pour my spirit upon your descendants. I will bless your offspring.” And those who receive the Spirit’s blessing will say, “I am the Lord’s.” Because the Eternal God who is still with us will always be ahead of us. That’s why faith has a future. And we are a part of it.

So, let’s stand to affirm our faith together with the words of a great old hymn – and God will continue to be praised!

 (c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.