Saturday the Pearls Before Swine cartoon opened with Goat saying to Rat, “This is my friend Bob.  He won an Emmy for a TV show.”

Rat: “So he entertained a tiny fraction of the population in one country on a small planet in an insignificant solar system on a non-descript arm of an unremarkable galaxy in a universe of over 100 billion galaxies.”

Goat: “Bob’s crying in the bathroom.”

Rat: “Perspective is cruel.”

The Old Testament reading for Sunday could leave us with the same perspective regarding our significance.  Isaiah 40:22, “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers…”

However, that’s not the whole picture.  Isaiah is writing of “The Lord who is the everlasting God the Creator of the ends of the earth.”  We are not merely existing on this third rock from the sun in an arm of the Milky Way.  Isaiah continues, “He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength…they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles…”

The Gospel lesson enlarges our perspective on reality (Mark 1:29-39).  Yes, Jesus heals the diseased and casts out evil spirits, but Jesus has a larger perspective on his ministry.  He moves on to preach that in him God’s rule was taking hold on the earth, even in the lives of us grasshopper’s.  In Jesus we have a perspective on reality which stretches beyond the world of God’s creation but extends into eternity with life for all who trust Jesus’ good news.