A Drop in the Bucket

Where does the phrase “a drop in the bucket” originate?

Last Sunday was the first of Advent, the start of the Christmas season. In keeping with her Swedish tradition, my wife Tiffany lit the first of four candles that mark the weeks leading to Jul - Christmas Eve. The first candle speaks of Hope - and the ancient promise of a Saviour – who would answer the hopes and fears of all the years.


On Friday we attended a concert that included among other pieces, the selection from Handel’s Messiah “He Shall Feed his Flock" about God shepherding his people –

He tends his flock like a shepherd:

He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart;

he gently leads those that have young.

Today I located those words in Isaiah - Chapter 40 and was struck by the water imagery that immediately follows the Shepherd text.
We shouldn’t be surprised. Shepherds have to think constantly about water for their flock - water, grass and safety are the big three needs of sheep.

But Isaiah never mentions water as nourishment. He asks a more global question about water – reflecting on the vastness of the world’s oceans, he asks where it all came from – or who could have measured it out ?

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,

or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?

Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales? (v.12)

Hydrologists have roughly computed that the world contains some 1400 million cubic kilometers of water. – give or take a few large buckets. And geo-physicists estimate the earth at around 6 septillion kilograms.

But Isaiah’s questions are not technical. In fact they aren’t questions at all. They are rhetorical exclamations about how incomparable God is and how absurd we are to reduce our imagination of God to our limited dimensions. Compared with God ‘nations are like a drop in the bucket.’ There it is – the legendary phrase! Isaiah 40:15.

As buckets go, the universe is pretty big. If nations are mere drops in the bucket, how miniscule are individuals? A century ago William James looked at the universe and concluded that human lives are like “bubbles on the foam of a stormy sea, made and unmade by the forces of the wind and water.”

But Isaiah sees it very differently. He sees people as hugely important to God. This immensely powerful Creator is the very God who Shepherds his people with personal care. Isaiah’s pastoral theology is shaped by his theology of creation.

A mere drop in the bucket? Yahweh is the everlasting God, Creator of the ends of the earth – and there is no end to his fatherly care. As Jesus told us, ‘the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid.’ Luke 12.

This is the Christ of Advent!