Isaiah 40:1-3
“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
Once again we turn to Handel's Messiah and our Advent devotional.
"The music calms and soothes, preparing us to hear a Word from the Lord. Roger Bullard describes the tenor solo breaking the dark silence:
“The obscurity is pierced by the tenor’s first note,
like the ray of light illuminating the primordial dark.
His rising line is the breaking dawn of a new day for God’s people, falling back into serene assurance, ‘Comfort ye my people’.” Rev. Timothy Smith
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| "like a ray of light illuminating..." |
We need a ray of light - especially in a season of holy anticipation that has been obscured by electronic glare, the harsh flourescence of big box stores, the sea of red brake lights in crowded parking lots.
All we really need is a ray of true Light. And in Isaiah, we are promised true light- His comfort. "Comfort is coming, oh my people!" This people who had wandered and strayed. This covenant people with this strange solitary god whom they worshipped. What had he done for them? They were in exile, their land in ruins, a foreign nation occupied their very cities.
Are not we also in exile? Have we not wandered and strayed?
We are sojourners on an earth that is awaiting the completion of redemption. We are not home.
Where is His comfort?
Into our dark, He is coming. He has come. He will come again. And at Advent we remember. We remember the ancient nation waiting and His humble entry- incarnation, the Word made flesh. We remember when He came into our life- incarnate now in our lives, the living Word.
We anticipate His coming again and we wait once more. Like the Israelites so long ago, we yearn for the coming of our Messiah, the visible Rule and Reign of God on earth. We are aware of our part in the great narrative -our warfare is accomplished, our iniquity is pardoned. Yet we groan and wonder.
So what is our darkness? What is deep in me that needs His light? What is deep in you that needs His comfort? He has come to comfort, to bring Light, to banish our darkness.
Jesus once again addressed them:
“I am the world’s Light.
No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness.
I provide plenty of light to live in.”
John 8:12 The Message
What does it look like to not stumble around in darkness? Do I yearn for Him like Isaiah? Do I speak comfort to those around me? Do I make straight in the desert a highway for my God?
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| Make straight in the desert |
Advent- we wait. We prepare. We ponder. And we are grateful for the Comfort-
that came,
that is here,
that will come again.
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