ADVENT 2

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: ADVENT 2
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: December 8,2002


TEXT: Isaiah 40:1-11 – Comfort, O Comfort says your God. . . . . . He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

ISSUE: Here’s a beautiful vision of Isaiah. He sees in the vision a council of God with his angels. The time has come to redeem and comfort his people. They have had enough difficulty and punishment. He comes to restore them in love and hope. The vision and theme are picked up by St. John the Baptist, calling folk to change and readiness for the savior of the world.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Once again, I am asking you to focus on another one of the beautiful and intriguing passages from the Prophet Isaiah. The passage is a vision where God is sitting in council with his entourage of angels. It is time for comfort and renewal to come to his chosen people, who for far to long now have been in exile.
As the angels are gathered around God, and Isaiah is privy by virtue of the vision to hear and see what is going on. He hears the word of God call out to the angel: Comfort Ye, O comfort ye my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry out to her that her penalty for sin is paid. She has received far more than her share of suffering; she has suffered double for her sins. Jerusalem had been destroyed; her people had been exiled to pagan territory. Now, her suffering is ended, and she shall be released and allowed to return to Jerusalem to Judah and Israel. Her suffering is ended.
God tells the angels begin building a highway in the desert. Lift up the valleys, and lower the mountains. Smooth out the rough places, and make the uneven ground level. God is coming to his people to lead and deliver them to their lost land. This is the image and vision of how a high potentate or ruler came to visit his people. God is coming to his people and the people are about to be restored to their homeland.
A voice comes to Isaiah himself, “Cry out, Isaiah.” What shall I cry he asks? “People are like grass,” the angels say, “they come and they go, bloom and fade. But the word, the promise, the declaration and proclamation of God will not fail you. So Isaiah, go to a high mountain and begin to proclaim as a herald of good tidings: “The Lord is coming to his people. He comes with might and his arm rules for him. He brings reward, hope and love. He will feed his chosen flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep!”
Remember what the desert was like both in the time of Isaiah and John the Baptist. It was a place dry and parched. It harbored wild animals and evil spirits. But now the Lord God is coming to the desert, to the most feared of all places. The people need no longer fear, a highway is being built through all that the people feared and new hope and love is coming. God will lead them home to the place of peace, and give them the comfort, the strength to rebuild their homeland again!
Notice the shear beauty of this passage. From our point of view it is as if the angels have manned the bulldozers and have begun to build a highway for God. It is as if a might King is coming, or a Shepherd of shepherds is coming to restore the lands and the pastures of his flocks and people. You’ve seen the valleys lifted and the high places made plain by work crews. The coming of the King, the Savior, The shepherd’s coming shall be expedited, and all who will receive him will know renewal forgiveness, love and hope.
This same theme is again picked up in the Christian Scripture reading from Mark. “Here’s the beginning of the Good News of Jesus the Son of God. Isaiah’s vision is now being renewed for the people of the first century. In this case the messenger is the prophet John the Baptist. John is the one in the desert, in the place of fear, who is redeeming the times and the place. He’s no slacker, John. He is a tough character, a priest, but not a fancy priest in fine robes in Jerusalem. He is wearing camel’s hair garb, and is eating wild locusts and honey. He is among the common people calling them to preparation for the coming, the coming of the Lord. He gives them messianic hope. He calls them to a new purity through baptism. At the time, only converts to Judaism were required to be baptized. Now he calls all men and women to conversion and purification and preparation. The time for repentance, that is, change has come. There’s about to be a great reversal. The last, the least, the lonely, the outcasts, the tax gathers, the soldiers, the common folk are going to be lifted up. They are the very ones who shall be regarded as the sheep of God, to be restored and given hope and love, in a world that condemned and saw them all as the dispensable folk of the world.
John appears in the desert, that place of evil spirits, and we see redemption taking place. Evil is being overcome, and people are being made ready for the coming of the Lord. John becomes Isaiah’s voice of one crying in the wilderness and in the desert. John is the builder with the angels for the coming of the messiah, the Lord, to be with his people. John is calling his people to a preparation for that coming of the Lord God.
Much of our world today is not unlike the dry parched land of the desert wilderness. The evil spirits, and the evil spiritedness of hate, doubt, hopelessness, despair, greed, and terror surround us. Too many women and children know too much about abuse. Unscrupulous drug dealers trap young people. We all fear the uncertainties of terror. There are still many human problems that make us feel deserted by God, and at the mercy of evil that is difficult to escape. We are not free from fear and uncertainty.
But the message of the ages is the very fact that God has and is coming to his people. The God of love and hope is redeeming the very place of evil spiritedness, the desert wilderness of human life. The deserts will blossom, and the Christ who once was himself tempted in the wilderness will be the way to The Kingdom of God.
The passages of Isaiah and of Mark are passages that call us to preparedness, for a readiness, and alertness, to the coming of the Lord God, once again. For the ancient Hebrews, the was the assurance of their forgiveness and the gift of the hope of restoring their land. For the early Christians, there was the assurance that the Christ had come among them, to restore hope and assurance of a better life. The least and last were restored to hope. There was a call to repentance, change, in readiness for the Christ who resisted the world’s ways with the hope of another way of life, love and sacrifice.
We have seen and enjoy in the story of the birth of Christ, the assurance that God has come among us. But what really lies ahead for us in this day and age, is the hope and anticipation that Christ will come again, to renew and restore us to hope and love and joy. The Kingdom of God prevails. That’s our good news. It is in being ready and willing to make the necessary changes in our lives that Christ will come again to us, and that the world we know will become a new world, a world where pollution is a thing of the past. Our children will become addicted to what is right and good. Where we will know peace in the world.
Lo, He comes. Join the angels in building the foundations for God to come among us to be our pastor and shepherd. Be willing to change your own life to be resonant with the way of Christ.