Excerpted from The Heart of the Work, an Advent Guide for Lectionary Year B from the North Carolina Council of Churches.
Isaiah 40:1-11
Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
You who bring good news to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
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.
The people of Judah are exiled, traumatized by war, and reluctant to trust any sign of hope. They witnessed the fall of Jerusalem and Judah. The prophet is begging listeners to find reassurance in God, proclaiming that “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed” (v. 5). Yet, when they look around, it feels unlikely. Still, the exiled people listened.
In our own periods of exile and fear, it is impossible to imagine how “every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level” (v. 4). In all the arduous landscapes that we face: systems of oppression, diagnoses, difficult relationships, trauma, loneliness, anxiety, and more – one struggles to listen and believe that God is moving the terrains that make up our lives.
Have you ever felt exiled by your own body? By your health? A health concern can evacuate all normalcy from our lives. In our health, when we are in the wilderness of the unknown, we may feel exiled, grieving and dealing with new normals. It is not part of the plan when life deviates from the expected path and we find ourselves in the wilderness. We are lost. We are looking for home. We are looking for God.
Yet in the waiting, in the wilderness, in the seeking, in the fear, God is still with us. When valleys are lifted up, mountains and hills lowered, and broken ground is made flat – it is a shock to the environment. This is a major overhaul to a landscape. Such is the same during our own painful seasons. It can feel like surgery as we move through grief, pain, and loss. We are lifted, lowered, made flat, and more. This is what it means to be alive. In our hardest seasons, we are still learning, growing, and mountains are moving within us.
It is easy to miss God in the hyper-focus of pain and the loneliness of exile. We naturally zoom in on what needs our attention and try to fix it as quickly as possible. Try to get back to normal. But we can miss God if we avoid pain. Even when it does not feel intended for us, or far from us, the love of God is near. God remains God, even in our own exile and pain. When we make it through those difficult seasons, we are able to look back at that wilderness and realize how resilient we are for surviving it. We made it with God. Even in our exile, we are delivered.
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