Isaiah 40: Seek Consolation
Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2024
The End of the Exile
Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God. Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her, for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven; she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins. The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken . . . Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule. Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up on his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are young . . .
From time to time we reflect on the ideas of exile and doom . . . today’s dawn brings consolation.
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens in his palm? Who has poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
After the darkness . . . comes the light . . . more revealing and more wonderful than we have ever imagined.
Do you not know? Hath it not been heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood the foundations of the earth? . . . And to whom have ye likened me, or made me equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see the one who has created these things . . . not one of them was missing.
The holy ones who wait and watch and witness . . . will receive their comfort . . . a consolation more intense and enduring than they have ever dreamed.
Youths shall faint and labor, and young men shall fall by infirmity. But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall take wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Last Christmas Day we read and reflected upon the beginning of Romans 11 in which St. Paul brings to us, God’s Remnant, the message of our creator’s Providence and Fidelity. He reminds us that God understands the human condition and that he sends us his grace to overcome our fears and the darkness. God also understands rupture and the deepest places of the heart that suffer from the pain of disconnection and separation . . . and God wants to heal this . . . to call us back . . . to gather us in his arms. God wants to give us his Consolation. God is the Forgiving Father of the Prodigal Son story. We may be either the Straying Child who has spent his gifts carelessly, or the Remaining Child who is jealous and bitter at the Father’s generosity toward those who return. Or perhaps we have found a place where we can numb ourselves . . . remain aloof . . . protect ourselves from the suffering and undergoing of life that we are meant to experience. Or maybe we are Children of the Light . . . who struggle with self . . . who rise to the undergoing . . . who falter and stumble but who turn to God always as the first and last source and sustenance. Most likely we are all of these . . . and we do well when we reflect that our true Consolation rests in openness to reconciliation with God and with others. We do well to rely on God’s Providence and Fidelity and meditate on this idea, as we do on Christmas Day each year, that we are to be God to one another.
So on this Sunday of joy amidst darkness and waiting we, like God, are to abide with those who have broken faith with us. We are to remain faithful, remain present but without participating in any dysfunction. We are to be hopeful, to be open to the potential of something greater which God sends through his grace rather than our works. We are to abide without fear, because God is with us, especially in our moments of deepest terror. And we are to remain merciful, imitating Christ, because God always comes to his remnant, to those who wait, and hope and seek.
For a musical version of Isaiah 40, visit James Block’s recording at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgsdhQzVfSQ
From a reflection written on Christmas Day 2007.
Image from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eustache_Le_Sueur_003.jpg
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