Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11 (NRSV)
DEVOTIONAL:
A command resounds throughout the divine assembly, addressing the attendant beings gathered before Yahweh. The heavens have been burdened with the sufferings of a people. The sheer gravity of their loss, the trauma of their fate, the numbness that has settled upon a once thriving community, now dislocated and disheartened – hangs like a shroud upon heaven and earth. Comfort them!
All chronic suffering seems endless, a potent cocktail of pain and shame. Conditioned neural firings debilitate the body. Social stigma robs us of esteem, even in our own eyes. Over time we make peace with the pain, we placate ourselves into a stupor that seems our only defense. We wear the ignominy of our crippledness like a raggedy coat, embracing the stasis of our diminished condition as a kind of refuge. Will it never end?
Cry out, you priests and prophets, teachers and leaders! Revive the spirits of your people.
Not with false hopes and self-aggrandizing proclamations. Don’t puff them up with saber-rattling triumphalism or mesmerize them with pie-in-the-sky consolations. Though you, too, ache with the wounds of your people, declare to them the truth that no one can yet see: Your God is here with you! The opening strains of the New Exodus Symphony begin lilting on the breeze.
The voice of the herald cries out (in beautifully balanced verse):
(A) In the wilderness (B) prepare (C) the way (D) of YHWH.
(B’) Make straight (A’) in the desert (C’) a highway (D’) for our God.
It’s time.
Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11 (NRSV)
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. 2Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
3A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 6A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. 7The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. 8The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.
9Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” 10See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. 11He 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.