And so we come to the final, soaring words of Isaiah 40:

²⁷ Why do you complain, Jacob?
    Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
    my cause is disregarded by my God”?
²⁸ Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
³¹ but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

It is easy to think we are disregarded and hidden. Unseen. Unheeded. There is so much that can be said, perhaps so much that needs to be said when we are in such a state. Those in exile in Babylon at the time this prophecy addresses clearly felt that they were disregarded and hidden.

It is striking to see that they are not comforted by the idea that God cares for them – although that is true. The text though takes us in a different direction. They are comforted by knowing that God is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth who does not grow tired and weary, and his understanding no-one can fathom.

Why is this such a comfort when we feel disregarded and abandoned? Perhaps the point is that it comforts us because it assures that God is not finished. At those times when we may feel abandoned by our God, when we feel that he has stopped working we are assured in this passage that God is the God who made everything – he started, and he does not get tired or weary. God does not give up. What God has begun, he will keep on with – and that includes his work in us.

Not only that but in parallel with the reality that God does not grow tired, or weary we are told that his understanding no one can fathom. I find this parallel fascinating. I’m not sure I would naturally pair God’s endurance with his wisdom. But it does have immense power to comfort us – because God’s wisdom means that he knows what he is doing. If he seems to be disregarding us, and to be hidden, there is more to the story.

That doesn’t make his hiddenness seem any easier much of the time, but is does mean that we can remind ourselves that we are not at the end. God is still at work, and God does not get tired or weary of his work.

For right now I’m guessing that most people who read this are tired and weary. Tired of two years of dealing with Covid. Two years either of immediate physical threat, or two years of isolation, rule changes and ever changing plans. If you have any kind of leadership responsibility, whether as a parent, teacher, church leader, manager or anything else that tiredness and weariness is magnified further.

In the midst of that tiredness and weariness comes this good news of a God who does not get tired or weary. You cannot wear God out. We cannot make God weary with our tears, with our anger, or even with our sin. God does not give up on us. We cannot fathom his understanding, his insight – we cannot fathom how it might be that he does not tired or weary of us at times, for when can get so weary and tired of others, and perhaps even more so weary and tired of ourselves. God does not.

It is the midst of this tiredness and weariness that God comes to give strength to those of us who are tired and weary – which, even the strongest of us (the youths of v30) become. Even people in their prime stumble and fall. But if we put our hope in God, or as some translations have it, if we wait for God, then we will renew our strength.

If we wait. Advent is a reminder that we need to wait. We could not achieve our salvation – Christ had to come, and the world had to wait. We cannot build God’s kingdom by our efforts – Christ has to return. And the world has to wait. All of our activity needs to be judged by this. Does it have a posture of waiting? Does it acknowledge that our efforts are at best provisional, and need completion by someone stronger and greater?

If we wait like this then we will renew our strength. We will be able to soar on wings like eagles – given the strength to take to flight, when the air currents move us. There will come time when God will provide the right situation for us to soar, and if we have waited for him we will be enabled to fly. Our efforts and God’s power here are intertwined and work together – we are not simply passively waiting – we are waiting and renewing our strength, waiting for the Spirit to take us and enable our soaring.

And then after the soaring comes the running – without getting weary – youths on their own get weary, but those empowered by God can run without becoming weary. After the running the walking – without fainting – or more precisely without becoming tired. Just as God has been said to not grow tired and weary (v28) and youths and young men do get tired and weary (v30), so those who wait for Yahweh will not get weary as they run or tired as they walk.

I find that order fascinating – soar, run, walk. It seems to get slower – which might anticlimactic, except that I also think it fits with the life of the church. There are times of soaring that we should pray for and look for and long for – times where everything happens without seeming to need effort, but then there are other good times of running – we need to put more effort in, but there is little resistance, life is good – and if we wait for God we will be enabled to keep going in those times. Then there are times of just walking, when the naturalness of soaring perhaps is not there – but even in those times God’s strength will come to enable us to keep going and not get tired of the keeping going.

This isn’t saying we will never feel physically tired if only we would trust in God – that would be a dangerous way to apply this text to life and ministry. What I think it is saying is that strength is there for those who come back to God. The question at any moment may be to discern what the strength is there for. If I try to do everything I see that is good I will, no question get exhausted. If I stop and wait for God, asking for his strength, and his wisdom as to what the good I should do in this moment is, then I can expect to see his strength provided. It may not be given for everything I want to do. God enables me to do what fits with his plans, not mine.

Advent time is perhaps a good time to ask God what those plans are. A good time to commit to enforcing times of waiting in our lives. Daily waiting to listen for his voice in the day. Weekly waiting to stop our activity and work and ask what we need to focus on. Other regular waiting to reassess our lives. And perhaps too waiting that doesn’t have a structure and an agenda. A waiting that is unafraid to simply ask what God would have us do, and how he wants to meet with us.

Perhaps in the midst of ever-changing covid circumstances and regulations we need this more than ever. The danger is that we will always react. That we will always need to have an opinion and a plan. Sometimes it is OK to stop and not have a plan. There is someone else who has a plan. He isn’t in a hurry. He didn’t send a 33 year old man to die on a cross. He sent a baby, to grow up, and live as one of us, doing nothing that seems to have been thought worth recording for most of that life. His life seems to have been one of waiting – a waiting that culminated in his baptism an act of profound identification with us, that seems at the very least to show that he needed the approval of the Father and the empowering of the Spirit before he could begin his activity.

So we wait. We wait for the everlasting God, who does get tired or weary, and whose way of working is utterly beyond our understanding. We wait for him. Perhaps remind yourself of who we wait for in the words of this simple, but profound song this advent. The song is Jesus: Strong and Kind by City Alight, and it is one I have repeatedly come back to during these last two years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Y8s-Sz_ac

In Isaiah 40 we have heard the call to “behold your God” – to pay attention to God. Reading Isaiah 40 is a great way to do this because it isn’t content with giving us the simple statement “God is powerful”. It isn’t content to unpack that in three clear distinct ways that tell us more intellectually about God’s power. Instead it gives us wave after wave of powerful imagery about our great God and what he is like.

Here is the next section of the chapter: as you read it pay attention to the images.

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
    or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
    or weighed the mountains on the scales
    and the hills in a balance?
¹³ Who can fathom the Spirit^[a] of the Lord,
    or instruct the Lord as his counselor?
¹⁴ Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him,
    and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge,
    or showed him the path of understanding?

¹⁵ Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
    they are regarded as dust on the scales;
    he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
¹⁶ Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,
    nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.
¹⁷ Before him all the nations are as nothing;
    they are regarded by him as worthless
    and less than nothing.

¹⁸ With whom, then, will you compare God?
    To what image will you liken him?
¹⁹ As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,
    and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
    and fashions silver chains for it.
²⁰ A person too poor to present such an offering
    selects wood that will not rot;
they look for a skilled worker
    to set up an idol that will not topple.

²¹ Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
    Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
²² He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
    and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
    and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
²³ He brings princes to naught
    and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
²⁴ No sooner are they planted,
    no sooner are they sown,
    no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
    and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

²⁵ “To whom will you compare me?
    Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
²⁶ Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
    Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
    and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
    not one of them is missing.

Isaiah 40:12-26

We are asked to look at our hands. What can you hold in your hands? What can you measure with your hands cupped together. About half a cup of water, for a minute before it trickles away?

God can hold the oceans in his hands. With the span of his hand he measures the heavens.

When you get your scales out to bake a cake, how much fits on those? A few kilograms of flour? When God gets his scales out, he can put the mountains in them. He can hold all the dust of the earth. 

Pause on that. As I typed this, I am sitting at the foot of the first mountain I ever went up in the Lake District, Heron’s Pike. I saw the path which we must have walked up to get on to the mountain. I remembered the sense of joy and wonder that my 10 year old self had at this scenery and at this mountain. I love the sense of size and perspective that a mountain gives, the beauty of all that you can see. 

In God’s scale that mountain is tiny. It is as small as a speck of dust I brush off a surface. 

We have to be taught and instructed, we have to learn and grow – but no one has measured out God’s Spirit. No one has taught God anything. 

Compared to him all the nations are as a drop of water from a bucket, the dust we wipe off the scales before measuring. 

Our scale compared to his is tiny. Lebanon – the source of cedar wood in the bible cannot provide the fuel he needs. No nuclear reactor could make a dent compared to God’s power. Instead we are nothing – and our human glory compared to is less than nothing. Our glory is empty and fading. 

So how do we think of God? Do we make an idol? Do we try to compare him to something or someone? Idols are human creations, that have to be placed securely so that they will not fall (see the comic story of the ark and Dagon in 1 Samuel 4-5) – and we can think of our frantic efforts right now to control how our nations and communities respond to covid’s latest twists and turns.

Instead we have to realise that God is beyond compare, and beyond our understanding, and his understanding no-one can fathom. 

I wonder if we really believe that, and what difference it should make if we do. It isn’t saying that we can never say anything about God – there is a school of thought that argues we can only say what God is not, never what he is. The Bible though doesn’t seem to follow that logic. Here there is a paradox – we are told we can never compare God to anything – and yet we are giving a lot of comparisons to make that point.

The fundamental reality is that while we can say something about God, everything we say has limitations. We are assured that what God says about himself is true – but it is never enough to give us the total picture – there is always more of God to discover – God is always powerful, and always good – but there are always new ways to discover how that power and goodness work together and how they manifest themselves. 

God is the one who sits on high above the earth – and to him we are the size of grasshoppers. To him making the universe is as easy as putting up a tent. He is the one who can bring down princes to nothing and rulers to emptiness. They wither and are blown away like stubble – there is no comparing this God to anything else or anyone else. 

He is the one who created all the stars in the sky and knows them each by name – and none of them are missing because he is mighty and he is powerful. He is the God who keeps this universe running – yes, in a regular way that we can measure and come to increasing understanding of – but understanding the mechanisms by which God orders the cosmos should never be confused with becoming masters of that cosmos. 

Before the might and power and majesty of our creator God – and particularly before the God who is above and beyond our understanding, who does not need our counsel or advice, our first response must be humility. Humility to recognise that we need to learn and grow and change.

I’m struck by the way in which pride can so easily become a part of our human life, even our church life. Pride in our tradition. Pride in the impressive photographs of the last 10 vicars who have all been leading lights of our way of doing things, so that everyone recognises us. Pride in the way that our organisation does things better than others, pride that we know the right answer and the right way of doing things. Pride that we are not like ‘them’.

But before our God we need to lean humbleness and gentleness and that we might be wrong and that we need to listen and learn from others. A big view of God’s power and ability to act should lead to a humble view of our own ability. If I truly believe that nothing can stop God’s work, and that no-one can advise God on how to work then other things follow.

I should be a person of integrity, who is willing to be honest and vulnerable even when it might hurt. Sometimes that might mean uncomfortable truths need to be heard, and not hidden. It should mean that I can trust that God will look after the organisation or church that I am particularly proud of – I can trust that his power will let what is best happen, and I can allow truth to make things messy for a while. 

It is hard to trust God that much, yet surely if we take Isaiah 40’s soaring rhetoric with the seriousness it deserves, then it demands that we take those steps, that we allow God to be God, and don’t try to manipulate events or people to preserve our status and power and control. 

I’m coming to the end of reading Lord of the Rings for the third time aloud – our second child loves it so much I’ve had to do a second time. The plot centres around a powerful ring that destroys all who attempt to use it, but whose lure is almost impossible to resist. The ring could represent many things in our lives, but one thing it can represent is the desire to control events and manage our image and reputation, and especially the desire to be on the inside of the circle of those controlling events – as Tolkien’s friend Lewis put it, the ‘inner ring’.

Sadly that lure is all too strong in the world of Christian leadership – and it is every bit as potent and powerful as the ring of power in Tolkien’s world. Part of the remedy to the lure of the ring is to be found in coming to realise our own lack of power, and acknowledging that our utterly good God is the one with all power and wisdom and understanding. Our part is not to manipulate or to control, but to trust and to do what we know is right, even if we do not understand how that can possibly work out. 

It might mean being open about that disagreement amongst leaders in a church. It might mean being open about that fact that we can’t run all the things we used to run, because people have stopped having the time and energy to help. It might mean being open about the fact that cover-ups have happened in the past and that we need to be repentant and seek forgiveness. 

It might simply be that those in leadership need to say “I’m exhausted, and I can’t do this – let’s seek God together”. It might be that this advent we need to remember that it is God’s power and strength that we need, and that our first step is to admit our need for God.

As I apply this to myself I need to realise that I can’t control how life works the whole time. That I live in the midst of immense disorientation as a family as we work out what another new house and new town looks like – and that disorientation is an OK thing to feel. It happens in the midst of trying to cope with the disorientation of life in a world of pandemic, where no plans seem to last.

The chaos around and about is not all down to me and I cannot live through it by assuming that what I can do can fix things. What I need to do is to come back to this God of Isaiah 40 and see his power. See his might. Life right now might feel somewhat like walking in this cloud did:

There is no destination visible, no end in sight – yet the next steps for the next minute of travelling were clear enough. In such moments, in such times the God of Isaiah 40 is still real. He is still the one who stretched out the heavens like a tent, and to whom we are as small as grasshoppers. He is still the one who knows each star by name, and holds them each in place.

And we will see in the next section how that God who knows each star by name has individual and personal care for each of his people. It is in this God that we can trust. It is to this God that we look. So let us this advent look up to this God and see his power afresh in these words from Isaiah 40.

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.
⁷ The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
    Surely the people are grass.
⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall,
    but the word of our God endures forever.”

⁹ You who bring good news to Zion,
    go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,^[c]
    lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
    say to the towns of Judah,
    “Here is your God!”
¹⁰ 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.
¹¹ 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.

Isaiah 40:-11

After hearing about Yahweh’s glory, we now have the prophet commissioned to speak. A voice says “Call out” – and he says “What shall I cry?”

The message is striking. The chapter began with comfort, but the next words don’t immediately seem very comforting. “All flesh is grass – and all its beauty is like the flower of the field”. In other words, as 40:7 makes clear, people are fragile. Life is temporary. We make things that seem impressive – but they can be brought low with just a breath.

We ought to have learnt that after two years of Covid-19. Two years of additional deaths, of more illness, of disrupted economies, of separation from loved ones. We should by now have learnt that all our plans are just like mist that evaporates in the sun.

How is this knowing that all our efforts are temporary comfortable? It is ultimately comfortable because we need the truth. We need illusions stripped away. We need to know that we cannot make something that lasts on our own. We need to look for security and safety and comfort away from ourselves.

Which is, I think, why 40:8 ends with “the word of our God will stand for ever”. Notice that it isn’t simply the word of God – it is the word of our God, the word of the God who brings us into his people. It is this God’s word that will last forever, this God’s word that brings ultimate security and safety and comfort. 

It is vital to remember that it is by reading this prophet’s words, and the words of all the other authors in the Bible that we can hear God’s word speaking to us too. God, in giving us the Bible, has given us the means by which we can hear him speaking directly to us, as God’s Spirit takes those words and speaks them to our hearts. 

There are all sorts of problems with the way that people have claimed to speak for God – prophets who have spoken lies, and preachers who have implicitly (or explicitly) claimed to have the only correct way of understanding the Bible. People have used the Bible as a weapon. As we can twist all God’s gifts. But that doesn’t change the foundational reality that in this book we have God speaking to us. 

This advent, we should commit once again to hearing God speak in his word, and to join with others in reading it together – for it is in reading together that we will correct our individual tendencies to distort it. 

And then the prophet tells the on bringing good news to Jerusalem to lift up her voice and declare this good news. This good news is quite simply God. It is the reality of God and his character. That is the fundamental need we have.

We need to know God – and therefore we need to “behold” our God –  to see that he is really there – ‘behold’ is such a hard word to translated – but a lot of the time ‘look!’ Or ‘Pay attention!” is a good way to paraphrase it. It is like when one of my children shows me something. If I am distracted I tend to see ‘very nice’ – and if they are wise to my mood they will say ‘no, look!’ That is what ‘behold’ is doing here. We need to stop and to pay attention.

And here we need to pay attention to two things – which are mentioned in v10-11, and then unpacked in the rest of the chapter. 

We need to behold that God comes with might, that his arm rules for him. In other words, our God is mighty and he is strong. He comes, and he brings his reward with him. That sounds a bit puzzling. But maybe it is meant to convey that when God comes, he doesn’t come for plunder. He doesn’t need anything that we have. He comes, and he brings his reward – in order to share it. 

Immediately though we move from God’s might to God’s gentle care. He looks after his flock as a shepherd his sheep. He gathers the lambs in his arms, carrying them close to his chest. He treats those struggling because they are about to give birth gently and carefully.

We look in more detail at these in another post, but for now we need to see that God is both mighty and gentle. As we think about this Advent season we should let this transform how we see Jesus. He is the one who has power, and the one who cares for us gently. We shouldn’t forget either. Getting hold of this transforms us utterly. It changes how we think about the world and how we think about leadership. Or it should.

No one else in the ancient world thought like this. Their gods were like human rulers only worse, they were happy to kill and steal and destroy without a second thought. So were the rulers who the gods were modelled on. Emperors used people as tools, and no one was surprised. 

In his fascinating book Dominion, Tom Holland argues that the reason we expect better is because of Christianity.  The reason we expect that our politicians should not be breaking rules they lay down for others, the reason we expect that we should not be lied to by our leaders is because of the Jewish-Christian idea of a God who is mighty, yet gentle. The reason we expect that our leaders will have a sense of shame about doing wrong is because of this God. 

And so too leadership in the church – we need to see that God gives us a way of leading that is gentle and humble. A way that trusts he is God and he is running this world – so we don’t have to. A way that trusts he is speaking, so we need to listen and help others listen to what he is already saying – we don’t always need a word from the Lord for someone else, but rather the grace and humility to sit with them and to learn together what God is saying.

As we go about daily life we can trust that God is powerful and that he has got us covered. Nothing will take him by surprise, and he is coming and he brings his reward with him – but that power does not mean he will trample us underfoot. He is the LORD God who carries his flock as a shepherd.

That means we can come to him with our prayers, and we can ask, knowing that he can do what we ask. We can come knowing that he knows best, and will give according to his tender care. Prayer puzzles me greatly much of the time. I don’t understand why some prayer is answered, but so much seems to go unheeded. Sometimes the answered prayer bothers me more than the unanswered prayer. Sometimes God answers over things that in the grand scheme of things seem so small – while the larger things go unheeded.

Yet the small matters to our God, and these verses are an encouragement to persist in prayer, knowing that God is big enough to bring anything, and cares enough to do what is best and to hold us in the midst of whatever pain that unanswered prayer brings us.

Chapter 40 of Isaiah goes on to unpack more of what it means for God to be powerful, and for God to care – and these verses remind us of the vital importance of holding to the reality that God is both powerfully in charge, and tenderly caring.

If we miss the first we will come to believe in a God who cares, but can do very little to actually help us. If we miss the second we will have a Sovereign King who we bow in awe before, but actually don’t really love, and we will doubt his care for us.

But God is both – and he is both in ways that are above and beyond our understanding, yet which he reveals to us so that we can catch a glimpse of how he is both, and what they both mean in reality. More on that as we move on through Isaiah 40.

A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
    the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert
    a highway for our God.
⁴ Every valley shall be raised up,
    every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
    the rugged places a plain.
⁵ And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
    and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Isaiah 40:3-5

From words of comfort we move to a voice calling. A voice calling for preparations to be made. For a road to be constructed. A road for Yahweh to travel on, a highway for our God. We often hear this call as directed to us, as if the voice is telling us to make a road ready for Yahweh, a highway for our God.

And there is obviously a rightness about us getting our hearts and minds in step with God, and ready for his ways. But that doesn’t quite seem to be what is being said here. Because here the next verse tells us that every valley will be raised up, and every mountain and hill made low – a verse that my 10 year old hopes is metaphorical (and so do I), because he loves nothing more than climbing mountains.

That valley raising and mountain lowering is not referring to human construction projects, or even human efforts to prepare the way for Yahweh to come. Isaiah 2 speaks of how God is against every human activity that exalts people above God, and that the day of Yahweh will bring these activities crashing down – leaving Yahweh alone exalted.

Isaiah 40 shows that God will make a way for God to come, that is utterly above and beyond any human undertaking. No civil engineering project of humanity can come close to God’s activity to bring God to this earth. The voice in the desert calling is declaring what Yahweh is about to do. Yahweh himself will make this way – because no-one else can.

When he does his glory will be revealed. His glory will shine forth. But impressive as this mountain lowering and valley raising is, it is not the supreme way that God shows his glory.

Glory is a difficult word in some ways. We think of glory often as majesty, as impressive power on display. And certainly God’s glory is the very essence of God, that which makes God be God, and gives God weight (the Hebrew for glory can also be used for weight) and substance in our world.

The twist in the story is that God displays his glory, not through dramatic displays of power, but through his own grace and mercy, in steadfast love and faithfulness displayed in a person who suffers to bring the life of God to this world. The idea that God’s glory is displayed in grace and mercy is already present in the Old Testament (Exodus 33-34), but is supremely seen in Jesus. We read in John 1 how the disciples saw God’s glory, a glory full of grace and truth (steadfast love and faithfulness in OT speak). God’s glory is seen in Jesus.

Jesus is where God’s glory is seen. In the babe of Bethlehem, laid in a manger. In the man who grew up as one of us, who lived with us, and for us. Who as a baby was “little, weak and helpless”. Who as a man “tears and smiles like us he knew”. He is the one who can genuinely feel for us in our sorrows. He became like us, that we might become like him.

God’s glory on display for all to see looks like Jesus. As we read on in Isaiah 40 we will see God’s glory and wonder spelt out for us in creation, in his power, and in his tender care. And in Advent we remember that all of that glory and wonder and splendour came to us wrapped up in the babe of Bethlehem. “Lo, within a manger lies, he who built the starry skies”

And so this advent let us look for glory in the small, in the insignificant and in the ordinary. As we go about our daily routine and work, may we look and be attentive to the glory that God has revealed to us. We so often want to do something to prepare the way for God to come. But perhaps this advent we need to stop our activity and pause. Perhaps we need to be still and silent to watch and see how God has made a way for God to come to us.

In this Advent season I want to reflect on various passages from Isaiah 40-55. These are some of my favourite sections of Scripture. As I do, I want to pay close attention to the texts I pick, perhaps deal with any questions they raise, and then focus on how they speak to our hearts as God’s people today. So these reflections will have a mixture of emphasis, but I hope will show something of what it means to listen to the text and allow it to speak to heart and mind.

We begin with the famous words of Isaiah 40:1

Comfort, comfort my people says your God

Isaiah 40:1

Famous words, perhaps words it is hard not to hear accompanied by Handel’s music. Yet vital words for a people crushed and broken, as the first hearers of these verses would have been – read Lamentations, or a Psalm such as Psalm 137 to understand how God’s people felt at this point – to hear. At this point in Israel’s story they are exiled, in Babylon. Jerusalem is ruined. Nebuchadnezzar carried off the gold from the temple and burnt it to the ground. Humanly speaking all hope is gone.

Yet God’s word to his exiled people is one of comfort. Comfort spoken through a messenger. As we read the start of Isaiah 40 it almost a new commissioning of the prophet. Which is perhaps not surprising as the prophet is speaking into an entirely new situation, some 100 years or so later than the events narrated in Isaiah 36-39.

Either these are words written down by Isaiah a hundred years or so before the events for which they are relevant, or they are words of an anonymous prophet, yet one who knows the words of Isaiah so well that he carries on in a similar language and style, which are taken to be of such a piece with the first prophet Isaiah that their words are bound together in one book.

Much ink has been spilt over these questions – and you can find good commentators willing to argue for either view. I retain an attachment to the idea that these words were given to Isaiah in Jerusalem, perhaps in the dark early days of Manasseh’s reign, and sealed up for the future generations to come. But equally, I don’t see any major problems with Isaiah 40-55 being the words of a later prophet (and perhaps 56-66 as another), as long as the idea that God declares the future to his people before it happens is retained (we’ll come on to the importance of that in a later post).

Whichever view you take, here this prophet, Isaiah or his successor, is called to bring a message of comfort to God’s broken and exiled people. The exile, shocking as it was, is not the end. God’s last word is not judgement. There is a hope. The prophet is told to speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Literally translated this is “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem”

The heart here, in the world of the Bible, is not simply emotions as we would say today. The heart is the control centre of the whole body. It is mind and heart together. Thought and emotion. The essence of the person. God’s word address the heart. God’s word strikes to the centre of our beings. And directed at the heart is the message of the prophet:

 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.

Isaiah 40:2

The message to these broken exiles is that Judah’s sin is dealt with. Her hard service, or warfare, is completed or filled. Her sin is pardoned or even accepted. Somehow she has found acceptance/favour from God.

She has received double for all her sins. It isn’t that she has received double the amount of the punishment that they deserved. The word double here may well be related to a sense of an exact match, of fabric folded over double. Judah has received just the right punishment.

Her punishment is fitting – when Israel took over the land she was warned not to follow the way of the Canaanites, and that if she die she would be expelled from the land. We hear a lot about the conquest and problems associated with it – but one thing always worth keeping in mind is that the Israelites were always warned that if they followed Canaanite ways (idolatry, immorality, oppression etc) they would face the punishment of being treated as they had treated the Canaanites.

And that fitting punishment has happened and is done with. A new chapter is about to begin. A new start is offered. That is the comfort on offer. The announcement of pardon and forgiveness. The announcement of living in the light of Yahweh’s favour.

That is the announcement of Advent. We will see how this works out as the chapter unfolds. But we need to see that for Judah living in Jesus’ day these words of Isaiah sounded a bitter sweet note. A note of great hope yes, but also a note of longing. A longing for the bold promises of Isaiah 40-55 to find fulfillment. For Israel still lived under foreign occupation. It felt like she was still living in the time of punishment of her sin. She needed deliverance. A way of forgiveness. A way of new hope.

For us too there is that note of longing as we come to Advent. We live in a world where it does not yet look like we enjoy Yahweh’s favour. We live in a world where it looks like we are still paying for our sins. A world where we are in exile.

Into that gloom comes the joyful sound of Yahweh speaking a word to our hearts. A word of forgiveness. A word of acceptance. A word that sin is dealt with. A word of a new start, and a fresh dawn. This advent pause and let the word be spoken to your heart. Let God speak the words you need to know and hear. Hear the word of comfort, let that word strengthen your heart with the assurance that God accepts you and welcomes you to come near.

How is your heart right now? Where do you need to hear God’s word of comfort?

In my own heart I sense that need to hear God’s word of comfort. We have moved the length of England. We are literally experiencing more darkness than we did before. We haven’t been able to get up into the mountains these last couple of weeks. Moving is not easy, and we have moved a lot.

The job I have moved to is fulfilling, and exciting in so many ways – and being physically present has made a huge difference to how I understand and can carry out my role. But the upheaval for us all in every other area of life right now is massive.

As I look back over my life there are a myriad of decisions that have led to this point – some decisions have been good – others not so good. Somethings I have not done that I could have done from ignorance, others from weakness, and some of my deliberate choosing.

Yet none of those things have closed the door to the possibility of God at work in our lives in the muddle and confusion of the here and now. Just as God had not given up on his people in Isaiah’s day, so he has not given up on us – on me, and on you, in this day.

Whatever the darkness and despair and gloom look like for you, there is a word of comfort. A word speaking directly to your heart. A word from God. A word that proclaims that his anger is done. A word that proclaims that he is coming. A word that shows who he is. A word that shows that who he is, is exactly who I need, and who you need right now.

As we move into the rest of Isaiah 40 we will see more of who this God is, and of the comfort that the very being of God brings to us. God is the one who is, the one who was, and the one who is to come. And there is nothing we need more than to see afresh this Advent our God.