Isaiah 35
1 The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy...
3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
"Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you."
Another of the wonderful Advent hymns, which we also sang on November 27, is O come, O come, Emmanuel. Some of the words of that hymn are:
O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
You, of course, don't need to be told that the word "Emmanuel" comes from two Hebrew words which collectively mean God with us.
The cry of Advent is for God indeed to be with us! We need God's presence to "cheer our spirits" amidst the trying times in which we live. We need God to "disperse the gloomy clouds of night". We need God to "put to flight" all the death inducing realities of our world which haunt so much of humanity. We so desperately, as those early Hebrew faithful, seek the assurance of God's coming into our world and into our lives.
Advent 2011 is, as with all our liturgical Advents, simply the recognition that God has always heard the cries of His people. He isn't some distant, utterly transcendent deity who sets history in motion and then hopes for the best. He didn't create this world and us human beings just to sit idly by and wish upon a star. He came then; He comes now!
What we do have to do, however, is open ourselves to seeing and hearing His coming! We can't do that if we're constantly rushing here and there rarely idling our motors! We can't do that if we're so constantly focused on self that we don't commit to focusing on God! We can't do that if we ourselves treat God as this distant Deity with irregular interaction. There is no better time than now, during this Advent season, to be more attentive to God's working, to be open to God's voice in your life, to be more discerning of the countless ways He is at work for good!
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, just before he died, exclaimed, The best of all is, God is with us! Amen and Amen!
Worth our reflection these days of Advent, isn't it?
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