“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak 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.”
-Isaiah 40:1-2

Would that I could speak tenderly to Jerusalem. I guess it takes a prophet — someone possessed of the big picture. That’s not me.
Here in the present, Jerusalem seems a long way from paying for her sins, much less receiving double for them from the Lord. Are we talking about the Jehovah that was so keen to expunge Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness? The God of Isaiah seems more forbearing and generous.

As I try to emulate God’s grace, there are moments when Jerusalem softens my heart — when I think of us more affectionately, as I would my grandchildren when they are tired and willful. You just want to hug them and tell them you know it’s been hard, that they’re having a bad day, but they are loved, and it will get better. Maybe instead of waiting for Jerusalem to pay for her transgressions, I could try, as Christ ultimately did, to go her bail…and fulfill prophecy.

Lord, calm my agitated spirit and lift my sight toward the vision of your kingdom on Earth. Amen.
-Michael Boss

I first heard these Isaiah readings as a 15 year old singing the “You-Sing-It” Messiah with my mom, the San Jose Symphonic Choir, and more than 1,500 other singers. I was not yet a churchgoer and still working out what I believed (though I knew that I was definitely Christian), and it was a way of encountering the texts that fixed them pretty strongly in my mind. Eventually, I would become a choir member at my local Episcopal church and hear them that way, but Handel’s Messiah remains the first thought that comes to my mind when I see them in the lectionary.

While I heard them first in participating in the “You-Sing-It” Messiah, I did not learn about them or their history until college (when they came up in Bible study for Intervarsity) and seminary when I took my first formal class on the Old Testament. It was enlightening to actually read the entire Book of Isaiah, to understand the historical aspect of what was going on in Judah when Isaiah was telling them to get it together, and also to learn that there are considered to be at least two (possibly three) different writers of Isaiah, especially as the book covers a span before and after the exile to Babylon. While most of the verses we are looking at are from the second half of the book when Isaiah is telling the exiled ones to come home, we have a few verses from the beginning where Isaiah is telling off Judah for their violence and miscarriages of justice.

It seems fitting this year to be looking at these passages given that we are amid a seemingly endless pandemic and in the aftermath of a contentious election. We need to hear that God is coming, and we need to hear that hope exists. Every devotion is structured the same way with the passage at the top, the reflection in the middle, and a prayer at the end.

Advent blessings to you all!
-Jen McCabe

The 2020 Advent devotional book “Prepare the Way” will be available here in *.PDF format on November 27th. It will be available in blog post format, on Facebook, and in email format starting on November 28th

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