“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.”
-Isaiah 35:1-2

In August and September 2020, the CZU Lightning Complex Fire ravaged parts of Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties. 86,509 acres were burned, and I had several friends who had to evacuate in case the fire reached their towns. Among the places burned during the month-long fire were Camp Hammer, Skylark Ranch, and the edges of the University of California—Santa Cruz.

Why are these places important? Well, they are places from my childhood that were instrumental in seeing God in nature. Camp Hammer was the first camp I ever attended at 10 years old, and it was where I first learned who Jesus really was. Skylark Ranch was the Girl Scout camp I attended for a few years, where I started my counselor training, and I worked there during the summer after I graduated from high school. It was where I learned to feel at home among the redwoods. UC Santa Cruz was the first place where I fully lived out my faith, where I learned a lot about the Bible through Intervarsity and my college church, and where I was baptized. The campus is in the middle of a redwood forest, and the view of Monterey Bay from campus is breathtaking. Being among the trees was calming to me and reminded me that there was something bigger than myself.

Isaiah speaks of “see[ing] the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God” in the wilderness and desert blooming. Just as I feel that I am in God’s presence when I am in a redwood forest, others find themselves in awe at the beach, in the mountains, or even in the desert. What an amazing Creator we have!

Gracious God, thank you for giving each of us reminders of Your power and majesty in Creation. Amen.
-Jen McCabe

“The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.”
-Isaiah 11:8

Despite being terrified of venomous snakes, one of my favorite YouTube channels is Viperkeeper. Run by a gentleman in Pennsylvania named Al Coritz, the videos focus on his collection of venomous snakes from all over the world. His collection houses cobras (including a king cobra named Elvis), an assortment of mambas, boomslangs, vipers from everywhere except North America, lanceheads from Central and South America, and some Australian snakes. Despite the amount of feeding, milking, and handling of snakes he does, he has only been bitten twice in his life, and he stocks many different antivenoms because a snakebite could kill him if he has to wait for the hospital to fly in the right one from a zoo. The main reason he doesn’t keep North American vipers? The antivenom is prohibitively expensive with an average dose being 20 vials at a cost of up to $5,000 per vial (including hospital markup).

Having watched his videos, I want to flinch in horror at the idea of a child happily playing “over the hole of the asp” or a child “put[ting] its hand on the adder’s den.” What kind of parent would let their child do that when snakes like the puff adder kill and maim many people in Africa?!?!?

The key to understanding this is to realize that Isaiah is employing some hyperbole, and he is using some imagery that would have been familiar to the people of the Levant. They all knew the danger of the various vipers and desert cobras, and they would have understood why a child playing near an asp was incredibly dangerous. In using the enmity between humanity and reptiles that stemmed from the Fall in Genesis 3, the people of Isaiah’s time would have understood that Isaiah’s words involved neutralizing a threat and restoring peace to the general order of things. I, for one, cannot wait.

Lord, you might not want us to handle serpents or put ourselves at risk of envenomation, but You do want us to be at peace with each other. Give us peaceful spirits and help us to cultivate peace in our hearts. Amen.
-Jen McCabe

“The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”
-Isaiah 11:7

To be honest, I chose this verse because nobody else had selected it and it is raising my hackles as someone involved with conservation and animal rights.

The first part of the verse regarding the bear and the cow grazing reminds me of the 4 ½ years I spent living in Montana and hearing about grizzly bears being relocated for threatening a rancher’s livestock, especially in the Flathead Valley where my great-aunt lives. If it was a black bear, the rancher might shoot it, but grizzly bears are a protected species. Montana Fish & Wildlife had humane traps that are about the size of a U-Haul trailer, and they bait the traps so that the bears just go in there and have the door close behind them. The bear can then be relocated to an area where they will not cause harm to livestock.

The second part is probably what raises my hackles the most. I am involved with the Wildcat Sanctuary, a sanctuary that takes in large and small wildcats and hybrid cats from bad situations. Private situations can be some of the most damaging because the cats are usually not fed an appropriate diet, and it causes problems. One of the most common situations involves people illegally owning an African savanna cat called a serval. These cats, who look like Dr. Suess’s interpretation of a leopard, need a diet high in calcium during their formative years, and many of the servals at the sanctuary have fractures caused by metabolic bone disease as a result of not getting the proper diet. These private owners fed their cats the nutritional equivalent of straw instead of the raw meat diet that they needed. (If you would like more information on the Wildcat Sanctuary and their work, please click here.)

The image Isaiah is putting forth is one where the predator and its prey are coexisting peacefully next to each other, rather than one harming the other. We as humans are a significant contributor to the predator/prey issue as we build onto wildlands and displace wild animals as a result. Bears usually go after cattle because they are hungry, and the rancher has likely cleared the forestland that the bear would normally inhabit. People’s desire to “collect” wildlife contributes to the captive wildlife crisis that the Wildcat Sanctuary exists to remedy. One thing we can think about this Advent is where each of us fits into this situation.

Thank you, Lord, for groups like the Wildcat Sanctuary that seek to help creatures in bad situations. Amen.
-Jen McCabe

“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”
-Isaiah 11:6

Any time I think about the kingdom of God on Earth, the painting of “The Peaceable Kingdom” by the artist Edward Hicks comes to mind. To my slightly jaded eyes, there is almost something campy about that particular representation — not quite on par with “Dogs Playing Poker,” but in a similar hackneyed spirit.

And by the way, although we always give the lion top billing in that biblical reference, it is in fact a leopard that will lie down with a goat. The lion gets the calf and the yearling. Some misinterpretations wind up with greater credence than the truths they supplant. There’s a lot of that going around these days. Which is a shame, because the “peaceable kingdom” should be our rightful inheritance as Christians. Isaiah’s prophecy implies that it is incumbent upon us, whether we identify as wolves or sheep, lions or lambs, to embrace those who would seem completely inimitable to our wellbeing. It took the appearance of Jesus, the sacrificial lamb, to show us the way.

Lord, teach us loving-kindness that embraces those we would demonize, and help us to see that fear is a yoke that binds us in service to our worst instincts, while the love of Christ is what frees us to prepare for the kingdom of God on Earth. Amen.
-Michael Boss

“Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.” -Isaiah 11:5

It seems my entire life has been devoted to losing weight. I started the year with a goal; I wanted to return to my college weight (and confess I’ve over half-way there). I have reached the final notch in my belt and will need to either cut a new notch sometime in the next few weeks or pray Santa will bring me a belt with a new set of notches I can begin playing with.

I used to wear both suspenders and belts (suspenders to keep the pants up and belt upon which to hang my cell phone holster), but a friend made fun of me. He said, “There is the sign of a man with absolutely no faith – wearing a belt and with suspenders!” So now I mostly wear just a belt. Yes, I was shamed into it (I ashamedly admit). Besides, I got tired of the suspender grips constantly coming unsnapped. I guess I just wasn’t built for suspenders – or they weren’t engineered to handle the stresses I put upon them. Either way, I buckled down, lost weight, and notched it as a victory in the end (or wherever).

It seems strange for Isaiah to mention belts, for the men of the middle east wear robes, and robes don’t require cinctures. On the other hand, they did need a place for tucking in their money bag or hanging their knife. This allowed them to keep their hands free for working the land, or testing merchandise being sold in the bazaars, or defending the flock from predators. Their belts enabled them to be safe and secure and to do right by friend and neighbor.

Advent, it seems, invites us to learn to let go and let God. It may be a season in which we live in suspense, but we are free to belt out those wondrous tunes that guide us toward the season of light and joy.

God, help me relax. Help me to know that you’ve got me covered. Help free up my hands that I may use them to Your glory, and to Your honor, and to the praise of Your Name. Amen.
-The Rev. Keith Axberg