Earlier this year the Bible Study group at our parish finished an extended march through the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. This is NOT an easy read, often with very dark and very gloomy passages full of just how disappointing God's chosen people turned out to be.
Sounds an awful lot like the Church today, doesn't it?
Today's reading in Isaiah (Is. 40.1-11) is by contrast a bright light amidst the gloom. It calls on the people of God to take comfort, that the long night is over and God will be revealed in all His glory and tend to his sheep. That passage is echoed in the Gospel (Mk. 1.1-8) where the Forerunner of Our Lord, John the Baptist, is the voice crying in the wilderness to make straight the way of the Lord.
Isaiah's message was one of hope and expectation. John's message was one of repentance, of turning away from sin to turn and face God. Isaiah gave a general expectation, but John focused it. Both of them looked to the Good News of God's redemption of His people, of all people, and that Good News found itself in the person of Jesus, the Anointed One of God.
That is the expectation of hope we have this season. One is coming who will fill us with the Holy Spirit, who will remove our sins, who will lead us in righteousness, and who will restore us to God. Like most of the book of the prophet Isaiah, the world around us is dark, we have missed the mark, we have lost sight of God, but that voice in the wilderness points us to the Light of the World, Jesus the Christ. Let us forsake our old ways of grief, and despair, and despondency, and death, and look to the Author of Life.
Mosaic of St. John the Forerunner (John the Baptist): the scroll in his hand states, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."