We are in the second week of Advent, that season of anticipation when we wait eagerly for the celebration of Jesus’ birth that occurred a couple thousand years ago. Although today’s reading of Isaiah is a beautiful reminder of God’s coming to his people, at the time it was not a reminder but a prediction.

I find it impossible to comprehend that 700 to 800 years before Jesus’ birth, the prophet Isaiah was telling his people, “A voice cries out in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord!” Their anticipation was not of a celebration of what occurred years previously, but of what was yet to come.

There are billions of people who have lived and died from the time of Isaiah’s prophecy to now. Each of us is like a lamb known by the shepherd who will lovingly tend to us and hold us close. What an awesome vision that is in my imagination, an unending sea of people each intimately known and loved by God.

I cannot climb a mountain to shout out this grand news.  Even if I could, there would probably be no one else up there to hear me. What we can all do is cherish the love and comfort that we have received from our Lord and share it with those we know and those we do not; with those who are mourning and those who are celebrating; with those who are living in poverty and those who are rich; with those who are physically or emotionally suffering, and those who are healthy and happy.

“The day of the Lord is near:
Behold, he comes to save us.”