With Power and Particularity

Welcome words, these familiar sounds of Isaiah:  “Comfort, give comfort . . . .”  We are swept up by their beauty and the images they form in our hearts:  valleys filled in and mountains lowered, all preparing the way for the savior.

“Here is your God! Here comes with power the Lord God, who rules by his strong arm . . . .”  All this preparation moves toward a single goal:  making way for the Lord, who comes in power!  But how will he come?  What will his power be like as it becomes manifest?  “Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs . . . .”  The power of God becomes manifest in the tender scene of gathering the lambs. 

And this truth “takes on flesh” in Jesus. Like a shepherd in search of a lost sheep, Jesus comes to reveal the One who sent him:  “. . .  it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost."  None shall be lost; each particular individual remains the focus of his search.

Who, among those we know and love, is lost? Where do we seem most lost today?  What part of our hearts, of our lives, appears weakest?  The Lord seeks out with great particularity those individuals and those parts of us which are most in need.   “Here is your God!” in this person, in this place.  “Here comes with power the Lord God.”