What we really need - a sword can't fix. Reflections on Advent hope from Isaiah 40.

A friend and mentor, Winn Collier, recently wrote this about the Advent season:

“I won’t let go of how Advent is for the helpless, the heartbroken, the world-weary. Advent is for those who have no words, no capacity, to name how sorrow or regret or evil has shattered their lives, shattered their families. Advent is for the dying, for the bewildered, for the silenced, for those heavy with shame or despair. Advent, writes Fleming Rutledge, “bids us take a fearless inventory of the darkness.” You can read his full thoughts here.

Advent is for waiting. For reasons that can only be good but remain ever elusive, God is not in a hurry. We don’t like to wait. We are always in a hurry. 

Advent is also for hope. We wait in hope. Or we don’t. 

The question is: What enables us, what can empower us, what can give us the capacity to wait? Often in the darkness. Advent’s answer is hope. Winn reminds us that Advent is for the helpless, the heartbroken, the world-weary. This means, Advent is always relevant. The world is always wearying. 

Isaiah 40 comes after Isaiah 39. Isaiah 39 describes the Babylonian takeover of Jerusalem. If you don’t remember your world civilization classes, Babylon was the Superpower in the 6th and 7th centuries BC. They came to Jerusalem. Laid siege around the city and eventually destroyed it. They knocked down the walls, and the Temple, and carted off thousands of captives hundreds of miles away. We call this The Exile.  

There is an Old Testament book called Lamentations. Lamentations is a series of songs that lament the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. They are sad songs. 

In chapter 1, there is a recurring phrase. The city lies in ruins and no one is there to bring it comfort. In fact, five times the singer says that the city has no comfort. 

Lamentations begins, “How lonely sits the city that once was full of people. How like a widow she has become.” The city, we are invited to imagine, is like a widow who has lost everything. Then verse 2. “She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks…she has no one to comfort her.” 

Verse 9 - “Her downfall was appalling. With no one to comfort her.” 

Verse 16 - “For these things I weep, my eyes flow with tears; for a comforter is far from me.” 

Verse 17 - “Zion stretches out her hands, but there is no one to comfort her.” 

Verse 21 - “They heard how I was groaning, with no one to comfort me.” 

You get the idea. This is the historical situation that Israel - the people of God - find themselves in. This is the world-weary darkness into which Isaiah 40 speaks. Notice the first word of Isaiah 40. 

Comfort. 

“‘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.’” 

Israel’s exile in Babylon lasted for 70 years. A whole lifetime. 70 years is plenty long to begin doubting. To begin wondering:  Is God still with us? Does he see us? Does he remember us? Have you experienced that moment? The moment when you’re not sure if God still remembers. If God still cares. If God is there. We don't like to say it, we feel guilty when we think it. Advent gives us permission. Does he see us?

Into that darkness, Isaiah comes with Comfort. 

The question is: What comfort does Isaiah have to offer? What hope will get them through? Is it just a warm bath and a good book? Is it a mound of mashed potatoes with a nice lake of butter and gravy? Or does Isaiah offer something that will actually bring lasting comfort? 

What would it take for you? What promise of hope would make it possible to endure the challenges that you’re facing?

Isaiah 40 offers three voices. Three voices, all intended to bring comfort to a city and a people that find themselves in ruin. 

The first voice: Prepare, God is on the Way. Isaiah 40:3-5

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”  

The imagery is of a traveling dignitary coming to town. If the Pope or someone of world fame was coming to your community, the city would clean up the streets. The parade route would travel through the most flattering parts of town. They would fill all the potholes to save the Pope-mobile’s suspension. The city would prepare. 

If you are having family over this week for Christmas, you are likely going to clean up the clutter from the countertops, vacuum the rugs, and hide everything that doesn’t have a place in the spare bedroom. You prepare. 

Here in Isaiah, the preparations are of epic proportions. The mountains come down. The valleys are brought up. Everything becomes smooth and even. Why? “The glory of the Lord will be revealed” (vs. 5). The glory of the Lord is the Bible’s way of saying God’s presence will be revealed. God is coming. Comfort.

The second voice: Trust what lasts. Isaiah 40:6-8

“All people are like grass…the grass withers and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them.” 

Now at first glance this doesn’t immediately sound hopeful. All people are like grass. Temporary. The flowers bloom and the flowers die. Not very comforting.

But here is why this is good news. Whatever we are facing, whether it is exile for the Israelites in the 6th century BC, or grief, or disease, or anxiety about our cultural moment. The point is all of these things have an end date. God’s promises do not. 

In the 6th century BC that means Babylon would be replaced by Persia. Persia would be replaced by the Greeks. The Greeks by the Romans and on down the line. I recently heard a story about how high school students in Australia studied for four years to take their entrance exams for university and they had been taught about the wrong Caesar. The exams were about Julius Caesar, and the teachers had been teaching the students about Augustus Caesar. The Caesars, like almost all who hold power, were obsessed with making a name for themselves, with building their legacy…and here we are centuries later bungling their identities. The grass withers and the flowers fade.

In contrast, God’s word will endure. God’s promises will stand. There is one kingdom that will last forever. Comfort. 

The third voice: God is here with a mighty arm…and a shepherd’s crook. Isaiah 40:9-11 

The poet is then told to get up on a high mountain. To climb to the heights in order to declare this last word for all to hear: “Lift up your voice with strength. Don’t fear.”

And here is the message: “Behold your God!’”  

Behold. “Behold” is such a great word. Behold, the Lord comes with might. He rules with a mighty arm. In Hebrew - the metaphors of the strong arm and reward means victory. It’s the language of the mighty warrior. If you are in exile in Babylon, you want the Warrior with the sword. You can see how this would bring comfort. 

But then comes the surprise. We are expecting to see the description of God the Warrior King in all of his armor. With his shield on his back, a sword in one hand and a spear in the other. God flexing his might. Instead, in verse 11 we get this:

“He will feed his flock like a shepherd;

    he will gather the lambs in his arms

and carry them in his bosom

    and gently lead the mother sheep.”

The warrior God who is coming in victory is a Shepherd. He gathers his lambs in his arms, and carries them close to his chest. God has all the power in the world. He comes in the compassion and the comfort of a Shepherd. Why? 

I was reminded recently by a Tim Keller sermon about how on the darkest night in Scripture, when Jesus is betrayed and arrested and handed over to die, he and his disciples were in a garden when the guards came to arrest him. Peter takes out his sword and begins hacking away. Jesus tells him no. Jesus tells him to put the sword away. He says to Peter, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels.” Jesus can snap his fingers and the strong arm of the Warrior God would come to the rescue. Instead, he tells Peter to down his sword.

What the world really needs, what we really need - a sword can’t fix. But a cross can. 

The crazy claim of the gospel is that what the world needs is not a bigger sword but a Shepherd who lays down his life. Somehow, we know it is true. And we keep forgetting.

We so badly want the King with the sword. We held our family’s annual viewing of Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God concert last night. Peterson’s cycle of songs tells the story of Jesus beginning with Moses in the Old Testament and works its way through the Christmas story. I hadn’t thought about this on Sunday during my sermon but in one of the early songs in the show, So Long Moses, the refrain is “We want a King, on a throne, full of power, with a sword in his fist.” It always seems like more power is what we need.  

Isaiah’s voice of comfort offers a Shepherd. Those with ears to hear, let them hear.  

“I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11) 

When all four of the Gospel writers sat down to tell the story of Jesus, they all began here by quoting with Isaiah 40 (Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3 and John 1). This means we have even more reason to hope in the darkness than the original hearers of Isaiah. We know the word of God does indeed stand. And Babylon falls. We know what they could not fully know but were still invited to trust. We know the key to the whole puzzle is the Suffering Shepherd King from the line of David, born in Bethlehem town, who spends his first night not in a luxurious palace but in a feed trough. The shadow of the cross is already there at Christmas. 

How do we endure waiting in the darkness? We put our hope in the Shepherd who has come and will come again and who promises to be with us - Immanuel - by his Spirit even today. So, come, Lord Jesus, come. Comfort.