“The Deserts Are Alive…with the Sound of Music?” by Brian Flanagan
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Toys in every store. Oh wait, the priest is still wearing purple. Oh that’s right, it’s still Advent. Let’s take a look at the readings for the 3rd Sunday of Advent.
“Be strong, fear not! Here is your God…” Hey, that’s good stuff. What else do we have here…“The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom”. Okay, now I’m lost. And apparently the Bible spells “step” wrong.
Deserts don’t normally “bloom with abundant flowers”, let alone break into song (the deserts are alive…with the sound of music?). A steppe (which is also a pretty dry area with not a lot of plant life) doesn’t usually rejoice either. Isaiah uses these images to convey to the people of Israel that God is about to come close to his people in a big way, and that he will do the impossible; he will bring beauty and new life where there is none, even where there can be none.
He tells us that God will open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, and those who aren’t able to walk will leap like stags, and those who cannot speak will be able to sing. All of these things are normally quite impossible.
As Christians, knowing “how the story ends”, we know that Jesus came and performed many of these miraculous healings. We almost get desensitized to these Biblical healing stories. For the people of Israel that Isaiah was writing to, however, this was no everyday occurrence. They had little evidence to go on that these things were even possible. Still in hearing this, God gives them hope.
Through Isaiah, in today’s first reading, God tells his people that they will be crowned with everlasting joy and that their sorrow and mourning will flee. He is telling them that he knows their suffering, and that one day he will deliver them from it so totally that their joy will last forever.
But as we see in the second reading, sometimes we have to wait, and wait patiently. James writes “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord.” The people of Israel (not the individual people living there, but that “people” as a group) would have to wait several hundred years for God to finally reveal the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus speaks of the works he has been doing and says “the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised…”. Not only is Jesus fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy, but he is one-upping it by doing things like cleansing lepers and especially raising the dead, one of the most impossible things we can think of.
It’s as though Jesus is telling the people of Israel (and telling us), “Your time of waiting is over; God has finally come close to his people, and in a way you never thought possible. Here I am. I can bring hope where there is no hope. I can bring joy where there is great suffering. I can bring life where there is no life, even from death itself. I can do the impossible. I am the impossible.”
As we continue in this season of Advent, we continue to wait with the people of Israel, patiently waiting for the coming of the Lord. However we know how the story ends. We know what, or rather who we are waiting for. God is about to come close to his people in a big way; let’s use this Advent season to be ready for him! It’s not Christmas yet! But go ahead, you’re allowed to eat a candy cane.
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