Rachelle Gilmour
15 December 2024
Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Isaiah 40:1
Traditionally associated with Advent, and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, these beautiful, tender words are healing balm as we approach the end the year. And yet, the lead-up to Christmas is often precisely the period in which all the busyness of the year and anxieties of our relationships come to a head, in which we feel anything but comfort.
Isaiah 40-55, known as Second Isaiah, contains prophecies first spoken to the ancient Jewish people in a period of very great trauma. According to Isaiah, the Jewish people were sent into “exile” by God because of their sin. Exile meant that the Jewish people’s home, Jerusalem, their temple, and the surrounding towns were destroyed by the great empire of Babylon, and the people were transported from their homes to faraway places elsewhere in the empire.
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In Isaiah 40, God sends a prophetic word to these people, about a generation after they first went into exile: Comfort. The basic meaning of the word “comfort” in the original Hebrew of Isaiah, is “to breathe deeply.” The term is closely related to words for “relent” or “regret”. In Isaiah 40, God acknowledges that the people’s pain has been “double” what they deserved; and God responds by relenting, regretting their distress, and bringing consolation and solace for their wounds.
As difficult as it may be to breathe deeply at the end of a long year, God breathes deeply alongside us, bringing comfort to our fears and our brokenness.
A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Isaiah 40:3
Comfort is not just about looking backwards, comfort looks forward to hope and to renewed action. We know this intuitively when we speak of comfort or consolation in grief at the passing of a loved one. We find comfort in grief, not because the pain of losing someone is wiped away, or because we no longer love and miss them; comfort in grief is a way of seeing hope in the future, finding strength to rebuild lives despite loss.
Second Isaiah’s words of comfort also look to the future, give hope, and strengthen the people for action. God is coming! God is strong, coming with great might! In Isaiah 40:3, for the ancient Jewish people, the highways in the desert were literal, as those in exile in Babylon looked forward to a return to their home in Jerusalem, a path that took them through the wilderness. A way through the wilderness is terrifying; but the people must act, preparing for the Lord who will accompany them.
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When these same words, “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord” are applied to John the Baptist in Luke 3:1-6, John proclaims repentance and forgiveness. Repentance and forgiveness are preparation for the coming of God in Christ Jesus. In the midst of strained relationships, tiredness or busyness, as the year comes to a close, repentance and forgiveness may not seem high on the list of concerns. But repenting before God, and forgiving others as God forgives us, are part of breathing deeply: sighing out pain, and breathing in new hope, to bear fruit worthy of repentance.
Dr Rachelle Gilmour is Bromby Associate Professor of Old Testament at Trinity College Theological School
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