A Voice Cries Out...

Scripture

Isaiah 40:1-11

¹   Comfort, O comfort my people,
          says your God.
²   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.

³   A voice cries out:
     “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
          make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
⁴   Every valley shall be lifted up,
          and every mountain and hill be made low;
     the uneven ground shall become level,
          and the rough places a plain.
⁵   Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
          and all people shall see it together,
          for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

⁶   A voice says, “Cry out!”
          And I said, “What shall I cry?”
     All people are grass,
          their constancy is like the flower of the field.
⁷   The grass withers, the flower fades,
          when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
          surely the people are grass.

⁸   The grass withers, the flower fades;
          but the word of our God will stand forever.
⁹   Get you up to a high mountain,
          O Zion, herald of good tidings;
     lift up your voice with strength,
          O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
          lift it up, do not fear;
     say to the cities of Judah,
          “Here is your God!”
¹⁰  See, the Lord GOD comes with might,
          and his arm rules for him;
     his reward is with him,
          and his recompense before him.
¹¹  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.    (NRSV)

Devotion

 Isaiah 40 is so packed with messages that a pastor could preach on it for a month and still have plenty to say.  Today, I want to take a different approach.  I want to look at just who is tasked with proclaiming God's message to the people.

This portion of Isaiah was written during the Babylonian exile. Ancient Hebrew lacked quotation marks and other forms of punctuation, which led to some odd hiccups as Isaiah  and other texts were translated into Greek.  Mark tended to refer to the Septuagint (a Greek version of Hebrew scriptures) while writing his Gospel.  The Septuagint translates Isaiah 40 as saying:

The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
          "Prepare the way of the Lord,
          make his paths straight...”

Mark believed the voice crying out in the wilderness was obviously a reference to John the Baptist, who preached in the deserts near that Jordan and helped prepare people for the moment when Jesus began his earthly ministry. 

Based on the translation that Mark was working with, John did seem like a logical fit as the owner of the voice in Isaiah.  However, certain language cues in the original Hebrew mean that the text is better translated as saying:

A voice cries out:
 "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
          make straight in the desert a highway for our God.'"

Here, the owner of the voice is less clear.  It could be a heavenly being...or a specific prophet ...or any number of people called to give the captive Jews in Babylon a word of good news.  It could even be God himself.  Whoever is speaking, the voice expects the prophet to share its message.  It wants Isaiah to prepare the people for the coming the Living God.  Soon, God will appear in the midst of the wilderness of their  existence.  The people need to make ready and create pathways for the Holy One.

The voice doesn't command Isaiah to share this message all by himself.  Instead, it calls Zion to lift up its voice and share the good tidings that God was on the way.  Zion was a synonym for God's Holy Mountain, the city of Jerusalem, and the land of Israel as a whole.  Jerusalem and the Temple had just been completely destroyed by the Babylonians...and yet God calls these places (and one assumes the few survivors who were left behind) to lift up their voices and share Good News with the world.  The Holy City might be a site of destruction and death, but it still had a message of hope to tell the exiles.  And because the exiles still considered themselves the people of Zion, they too should spread the word.

So just who is called to prepare the way of the Living God in this wilderness?  I think Isaiah is saying that it is all of us!  Here and now in what sometimes feels like the ruins of normal life, we are the ones that can hear a mysterious voice promising that God is on the way.  We may be surrounded by suffering and sin, but we are the ones called to smooth God's pathway into this world with our words, our deeds, and our prayers.  When life seems bleak and pointless, we are called to keep hope alive by lifting up our voices and saying to the people around us “Here is your God!”

 As we draw closer to Christmas, why not take a moment and reflect upon who needs to hear a word of encouragement today?  Who could use a reminder that God is indeed on the way and that the glory of the Living God will soon be revealed?  Once we've  identified the folks who need that reminder, we can ask God help us discern how to best share that Good News with them decide how to might best share that Good News with them.  Finally, we can do it.

Beloved, lift up your voice...and your hands...and your heart.  God is calling you to prepare a way through the wilderness...to speak tenderly to God's people and share good tidings with the world.  God is calling me to do the same.  Together, we can help all the world behold the presence of the Living God.  

Prayer

 Holy One, we thank you for the words of comfort and promise you have given us.  May your Holy Spirit burning within us turn us into the voice that calls out to others with a message of hope.  And may all that we do help prepare the way for the return of your son, Jesus.  Amen.