Today's Readings: Isaiah 35:1–10; Psalm 89; Luke 5:17–26
“How long, how long ‘till these tears are gone”, rings out the chorus of one my favorite songs. Waiting is not easy, because waiting requires faith. I am not very good at waiting myself and I spend a lot of my time doing activities, so I do not have to wait. But, deep down all of us our waiting for a king—for the King.
Yet, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 89, “How long, LORD? Will you hide forever?” Isaiah wrote the passage you read today as a promise answering the Psalmist, He is coming! It is easy for us to think that Isaiah doesn’t understand our world and our problems, but he did. Famine, war, plague, corrupt leaders and governments, fraction and division everywhere. Isaiah lived every one of those. Nevertheless, He wrote these words to, “strengthen the weak hands, steady the shaking knees.” Has this year made your hands weak and your knees shake? It has for me! This passage meets us every day we wait for our King and tells us to take heart!
What joy must have filled the hearts of those who witnessed Jesus as he healed the blind and lame, and even forgave sins.
In this Advent season we look back at the incarnation of Jesus and we rejoice that our God took our predicament so seriously that He would forever bind Himself to us in the Incarnation. And it is because of the first coming of the King that we can look forward as Isaiah did even in our darkest days and have faith that He is coming soon. So sing a little louder this Advent season and let your laughter be full for the Lord has promised that we, “will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.”
