Isaiah 35 1-10
Theoretically, if this gets published since I am late in submission, we as a community are about 15 days away from Christmas. This particular scripture reading is not one that you would think has a place during Advent. I had to read through more than a couple of times to find an appropriate line of thought.
I mean we are talking about being in a desert with all of those negative implications, and the prophet starts thinking about plotting God’s revenge on those that had made the Jewish nation so troubled. Those are not the normal pictures or sentiments that we subscribe to this time of year.
Upon reading through it for the seventh or eighth time, you do hear a message of hope and a celebration of what it is like to have God with us?
Things have gotten more stressful and complex for all of us over the last several years. Changes in health, family structure, our jobs, and being apart of the world in 2010 make things seem as desolate as conditions may be in the most barren of deserts.
With the hope, security, and strength that we have in our God attached to love and peace that come from our own relationships with Emmanuel, even the deserts in our own lives are survivable.
Mike Bowen
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