Isa 40:1-5,9-11; Psa 84:9-14; 2 Pet 3:8-14; Mk 1:1-8
Isaiah 40-55, the so-called Deutero-Isaiah, is taken to be an exilic prophesy, that is, written during the Babylonian exile. We know that Judah is said to have been conquered by the Babylonians with Nebuchadnezzar as the Babylonian king (586/7 BCE) because of their many sins against their God. When Israel went to exile, they lost their identities (land, temple and king). And for them, this condition implied that God abandoned them. So, while in exile, apart from mourning for the things they have lost, they were without hope because, as they thought, God had forsaken them. It is in this situation and understanding that the prophesy of Isaiah in chapter 40 came to God’s people in exile. In the prophesy we see three things: consolation; call to repentance; revelation of God’s glory; the outcome of God’s arrival.
COMFORT, COMFORT MY PEOPLE (Isa 40:1-2)
In the midst of hopelessness and despair, not minding the people were suffering because of their sins, God’s message still began with consolation: consolamini, consolamini populus meus! Jerusalem was the most beautiful city, taken as the abode of God, with the presence of the temple in it. But Babylonians came upon her and destroyed all her beauty and carried away
everything that was in it. This happened because Jerusalem (now, the people of the city) sinned and abandoned their God. But in this consolation, God promised three things to Jerusalem: end of exile; forgiveness of their sins; double portion of what they might have lost on account of their sins (Isa 40:2). It is interesting to see how these three promises are arranged, that is, in
between the end of exile and restoration of whatever Jerusalem must have lost, comes the pardoning of her iniquity. The people’s exile ends because of God’s compassion on his people, and whereas their sin led to their lost of everything, God’s forgiveness will initiate the double restoration of what they might have lost.
DO AWAY WITH THE MOUNTAINS AND VALLEY (Isa 40:3-4)
After God’s consolation, came instruction on what the people must do for the restoration to occur. The people of Israel were accustomed to the ‘journey through the wilderness’. In the first place, their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land was through the wilderness. But most interestingly is that kings’ journey towards conquering other nations was made through wilderness. In both experiences, victory comes through wilderness. But the movement through wilderness is the most tedious because of the high mountains and very deep valleys. Hence, wilderness’ road is never plain and straight. As its king, God wants to march through the wilderness of his people in order to secure their victory, but he demands that this wilderness be made plain and straight. That is to say, God wants a highway, and not mountains and valleys, in the life of his people. Sins build mountains and valleys in our lives, making the divine visitation uneasy. God wants to visit us and restore what we have lost, but we must first of all make ourselves accessible to God.
THE REVELATION OF GOD’S GLORY (Isa 40:5)
It is interesting to see how God presents the revelation of his glory to be an expected result or consequent of people’s removal of ‘mountains and valleys’ in their lives. That is, ‘remove every mountain and valley, make straight the rough places, so that God’s glory may appear.’
Consequently, it means that it is the high mountains and the deep valleys in the life of the people which have been preventing the manifestation of God’s glory in their lives. Once the mountains and valleys are made to become straight and plain path, the glory of God will be seen. Hence, it is not that God’s glory is not with his people, but that the people’s sin prevents God’s glory to be seen.
THE TENDERNESS OF GOD (Isa 40:9-11)
Once the people allow the glory of God to be seen, they will see God who takes care of his own. God is not interested only in the strong, but in all his sheep. God himself will lead his people from their exilic land to their own land. He himself will carry them from their land of shame to their land of glory. It does not matter if the situation of some of the people will make it difficult for them to walk back home, because God will carry them himself. None shall
consider himself beyond the reach of God’s mercy and divine visitation. The people were not to worry if God would come to them, they were rather to worry on how to take away the things that would prevent God’s glory to be revealed.
Dear brothers and sisters, not minding what you must have lost; not minding where you are now and the difficult of going back to the city of your glory, God himself will bring you back and he himself will restore whatever you have lost; God himself will lead you from that exilic land to your glory, but you must have to clear and remove everything that obstructs the glory of God. In us and with us is always the presence of God in his glory, but if our sins which
constitute mountains and valleys in our lives, are not uprooted and righteousness used to make a straight path, the glory of God will always be there but not seen.
In the gospel, the people went to John the Baptist in order for John to help them take away their mountains and valleys. They confessed their sins, wore new garment of repentance and righteousness, in attest for the arrival of the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. As we live in the time between the commemoration of Christ’s first coming and preparation for his second
coming, we must have to get ourselves ready. We must have to confess our sins, live righteously. In the second reading, St. Peter stresses this when he calls on us all to live holy and saintly lives as we wait and long for the Day of God to come (2 Pet 3:11-12).
May God help us, that we may “do our best to live lives without spot or stain so that Christ will find us at peace” (2 Pet 3:14).
Fr. Nnamah Henry Chukwuezugo
Catholic Diocese of Aguleri