An Advent Prayer That Brings Peace

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. (Isaiah 40:1 ESV) These familiar Advent words of comfort by the Prophet Isaiah speak to our hearts today. During every kind of “wilderness experience,” we all need to hear good news. The glory of the LORD is revealed at just such moments so that we would not rely on the comfort that we create for ourselves but that we would turn to God for comfort in His Word. This is the Advent prayer that brings peace.

The words of Isaiah 40 come right after King Hezekiah’s life-threatening illness is miraculously healed and God spares him (Isaiah 39). But during his recovery, the king entertains an envoy from the land of Babylon. He shows them all the treasures of his kingdom, the gold and silver of the Temple, and the wealth of Israel. At this, Isaiah declares the harsh news that will follow. While Hezekiah will live in peace, his own family together with all the people of Jerusalem will be carried into exile in Babylon. What God had been warning the people of Israel for 39 chapters was now set in stone.

So, the shift in tone in Chapter 40 is striking as it looks beyond that exile to Israel’s return with the coming of God Himself. What is especially notable is that God’s coming is not to the Temple where Isaiah had first seen the glory of God fill the sanctuary, but in the desert. Now, the wilderness experience was not new to Israel. The wilderness is where the people of God were shaped and made to be “the LORD’s.” In the 40-year journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land, God had trained them to live by the very Word of God. In the Midbar (the lonely place) God fed them manna from Heaven as He promised. In the Arabah (the desert) He quenched their thirst. God’s appearance in the wilderness again was a sign of comfort in itself, but also a sign of an even greater glory yet to be revealed.

Isaiah is called to declare this comfort with three tender words, or literally a word upon the heart. The three-fold emphasis spells out the certainty of the matter. The first tender word is that Jerusalem’s warfare is over. Their struggle with God is finished. His anger has been removed. Why? The second tender word explains what God has done to bring about this change. Their iniquity has been pardoned. God has forgiven them. He has removed their guilt. The third and final tender word has to do with how God has ended their warfare and pardoned their iniquity – they have received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. The Lord Himself has paid their debt.

These tender words spoken to Jerusalem, or “my people,” are also spoken to us as they are accomplished through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is the Word made Flesh, the Tender Word fulfilled in our hearing today as He takes away our guilt, our iniquity, our sin. His death and resurrection marked the end of our warfare with God. His coming was the peace that the world does not know and cannot give us. By His stripes we are healed. His sentence of guilt effectively meant for you and me that our sin was pardoned. The necessary portion was more than enough to cover our shame. Jesus’ wilderness experience on the cross means that double had been paid since He is the sinless Son of God.

Yes, we are an Advent people of prayer who hear, together with the prophets, that God has entered the wilderness of our lives in the person of His One and Only Son Jesus Christ. Jesus brings us peace and meaning to our lives. Today, as we hear the tender words of our children in the Christmas pageant, God Himself comforts us in the wilderness and desert of our lives: Jesus has pardoned us! The struggle is over, and His glory is revealed! His tender words call us to cry out to all the glories of His Name and the Good News of eternal peace that we have in Him.

Pastor Carl