The LORD Will Answer

 The LORD Will Answer

Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

Piety

The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain, their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open up rivers on the bare heights and fountains in the broad valleys; I will turn the desert into a marshland, and the dry ground into springs of water. I will plant in the desert the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive; I will set in the wasteland the cypress, together with the plane tree and the pine, that all may see and know, observe and understand, That the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it. (Isaiah 41:17-18)

Jesus said to the crowds: “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (Matthew 11:11)

Study

Today’s readings seem to be less about something to “study” and more about something to be experienced and enjoyed by all the senses. Isaiah paints a pastoral landscape where there was a wasteland. He wants us to use the imagination of our eyes, our ears, and all of our senses to get in touch with God’s creation-gift. From that gift springs our faith.

Even a little faith is a powerful and dangerous ingredient. Elsewhere Mark’s Good News tells us that faith only the size of a tiny mustard seed is enough to move a mountain and fling it into the sea. Isaiah adds, “With a little faith, we can thresh mountains and crush them, make the hills like the chaff of wheat to be blown away in the wind.”

The mountains are the physical and spiritual obstacles we encounter that get in the way of our friendship with God and each other. Maybe it is a disagreement with our pastor or bishop. Perhaps it is a conflict with another parishioner.  Fortunately, throughout time, we have had the prophets and the law to guide us. Now, as we read in Advent, we have the final voice crying out in the wilderness, the voice of “Cousin” John, calling for us to change the direction in which we are looking for happiness and turn to the Lord.

Action

Have you ever hiked up to the top of a mountain? Maybe you walked up Virginia’s Old Rag Mountain or some other location in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains. Or maybe you were driving out west and stopped somewhere in Colorado to admire a vista of the Rocky Mountains. Or perhaps on a trip to the Pacific Northwest, you took a side trip to Mount Rainer or Mount St. Helens.

Whether in these locations or someplace else, remember the awesome sense you experienced seeing the world laid out before that mountain for you to see. The gift of those creation vistas as like the gifts recalled to by Isaiah today. Such beauty was carved out of nothing by God and set before our feet, our body, our eyes.

As we experience a locked-down, vaccine-anticipating winter season of COVID-19 isolation, grey skies, dark early nights, and cold temperatures, it is hard to remember these verdant landscapes. We don’t need a “Lexus December to Remember,” or the latest “Black Friday” deals at Wal-Mart. We don’t even need a “kiss” that begins with Kay. John, not Madison Avenue, not K Street, not Wall Street, and certainly not Hollywood nor Vine, only John and then Jesus orients us in the direction we need. No matter what forces try to keep us from getting closer to God, John is there as a compass to always point us to the true north.