Second Sunday of Advent, December 6

Katja Michael

Isaiah 40:1-11

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

Isaiah 40:1-11 is about the Israelites in the wilderness. Wilderness under slavery in Egypt. Wilderness in another forty years of wandering after crossing through the Red Sea.

Wilderness and hardship and the unknown. After reading and reflecting on the passage, I had bright and distinct knowledge that the COVID-19 crisis and pandemic is our wilderness.

What proof that our Bible rings true in every age and era are the words, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” We are in exile, in the wilderness … not knowing when or how we will all get through this. Despair, depression and confusion abound with a wilderness of opinions clouding our way forward. I don’t think I have ever read a passage and been so struck as to how it could have been written yesterday to cover the world I live in now. We are exiles in our homes and our former lives, waiting on a cure or a vaccine to free us.

We all want and need God’s words of comfort. It doesn’t by any means change that fact that life, with all of its hardships and beauty, goes on. The grass will still wither and the flowers will still fall, but God’s love is reliable and supersedes all of it and brings each of the beautie