1 Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.

3 A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

6 A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field.

7 The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.

8 The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

9 Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”

10 See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.

21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;

23 who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.

25 To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.

26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.

27Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God?

28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;

31 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’ ”

Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.  Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruit worthy of repentance.  Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.  Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Commentary

We read the words from Isaiah together today because I want you to feel them for yourself.

Isaiah was written some 600 years before the birth of Christ. The book was written during the Babylonian exile. That term refers to the fact that the kingdom of Babylon, what is now Iraq, had in that time frame conquered the Jewish kingdom, destroyed Jerusalem, and taken a large portion of the population as slaves with them when they returned home. So the Jewish people to whom Isaiah was writing were living as slaves in a foreign country. They had been herded by caravan the more than 900 miles in a journey that could have taken as much as 4 months. And they remained there for generations.

The first word Isaiah says is Comfort, and the second thing he says is that the sins of the Jewish people have been forgiven. One of the amazing strengths of the Jewish people is that they have the memory of elephants. Their bible preserves the record of their history PRE exile. Prophets before the exile warned that Jerusalem would be destroyed because it had wandered from God. So to the exiles in Babylon it was clear. They were there because of their prior sins, and they would remain there until God forgave them.

Isaiah says that day is coming, soon; and he reminds them of what it can be like to live under God's wing.

“See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”

This is what Isaiah says it will be like to live again in God's good graces.

Now jump ahead 600 years, and here is John the Baptist on the banks of the river Jordan, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

At this point the Jewish people have been freed from slavery, They have returned to Judah, and rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple. Baptism, as a cleansing of sin, is at this point a common Jewish practice. And the people are coming out in droves to be baptized by John.

Now it is nearly 19 miles from Jerusalem to the Jordan river. There are no cars or buses or trains. The journey is by foot. And John is a homeless person. He dresses in camels skins, and eats locusts and wild honey. And to top it all off, he promises that the unworthy will burn with unquenchable fire. And still the people are coming. Including the rich and the famous. So what is going on here?

The author of Matthew suggests that what is happening is that the people see in John, a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah. If you look carefully at the positioning of the quotes in our reading, you will see that John himself makes no such claim. His quote is limited to the straight forward, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The words that follow are attributed to Isaiah, not John. But let's go with the flow. I'll assume that the author is telling us that this connection is not just something he stuck into the text, but is foremost in the minds of those coming out for baptism. They are acting on words written 600 years ago. In spite of having been freed from slavery, having rebuilt Jerusalem and in general living pretty well, they are still WAITING for the words of Isaiah. They are waiting to mount up with wings like eagles, to run and not be weary, and to walk and not faint.

This is the spirit of Advent that the church is encouraging us to experience. We know from our vantage point in 2022 that Jesus too will come to be baptized. But we aren't there yet. Today we are still waiting with the folks on the banks of the Jordan.

Let us repent, for the kingdom of heaven is coming near.