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Tuesday 17 December
A Voice in the Wilderness
By Susannah Rose Morgan
Isaiah 40:1-11
Isaiah 40:1-11 paints a vivid picture of hope and restoration, as God speaks to His people during a time of despair.
“Comfort, O comfort my people” serves as both a call to action and a message of reassurance. Our world often feels chaotic and overwhelming, dominated by war, political turmoil, and personal struggles. Yet our reading gives us a glimpse of hope. We hear that the very ground beneath our feet will shift and fundamentally change through divine upheaval. Hills will be lowered, valleys raised, and uneven ground will be levelled.
I can’t help but draw a connection between this flatter, more accessible world to come and UK Disability History Month (14th November – 20th December). It is a reminder that true justice and inclusion require a fundamental reordering of the systems and assumptions that shape our lives. In this wilderness where despair and chaos run freely, a voice cries out boldly, for it is in this very desolationthat God’s voice speaks loudest. As Christians, we are called not only to hear the voice in the wilderness but to be that voice. Like John the Baptist, who echoed Isaiah’s words centuries later, we are to prepare the way for Christ in our own communities. This might mean offering comfort to those who feel forgotten, or speaking hope into situations that seem hopeless.
This voice is calling us to inhabit an embodied theology of actionas we anticipate the birth of Christ. In the Incarnationat Christmas, God becomes disabled and takes on the limitations of human flesh, which in a post-lapsarian world entails sickness, suffering, and injury. This humbling of divinity gives voice to our flawed bodies, inviting us to recognise our own failings.
We as Christians are called to lift our voices with strength, proclaiming good news even in the midst of uncertainty. While humanity falters as the grass withers, God’s enduring word reminds us that we are accepted in all our messiness. God’s forgiveness of Zion and invitation of renewal at the beginning of this passage is echoed in His ongoing call to us: to prepare the way to lift others up, care for our neighbours, and strive for a world where all may flourish.
In this Advent season, may we find courage to cry out in our wildernesses and take action, trusting in the promise of a brighter, better future through Christ.
Isaiah 40:1-11
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.
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.
A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
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.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
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.
The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever.
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!’
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.
