Advent Week 2: Peace
Read Isaiah 40: 1-10, then reread verse 2.
“Comfort, comfort my people” are the opening words to our key passage this week, the second week of Advent. These words, spoken by the Lord to Isaiah, were meant for the Jews living in captivity in Babylon. It prophesies of their deliverance; when their dark days would soon be over and their sins would be forgiven.
Jerusalem needed comfort. We need comfort, and the Lord has much to give. Not in the way of false hope, silver linings and hollow, positive thinking, but with tender and true reasons to be comforted and to live comforted. And isn’t that what we really need? Isn’t that what we long for, look for in the whims of everyday and in our constant search for meaning and gratification?
Take a second look at verse 2 and see the many reasons why we can take comfort. “Her sad days are gone” (NLT), and in our translation, “her warfare is ended”. The days of trouble – of captivity – were numbered and would be finished. And what a prophetic message and promise that echoes the very last breath and words uttered by Christ himself – “It is finished” (John 19:30).
It is finished and it is accomplished, our warfare is ended. This promise brings such hope, such assurance, and offers a pathway to peace when our daily battles loom heavy overhead.
And all our sins pardoned? This is even greater comfort. To be recognized as a sinner and yet to be fully pardoned, our guilt completely removed from us. Not for anything we have done but because our sin has been paid for – twice over – because of the coming Savior and because of the cross. This is what we look forward to as we celebrate Advent. We prepare our hearts for the greatest gift of mercy and we stake our peace on this promise of Jesus.
And that is why the next set of verses shifts to preparation, to making a way for the Lord. The real preparation takes place within our hearts, and we see Isaiah depicting how every obstacle must be removed; “the crooked places made straight and the rough places smooth”. But how do we prepare our hearts?
Reading these verses can feel like a massive weight of responsibility to prepare ourselves to make Him room. To right all of our wrongs, to clean up all of our messes – yes, it is hard work. But this is the beautiful gift of grace, friend. We get our heart level to this gift by exalting our dejection and despondency (hopelessness), by surrendering our pride and making our self-made mountains low, by straightening out the crooked paths and ways that we have distorted the words and ways of the Lord. When we prepare our hearts, when we bow low and get level to this gift of grace, this grace levels our heart in return and prepares the way of the Lord right into our heart.
This is what Advent is about, this is the true meaning of Christmas. To make Him room in our hearts. To allow His way of peace to unfold and fill every crack of our heart, soften every hard place. To behold Him, because He is the Good Shepherd who tends to his flock, whose greatness is as firm as the mountains, whose Word stands forever and ever.
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Reflect
Our true peace lies in the promise of our pardoning, that all of our sin will be wiped away and completely forgotten. But we don’t come to the realization of this gift without some intentional effort and purposeful awareness. Charles Spurgeon says, “He that will not hear the gospel of peace, shall never know the peace of the gospel. If you will not hear the Holy Spirit when he warns you of your sin, neither shall you hear him revealing peace through pardon.”
How can you make it a priority this season to prepare your heart for the Lord? How is He inviting you to make a way for Him, how is He inviting you to be levelled by His grace?
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