It is hard to comprehend how disastrous were the feelings of the Israelites as they beheld their beloved temple levelled to the ground, their city of Jerusalem consumed in flames, and their people dragged off into captivity in Babylon. What hope could there be, after spending 40 years in bondage?
But Isaiah proclaims to the desolate people a word of promise. “I will make a way in the wilderness,” (where the enslaved people would traverse, trudging back to Jerusalem.) What joy those words would have resounded in the people’s hearts. A new thing was in the making for them.
Sorrows, disappointments, loss, tragedies of all descriptions surround us. We had lunch with a couple who lost a daughter and granddaughter in the New Brunswick massacre.
But often there are new things that open up after a tragedy—a new job, new ways or places of meditation, new friends. And for the believer, there should be new hope for life eternal in this life and in God’s eternal home beyond this life.
May the Lord grant us new things to do, say and believe. Amen. —