January 14, 2019: Day 44 – Isaiah 40

This is a chapter that requires extensive time to get the whole import of it.  It is hugely powerful, hugely.  Let’s start from the back and work our way forward.  First, look at vss.27-31, these are verses that I read at every celebration of resurrection that we have.  I love this one line: “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.”  It is simply powerful,  and encouraging, and leads you to a place where you really do believe that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

But then if you go back to the beginning of the chapter you find classic Lenten Scriptures that ask God to comfort His people because they have already paid their price for their sins.  The author states that Jerusalem has served her term and that her penalty is paid.  She will get back double of what was taken from her.  In the Jewish law you received double back from someone who stole from you.  So the assumption is that she was robbed.  But then we get the words of John the Baptist who cried out in the wilderness just like the Gospels say that he does.  This is a Scripture that is used often and completely to depict a time (Advent or Lent) when we are waiting for the coming of the King of Kings.  

But notice that the time of waiting is not just waiting, it is a time of preparation for the way of the Lord.  We have to be at work to prepare ourselves and to prepare the world for the coming of the King.  There is so much in this chapter that as I look over each verse after I’ve read it I want to say more.  There is an emphasis that our lives are but grass which the Lord can blow over at any moment.  What a sobering, true statement.  Dwell in this Scripture this week.  Soak it in and allow it to shape and mold you.