A Journey Through Advent: Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021
by the Rev. Canon Doris Westfall,
Canon to the Ordinary
Today's readings: Psalm 96; Isaiah 40:1-11; Matthew 18:12-14
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim that her hard service has been completed.” v. 1
If there was ever a time we needed Advent, it is now. If there was ever a time we needed to hear of God’s promise that our hard service, that our exile from everything we knew about ourselves, one another, and the world was over, today is that day.
All the exhaustion, all the anger, all the uncertainty we have lived with and through these past 21 months is all gathered up tenderly and hopefully in the promise of the coming of the Christ-child. This darkness cannot and will not last forever. The words spoken in Isaiah over two thousand years ago are also meant for us here and now: Comfort, comfort my people, says our God. Speak tenderly to St. Louis, speak tenderly to your neighbor, speak tenderly to yourself, that this hard time will be ended and that God will always be with us.
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