Comfort, Comfort: Make a Road in the Wilderness

King Hezekiah had shown the visitors from Babylon
every treasure in his palace,
the silver and the gold, the spices and the oil,
right down to the last jar in the storeroom.

When they had gone, Isaiah came to see him.
"A day is coming," Isaiah said,
"when everything in this house
will be carried off to Babylon.
Nothing will be left."

Long after Hezekiah was gone, it happened, just as Isaiah said.
God's people turned from God again and again,
until Babylon's army came.
Many were killed.
The temple burned,
and many who were left were marched away
to a land far from home.

But God had already given Isaiah words
for those people, far away by Babylon's rivers:

"Comfort, comfort my people,"
says your God.
"Speak kindly to Jerusalem.
Call out to her
that her hard days are over,
that her sin has been paid for."

(God said comfort twice.
Some words are too good to say only once.)

Then a voice called out:
"Make a road for the LORD in the wilderness!
Make a straight highway in the desert for our God!
Fill in every valley.
Bring every mountain and hill down low.
Make the bumpy ground flat
and the rough places smooth.
Then the glory of the LORD will be seen,
and all people will see it together."

(In those days, when a great king was coming,
workers ran ahead to smooth his road.
This King wanted the mountains moved.
That is a lot of shovels.)

Another voice said, "Call out!"
"What should I call?" Isaiah asked.

"People are like grass.
They are like flowers in a field.
The grass dries up and the flower drops
when the breath of the LORD blows on them.
The grass dries up and the flower drops,
but the word of our God stands forever."

Grandfathers die, and soldiers, and kings,
even the kings of Babylon.
God's word would still be standing.

Then Isaiah heard a call to Jerusalem:
"Climb a high mountain, you with good news!
Shout it, and don't be afraid!
Tell the towns of Judah,
'Here is your God!'
Look, the Lord GOD is coming with power.
He takes care of his flock like a shepherd.
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart.
He gently leads the mother sheep
who have young ones."

Years later Cyrus, the king who conquered Babylon, let God's people go home.
They crossed the desert and built the temple again.
Nobody saw a single mountain move.
Old men who remembered the first temple
cried at how plain the new one was.
They were home,
and still they waited for their God to come.

For more than five hundred years, nobody built the LORD's highway.
Then, out in the wilderness by the Jordan River,
a man in camel hair began to shout,
"Get the road ready for the Lord!"
His name was John.

And along that road came someone else.
He took children up in his arms.
"I am the good shepherd," he said.
"I lay down my life for the sheep."

Long ago, Isaiah's poem had shouted, "Here is your God!"
And here he was, walking John's road:
Jesus, the Shepherd himself,
with the children in his arms.