Isaiah 40:1-11

As you drive east from my parent's home in East Texas, through the tunnel of trees that is State Highway 154,  you pass through a crossroads community called Little Hope, Texas, with the obligatory Little Hope Baptist Church.  I have always been amused that someone would name a community, much less a church, Little Hope.  I am sure their is a compelling story in the name.

So, what would cause you to have such little hope?  Perhaps, if you had to watch the center of your religious life being destroyed, and then find yourself uprooted from your home and taken into exile in a foreign land.  That is the situation about which the prophet Isaiah writes with such moving poetry:  "Comfort, comfort, my people," says your God, "speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned..."(vs. 1,2).  Now there is a cause for great hope in a time of little hope.  Then Isaiah proclaims: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." (v.3)  Now we know.  In a land of little hope.  God will prepare a way for God's people to go home--to their true home--kneeling at the foot of the manger, there to: "Behold your God!"  There we discover:

"Israel's strength and consolation.  Hope of all the earth Thou art..."

Gracious God, in a world of little hope and even despair, allow us to wait with great hope and eager anticipation the coming of your beloved Son.  Amen.

David M. Evans

Austin Seminary Ambassador and Partner

Director of Seminary Relations