"Comfort Mountain" Isaiah 40:1-11

There’s an idea that’s never far from my thoughts. The material universe is too complex, too interconnected, too fragile, to have simply happened as a result of random chance over the course of billions of years. I can’t get myself to believe reality just spontaneously became what it is without a Creator. It seems obvious to me that all this was intentional. Designed. It seems obvious to me that God exists.

But that’s not necessarily comforting. Because along with all the awesome wonder of the material universe, there’s also pain and death and suffering and all the dark wickedness that comes along with it. So, it might be clear that there’s a God but it’s not so clear that He’s good.

This is where faith in Jesus comes in. The Christian faith says that the oldest of all the religions who claim God is a knowable person—the God of the Hebrews known as Yahweh—the One who created everything—We believe He’s the One who sent His Son to be born as a man, die to save His creation from sin, come back from the dead and promise life to all who repent and believe. 

That might sound like a stretch but it sure beats the heck out of trying to imagine everything that exists just happened on its own. That’d be like walking into a Lego store and thinking, “It’s amazing how all these little plastic bricks just fell out of the sky and landed in the shape of the Star Wars Space Command Center!” Nobody would think that. Also, where did the little plastic bricks come from? And who made the sky. Like I said, I can’t get myself to believe the universe just happened.

And if God did create everything, then the only way all this makes any sense is through the teachings and wisdom of Jesus. It’s the only worldview that offers sanity. It’s the only explanation that gives meaning to pain and suffering. The way of Jesus, His teachings on love and grace are the only way to make any sense out of this life.

Maybe you disagree but that’s Christianity in a nutshell, it’s why we show up here on Sundays. For us, Jesus is at the center and meaning of everything else. God created. Mankind sinned and broke it. Jesus came to fix it. We show up here to remember God’s wisdom, how to make sense out of this life, and remind each other of the hope Jesus promised us.

On this second Sunday of Advent, once again we’re in Isaiah. This is a traditional text for the third Sunday before Christmas. I love this text—Isaiah is the man. Probably the most articulate of all the authors in the Bible. He wrote his prophecies 700 years before Jesus. He was the main prophet and advisor to King Hezekiah, one of Israel's better kings.

The Book of Isaiah reads a lot like the Psalms. Most of it is beautiful poetry. It’s been called “The Bible in Miniature”—and not just because it has 66 chapters that seem to track with the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. Although, you have to admit, that’s pretty cool.

Isaiah covers all the main themes of the rest of the Bible in wonderful detail. It’s mostly poetry but it also has some historical narrative, and blunt preaching. He covers judgment, salvation, redemption—and talks a lot about the Messiah. The central theme is the hope that is promised in the coming Savior—God’s plan for saving humanity through Jesus Christ.

It’s also interesting that the Old Testament has 39 books and the New Testament has 27. And although there is plenty of grace and love in the Old Testament if you know where to look for it—with the coming of Jesus in the New Testament, there is obviously a gigantic emphasis on grace that happens as a result of the Gospel. Starting with the Christmas story in Bethlehem, the teaching about the kingdom of God, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the promise of eternal life for everyone who believes—the New Testament is an explosion of hope and comfort.

So, it’s worth pointing out that the first 39 chapters of Isaiah are pretty focused on how the people of God have lost their way and need to repent. Lots of warning that bad things are going to happen if they don’t. And they didn’t, so bad things happened. 

The difference between a wise person and a fool boils down to whether talking to them helps or not. A wise person can hear what you tell them, see the error of their ways, and change. A fool doesn’t listen, won’t listen, and doesn’t learn without consequences. Talking with a fool is a waste of time, they’re just waiting for you to stop talking so they can get back to their foolishness. The people of Israel were foolish. They ignored God and acted like all the unbelievers who surrounded them. So God sent some of those really cool unbelievers they seemed to admire so much to destroy everything and carry them away into captivity like slaves. Pretty extreme consequences, right? They had been warned, again and again, for over two hundred years, but they didn’t listen, so the bad things happened.

But that’s not the end. God was just trying to get their attention.

Suddenly in chapter 40, the message takes a very hopeful turn. Like I said, 39 chapters that sound like the Old Testament and then all of a sudden… Well, just listen—Isaiah chapter forty… 

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, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. Isaiah 40:1-2

The original audience for this message was the people of God who wouldn’t get their act together and were walking like fools straight into exile in Babylon. They needed to hear this message before it happened so they wouldn’t lose their hope—their faith in God—when everything went horribly wrong. When the Babylonian barbarians came over the hill and carried them off as captives, I’m sure some people were like, “See, there is no God! Why would He let such terrible things happen?” But others, who paid a little more attention to Isaiah, they said, “Actually, this is exactly what God said was going to happen if we didn’t cancel our subscriptions to “Wet and Wild Canaanite Girls Gone Wild Party-time.” Canaanite worship services were all about sex and drugs—too many of the Hebrews thought they were a lot more exciting than those old-fashioned BBQ and prayer services at the temple in Jerusalem. They were warned but they didn’t listen. When the bad things happened as a result, it probably got their attention. So, imagine how comforting this message was to the people who spent all those years as prisoners of Babylon—especially when they were finally set free, and allowed to go back home just like Isaiah had said. Comfort, comfort. The war is over. Your sins are forgiven. You can go home. Man! There is a God!

But that’s not the end of it, Isaiah is also talking to the people of God at the time of Jesus. Actually, he’s talking more to them than the people of his own time. 

The people who are actually going to be comforted, actually going to be forgiven, actually receive a double blessing are the people of the New Testament starting 700 years later. How do we know this? Listen to what he says next…  

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Isaiah 40:3-4

That’s John the Baptist language. He preached repentance. Which is what it means by “make straight in the desert a highway for our God, for valleys to be raised and mountains to be flattened.”

In the ancient world, when the king was coming to town, they were expected to build a road. To make the path smooth. This is a command to the people to prepare the way for their king to arrive.

I grew up in Illinois. It’s even more flat there than it is here in Houston—if you can imagine. I went to college in Missouri where they have all these pretty hills. I read all this stuff about leveling out the mountains and I thought, “Why would God want to make everything like Illinois?”

That’s not the point. The point is to prepare for the arrival of the Lord. 

The way they build roads in Missouri, a lot of times they would cut right through the steepest of the hills—you’d be driving on a road with rock walls towering on either side. 

That’s the kind of thing it’s talking about when it says to make a straight path for the arrival of the Lord. 

Remember, Advent means “arrival.” It’s a time of preparing for our Lord and King to show up. So, how do we do that? Because I don’t think we’re talking about building literal roads here.

Let’s take a quick peek at the Gospel of Mark where we meet John the Baptist. Chapter one, verse two,

“As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Mark 1:2-5

(Then it talks about how he dressed kind of weird and acted a bit strange—giving hope that God loves weirdos like me, too) And he preached, saying,

“After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Mark 1:7-8

People don’t seem to understand the relationship between the New Testament and Old Testament. Especially American Christians because we think anything “old” is bad and needs to be replaced. We definitely should not look at the Old Testament that way. The Old Testament is the word of God. Scripture. The New Testament is also Scripture but it’s also an inspired commentary on the Old Testament—it explains what everything means now that Christ has come. All of the Old Testament points to Jesus and the New Testament explains how that works. It always works something like this: The Old Testament points to Jesus, and Jesus makes it apply to you. 

Isaiah was talking about Jesus, and everything he said almost 3,000 years ago applies to you and me—because of Jesus.

So, the New Testament says Isaiah 40 was talking about John the Baptist. What was John’s message? How does it apply to us? Well, John told them to “repent, straighten up, get ready for Jesus. The One who’s greater than me, mightier than me—I baptize with water so your sins can be forgiven” but He’s going to do a lot more than that. Yes, He’ll forgive your sins but He’s also going to put His Spirit in you—baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Not only forgiven but also made holy. That’s a whole new level of clean. Sanctified. 

Let’s say you did a crime and were going to jail for it. If you admit your crime, repent, John could get you off the hook—his baptism of repentance would keep you out of jail—forgive your sins. But you’d be back on the street in your old life, probably just a matter of time before you stood in front of the judge again.

Jesus does a lot more than that. Yes, He pardons your sin. Yes, repentance is still involved. Yes, you’re forgiven. But then He gives you a new life. A new identity. It’s like going into the witness protection program. He brings you into His family. Gives you His holy name. Gives you a new purpose. A whole new life.

So, John’s ultimate message is a message of redirection. Repentance—away from your sin but not just away from your sin. Repentance toward Jesus. Turn away from the old life and turn toward the new. 

One of the things the Law does (God’s Commandments) is act as a mirror—it shows us our sin, how we have failed to live the way God told us to. But sometimes we act like a teenager who’s obsessed with looking at their pimples—we need to look in the mirror, see our sins, but then we need to put it down and get on with our life. Redirection. Away from yourself and toward Jesus. 

So, when we repent, when we make the path straight, when we get back on track, when the valleys are brought up and the mountains are flattened, when we get our eyes off ourselves, we’re able to see—and what do we see? We see this … 

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Isaiah 40:5

We see the glory of the LORD. The glory of God. When we repent of our sin, turn toward His holiness, when we turn toward Him, away from ourselves—when we put the mirror down—we see God’s glory.

What is that? What is God’s glory? It’s His majesty. His splendor. His beauty. I mean, yes, it’s all those things. But it’s more than that.

One of my seminary professors was talking about the Glory of God and said something I thought was amazing, he said, “Glory is what happens when God’s holiness enters His creation.” When God’s perfect holiness enters His creation, it’s like a chemical reaction—an explosion of Glory. 

Isaiah said, “And all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

This is Jesus coming at the end of time language—and all flesh shall see Him. No one is going to mistake the King of Glory for anyone else. Isaiah saw all the way to the end.

John the Baptist is the voice crying in the wilderness that Isaiah was talking about. And John’s job was to make the way straight for Jesus, the Son of God. The One who will save His people from death and give them eternal life.

What was the point of everything John said? Let’s look at Isaiah again… 

A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Isaiah 40:6-8

John said, “You’ve all sinned, fallen short of the glory of God, and you’re going to die—like flowers.” He’s a bleak one, that John. “Your life is like grass. When the breath of God, His Spirit, His judgment—when we in our sin are exposed to God’s holiness—His glory—then like a chemical reaction, like when light hits a shadow—we shrivel up and disappear. 

God, in His raw power and might is like the brightest light you can possibly imagine—and we’re all like shadows. We wouldn’t survive in His presence.

It’s not what God wants for you.

That’s why Jesus came to earth. He became flesh. He took all your darkness, all your sin—He took it on Himself and let it all burn off in the presence of God’s glory. He did that on the cross. Even better than that, He gives you His Spirit (“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”) so you’ll be able to stand in God’s presence, too. He rose from the dead and promises to do the same for you.

Remember what I said last week about when we see the word “behold?” It means, “Look here! There’s going to be something absolutely amazing.”

Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. Isaiah 40:9-10

That’s a lot of “beholds.”

A couple years ago we went to Colorado for a little vacation. I found an AirBnB that was a cabin in the woods at the top of a mountain. It was awesome. The problem was, I drive a minivan. I love my car but it’s not designed for off road adventures. 

It was a little scary but we made it to the cabin.

One day we were sightseeing and found ourselves driving up a very steep twisty dirt road—I mean, you could look out the window and see treetops WAY DOWN THERE. The other window was just a rock wall. Couldn’t see where we were going, there was no turning around. I kept thinking, “This is not the kind of odyssey my Honda was designed for.” I’m gripping the steering wheel with both hands and my fingers are turning blue. Kim and the kids are having a very different experience—they have the sunroof open and are all standing up in the car with their bodies sticking out, taking it all in. Then all of a sudden we come around a bend and the view opens up—Behold! We could see as far as the horizon goes. It was breathtaking.

Someone had made that road—carved it out of the mountain. Just so people like us could get to the top and see. Behold!

“Go up on a high mountain—I’m talking to you, people of God—this is what you’ll see: You don’t have to be afraid. Not of your flesh that’s like grass. Not of death. Because God has made a promise to you through Jesus. You’ll see the King of Glory, Almighty God, who is filled with power and might—He has come to make amends for all your sins, all your pain, all your fears, all your suffering. It’s breathtaking. Lift up your voice and shout this good news so everyone can hear! Tell the world this good news—this Gospel.

And, yes, He is more glorious and powerful than you can possibly imagine—and you might be tempted to be intimidated and frightened by Him. God is an awesome and powerful God. But also, listen to… 

He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. Isaiah 40:11

Comfort, comfort for my people. Prepare the way for the King. The Messiah. So powerful, but so gentle. Almighty God came to earth but He came as the Good Shepherd. He came to find you and pick you up—carry you back home where you belong. 

People seem to view God as either a mighty and powerful terrifying being who must be feared and reverently respected—or as gentle Jesus, meek and mild, a hippy shepherd philosopher who couldn’t hurt a fly.

But He is both. He’s always both. He is not our good and great God if He isn’t both. Strong and mighty enough to create the universe and uncreate it if He wanted to—and also tender and gentle enough to handle the most fragile of sinners without harming us.

These ideas should never be far from our mind: God created. We sinned and tried to break everything. We act like fools. But Jesus came to save us from ourselves, and for all of us who repent and believe, He’s coming again to completely restore us and fix everything in creation for good. Will you listen to the message? Can you hear it? If so, shout it from the mountains! Comfort, comfort for my people. Behold your God! This is good news. 

It’s my hope that you can hear what I’m saying today, I mean really hear it, not like a fool who’s just waiting for the preacher to stop talking—but as a wise person who will listen and let what they hear make a difference. AMEN