Wilderness: barren wasteland; scorching desert by day; bone-chilling badlands at night. Wilderness is the territory of danger and desolation. Jackals prey in the wild; marauders raid from the shadows; nothingness extends beyond the horizon in every God-forsaken direction. It is the province of the outcast, the exiled, the refugee fleeing from terror, the wanderer without a home or a safe place to rest.
In today’s text, Jerusalem has fallen to Nebuchadnezzar’s army. The Babylonians have destroyed the Temple and carried the leading citizens from their homeland into Babylonian captivity. They find themselves despised, oppressed, displaced, and dispossessed. They fear they have wrought God’s wrath, that God has judged them and found them detestable, that God has abandoned them to the schemes and shackles of their captors.
And against all hope, God speaks to them with tenderness. Of all things, God says, “Comfort my people.” God is with them. However deep the valley of despair, however high the mountain of oppression; however rough and uneven the barren ground of hunger and affliction, the compassionate God is with them. And God’s compassion brings the balm of comfort.
We often find ourselves in the wilderness as well. Vast arid plains of grief; the endless glare of aloneness; sweltering canyons of persecution; swirling sandstorms of despair; the soul-stealing pillagers of violence and poverty, bigotry and injustice. Our hearts cry out. How long can we go on depleted and beaten down, banished and abandoned?
Isaiah reminds us that God hears our Advent cry and speaks a tender word. A word that will stand forever. “Comfort. Take comfort. I am with you. Even in the wilderness.”