[RCL] Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8 The first sentences of the Old Testament reading will be familiar to many as the opening words of Handel’s masterpiece, The Messiah. “‘Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye my people,’ says your God!” It would be difficult to estimate the millions of people who have heard orchestras,…

[RCL] Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8 The perennial challenge during Advent and Christmastime is to hear anew the familiar story we all know. We all know the story. We’ve all seen the Christmas pageants. We’ve set up the Nativity crèche with the holy family, cow, donkey, and shepherds. It’s become…

Comfort, O comfort. There is so much need for comfort in this world of heartbreak where we find ourselves. Every day, we hear new stories of how we have failed each other, how we have used our talents, gifts, power, and position to maneuver our way to “success” at the expense of so many others….

“Comfort ye! … Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain made low.” What heart-lifting words we hear from our God shouted across the millennia into our very own day. Isaiah offers us images in just 11 verses that have become the focus of artists and musicians who have turned the words into pictures…

In 2009 the Dutch filmmaker Enno de Jonge returned to Rio de Janeiro to find the street children he had photographed eighteen years before. He started his search where he had begun the project, at St. Martin’s Foundation. St. Martin’s is a citywide program for street children run by the Roman Catholic Carmelite order in…

We encounter two voices crying out from the wilderness on this Second Sunday of Advent. The prophet Isaiah calls, “Comfort, O Comfort My People,” and John the Baptist shouts, “Prepare the Way of the Lord.” These stories are joined by more than the prophetic voice. In both our gospel reading and the reading from Isaiah,…

In the year 539 BC, Cyrus, the ruler of the Persians, conquered the Babylonians. A relatively benign and tolerant ruler, in the following year Cyrus allowed the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and Judea and resume their customs and traditions, provided that they recognized his authority. Around the time of Cyrus’ decree, the prophet…

“Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye my people,” says your God!It would be difficult to estimate the millions of people who have heard orchestras, soloists, and choirs proclaiming these words of hope and the promise of deliverance from the oppression, despair, and sin of the world. The Messiah has been called the most influential and widely performed…

John appears extreme, but he is fundamental. He begins in the wilderness baptizing the multitude with water. John is the first born, barely having clothes on his back; eating what he can grope for. John rasps Apocalypse, then cleanses the people of their sin. Baptism by water is the first of our parenting; baptism by…