The wastelands will see the glory of God, and the deserts will begin to sprout and flower. They are signs of hope. Hoping is a strength received from trusting in freedom.
Human lives also may be left desolate, an unattended garden though we desire to live our lives in its fullness.
Strengthen all weary hands,
steady all trembling knees
and say to all faint hearts,
‘Courage! Do not be afraid (Is 35/3,4)
Perhaps we are not opened to such a possibility of transformation, but rather stagnated in the customary practices, especially of religion. Often we are not able to grow from the religious practices to living of faith. So the voice crying out in the wilderness remains a mere sound, not understood as a word. It is a deep pain.
When the Lord says, “Comfort my people,” the consolation primarily we require is that of being freed from such stagnation and suffocation. ‘Being found’ is a tremendous experience of consolation. We shall never be called ‘forsaken,’ but there is a new experience of belonging. As we await the saviour, the waiting, being ready to be consoled, is itself joyous. This is the way the voice asking us to prepare for him.
The ultimate consolation is the coming of the Saviour, revealed and realised in us (individually and as one body of the faithful). How consoling experience it is! That will surely happen, we being found and consoled by God with affirming words, “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
Lumen Gentium 48 tells of it as, "already the final age of the world has come upon us (Cf 1 Cor. 10. 11.) and the renovation of the world is irrevocably decreed and is already anticipated in some kind of a real way." It is the work of Christ himself; leading all people to himself, filling them with His Spirit, and through the church joining all more closely to himself. When we know it, realise it, that will be the powerful experience of the coming of the Messiah.
