Hope in a Young and Wearied World: An Advent Reflection

Phaedra Taylor, “Christ the King: Advent [detail]” (Encaustic on wood, 2018)

An Advent Reflection on Isaiah 35:1-10

I don’t know if my pecan trees were old and tired or, like many of us in our contemporary world, young and tired. 

A number of years ago I lived in a neighborhood, in Austin, where pecan trees rose hundred feet high into the burning Texas sky. They stood in our backyard like towering reddish-brown canopies, silent bearers of an uncommonly delicious buttery nut.

But that year they turned strange. All summer long I watched them falling apart, losing limbs, warping and straining, with a kind of wild fever. Thick, scaly branches ripped away, cracking the air with an unnerving screeching sound, then plummeted to the hard earth.

All down my block, branches crashed on top of cars and roofs and lawns, resulting in a great whine of chainsaws at any time of day or night. 

Good things that should have been strong and enduring were falling apart: not just trees but also, as I observed life around me, marriages, childhood dreams, long-standing friendships, a beautiful pair of shoes, faith in God.

Seeing so much brokenness, for any one of us, could easily make us feel desperately sad. Dysfunctions at home, troubles at work, fractures and failures in world at large—it all adds up, especially when piled on top of each other, to an invitation to despair.

But the words of the prophet Isaiah interrupt our downward spiral. Here, in the 35th chapter of his message to the exiles of Israel, he speaks a word of encouragement:

“Hold on, dear pilgrim. Hang in there. Brokenness will not have the last word.”

The Lord speaks:

Strengthen weakened hands

Make firm feeble knees

Say to those who are fearful-hearted:

“Be strong!  Do not fear!”

Blind, deaf, lame and dumb, of both body and heart, will be made whole. Wastelands will blossom. Hot sands will become a cool oasis. Wrongs will be made right. The redeemed will come dancing home with halos of joy.

There is a tiredness in the earth, I suppose, that has nothing to do with age. It is the tiredness of living in a world where things regularly, and often mercilessly, fall apart. Things break down without warning and often without a means of quick repair. Yet the prophet calls out to us:

“Dear pilgrim, take hope. Don’t give up. Hold on and trust God.”

Gladness and joy shall overtake thee,

Sorrows and sighing shall flee away.

This is a word that I never stop needing to hear. Maybe it is a word that you need to hear, too. If so, may you know afresh, this day, that the things that are broken in your life—and that tempt you to believe that they will always be hopelessly broken—will not have the last word.

Hope will yet come. Broken things will be healed. Lost things will be found. Joy will return.