And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Reflection
I don’t know about you – but every year, Advent seems to hit a little bit differently.
Some years, it greets us with excitement and expectation. Other years, we arrive carrying more weariness than wonder. Maybe this season meets you in a place of uncertainty, or exhaustion, or simply feeling stretched thin. Maybe you are entering Advent grateful, but tired… or hopeful, but hurting. Maybe you are quietly longing for God to show up in a way you can feel again.
If any of that feels real, Isaiah’s words might just be for you.
Isaiah speaks to a people who have only known exhaustion, dislocation, and disappointment in recent years. Their world has not gone the way they hoped. Their spirits feel worn. Their future feels uncertain. Rejoicing is hard.
And yet, into this heavy silence comes a promise powerful enough to steady any trembling heart: “The glory of the Lord will be revealed.”
Not might be. Not someday in the distant future. Will be.
And this revelation isn’t reserved for the strong, the correct, or the spiritually accomplished. Isaiah insists that “all people will see it together.” God’s glory is not tucked away for a select few—it breaks open over all creation, offering hope to everyone who feels weary, wounded, or worn down by the weight of their own shortcomings and the world’s demands.
This is the heart of Advent: God comes to us.
God meets us in our reality—not after we have fixed it; not when we’ve pulled ourselves together, not once the world is as it should be. God comes to us in the broken fragments of what and where we are now, and promises us divine hope.
But the text tells us that God’s hope does more than soothe; it restores, reorders, and renews. It is tangible and active. It does what we cannot do on our own, though we are certainly invited to participate in it for the sake of the world.
In a weary world, we are invited to rejoice—not because everything is perfect, but because God’s promise is trustworthy. God is already drawing near, revealing glory in hidden places. God is already preparing a way where perhaps we cannot yet even imagine it.
The season of Advent invites us to watch, wait, and work for God’s coming. We are invited to look around with eyes a little wider to catch a glimpse of where God just might be showing up. We are also called to reach our hands a little further to be a place where Emmanuel – God with us – is showing up for others.
by Kate Monahan
For Pondering and Prayer
Where do you need God to draw near in your life in this season of Advent? What hurting places in this world are you inviting God into through your actions?
Emmanuel, God with us –
In a weary world, we rejoice
not because all is as it should be,
But because we believe You are who You say You are;
A God who loves us enough to draw near;
A God who will not forsake this world, even in our own unfaithfulness.
A God who promises to restore and renew.
Amen.
