Monday, December 13, 2004
Week Three, Day Two

Yesterday, we talked about finding a good reason to sing “Joy to the World.”  Those who venture in faith into the wilderness do find rejoicing, blossoming, and a new be- ginning.  Isaiah 35:5 gives us the reason that occasions this divine joy:  “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped”.  God gives us a new way of seeing and hearing. Let’s explore together this new seeing and hearing.

Those of us who persevere in our wilderness trek are taught a painful truth.  We discover how addicted we are to seeing only what we want to see and hearing what we want to hear.  We know what is right and wrong.  And we know who is right and wrong.  We see and hear and judge everything from standards we thought were God’s – when in fact they are our own.  An unbearable pain hits when we realize that everything and everyone is found wanting by these standards.  God is found wanting or absent or non-existent.  Others are found wanting. 

When it strikes us that we are also found wanting before our own godlike standards, we experience one of the things that makes a wilderness the dark place it is.  We despair.  We despair of everything and everyone.

Yet hope and promise can reach us in such a place.  It comes as a Divine Whisper that may reach us through a prayer, a reading, a Scripture story, or the love of a spouse and/or loyal friend.  In a tone of merciful understanding, we hear the Divine Whisper say:  “Could it be that the problem lies with the standard you have used which finds Me, others, and yourself wanting?”  

When we heed this Whisper and let It become the defining Word in our lives, a mysterious transformation takes place in us. We are given new sight and new hearing.  The grand gift God gives to us in Christ’s birth in our wilderness place is the capacity to see and hear as God sees and hears.  It is truly not our standard, yet it truly is in us.  We are given a new a capacity to see those around us and, especially ourselves, with eyes of mercy and compassion.  We are surprised to see that there is a Holy Way in the wilderness where we can join other faithful pilgrims who have found the new sight and hearing with which God is now gracing us.

 This time of new seeing and hearing certainly does not end our trek. Our old way of seeing and hearing does return. But seeing the Holy Way and joining fellow pilgrims on it does mark a new chapter. Isaiah tells us “the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people, no traveler, not even fools shall go astray.”(vs. 8b) With our newfound capacity to see anew, the truth of God has gained a foothold in us that pulls us back when we go astray.

When our old standards arise in us, we see how foolish they are in the light of the divine love that is ours on God’s Holy Way. With Isaiah we sing:  (v. 10)

“The ransomed of the LORD shall return
And come to Zion singing;
Everlasting joy shall be upon their  heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” 

That is the promise to and the reality of those graced by God with new sight and new hearing.

Prayer:  Thank you God for the new sight that comes from the mercy and healing You pour into our hearts through Christ.  Amen.