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Our text centers on God's promised action in the wilderness. Have you ever seen photographs of the wilderness areas in the land of the Bible; for example today's Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran? The wilderness is a rocky, dry, and barren space. In the same day, temperatures may vary from a blazing 100 degrees Fahrenheit to nearly freezing. Food and water are scarce. Wild beasts and even bandits prowl around seeking to devour unsuspecting travelers. The wilderness can be a very scary and lonely space. It's easy to get lost there, far from home with no hope, no help, and no support in sight. In the wilderness spaces of our lives, one can feel abandoned even by God.

In today's lesson, the people of God have been living as exiles in Babylon approximately 500 miles from their homeland. The mighty Babylonian army, under King Nebuchadnezzar, had conquered Judah, shattered the city walls of Jerusalem, and left the Jerusalem temple in ruins. As was the custom in those days, conquering armies would relocate thousands of leading citizens in order to prevent any organized rebellion. The only way home was through this vast, frightening, and overwhelming wilderness. Perhaps even God had forgotten them. Their hands were weak, their knees had grown feeble, and their hearts had become fearful. There appeared to be no hope, no help, and no way to be restored and renewed.

You know, sometimes it may seem as if we are also living in a wilderness -- a barren desert bereft of all hope for deliverance. Our families and friends don't understand our fears. Our world is in chaos. If anything can go wrong, it does. Even the little things of daily life become insurmountable obstacles for our fainting hearts and feeble knees.

One Advent season, while shopping in a crowded mall, I noticed a group of young people walking the corridors, cheerfully chanting, "Shop 'til you drop! Shop 'til you drop!" My immediate, though silent, response was the "Bah, humbug!" of Ebenezer Scrooge. Exhausted and frustrated with the "busy-ness" of this season, I wanted to crawl into bed and pull up the covers until January second. In our wilderness, there is never enough time, never enough money, never enough understanding, and never enough love. Our hands are weak. Our knees have grown feeble. Our hearts have become so fearful (Isaiah 35:3-4) that a way out seems truly impossible.

Where are those scary, wilderness spaces deep inside your souls? Where are those spaces in which your hands weaken, your knees won't support you anymore, and your courage just surrenders? What traps you in the prison of doubt and broken dreams? What blinds your eyes from seeing God's presence or stops your ears from hearing God's promise? What closes your mouth from proclaiming the joy of the coming Christ Child? (Isaiah 35:5-6).

Just like God's people in exile, we have our own wilderness space. We are exiled in our own, personal "bah-humbug" experience, and each one of us yearns for a way through it.

Today, God promises that way. It is God's holy way through the very wilderness space in our souls. "A highway shall be there and it shall be called the Holy Way ... it shall be for God's people: no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray" (Isaiah 35:8).

Now, pay attention to the fact that in our text God does not promise to obliterate the wilderness. God never promises a magical, science-fiction-like teleportation from Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem majesty without the people ever setting foot on any part of the 500 mile journey back home through the wilderness. Neither does God promise a magic elimination of our wilderness experience.

Instead, God's "Advent instead," promises a new way, a holy way right through the core of the wilderness itself. God does not eliminate the reality of the wilderness. Instead God promised a new, transformed, and holy way of living within and walking through the wilderness.

For Isaiah, this promised holy way would be a decisive event, a turning point in the history of God's people. Their current captivity in Babylon was similar to their bondage of servitude in Egypt. In our text, Isaiah describes a new exodus through a new wilderness. The Lord is about to establish a new and faithful kingship in the world. Again, God will do this not by eliminating any and all wilderness space, but by 1) changing the very wilderness itself, 2) changing the way God's people perceive the wilderness, and 3) transforming the way God's people behave in the wilderness.

First, God changes the wilderness. "Waters and streams shall nourish the dry land" (Isaiah 35:6 cf). "The burning sand shall become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water" (Isaiah 35:7). "Wild beasts and predators will not be found there" (Isaiah 35:7, 9 cf). "Lions and other predatory beasts will not live in the wilderness anymore" (Isaiah 35:9 cf). "In the wilderness, the glory and majesty of the Lord will be revealed for all to see" (Isaiah 35:2 cf).

Wilderness exists for us and for all God's people. God does not take it away. Yet, God changes its sheer terror and desolation by entering. Scripture reminds us that God's presence and guidance are revealed in wilderness. God finds Moses "beyond the wilderness" and guides Moses into a mission of delivering the Jews from bondage in Egypt (Exodus 3). On the wilderness journey from Egypt to the promised land, God renews his promise of everlasting fidelity and reveals the Ten Commandments as guides for faithful keeping of that promise (Deuteronomy 5-6). When Queen Jezebel threatened Elijah's life, he fled a day's journey into the wilderness. Here, God met a fatigued and despairing Elijah and gave him a rekindled spirit and a renewed mission (1 Kings 19). It was the Spirit of God who led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11). God was present in the wilderness of Roman-occupied Judea in the form of a baby, born to a young couple spending the night in a stable (Luke 2).

The Bible is filled with stories of how God changes the wilderness by being present within it. Remember that! Write it on your hearts! God does not eliminate wilderness from our lives. God changes those scary spaces by being present within them.

Second, God not only changes the wilderness spaces themselves, God opens blind eyes that just can't seem to see God's presence in those times of overwhelming fear, anxiety, confusion, and doubt. God opens ears so stopped up that they are deaf to God's word of promise and guidance (Isaiah 35:5). God empowers those who view themselves as trapped in their own wilderness; disabled by their own fears. God will increase their energy and send them leaping like a deer along God's holy way (Isaiah 35:6). To those whose voices can only speak pessimistic, contagious, doom and gloom about their own wilderness, God will give songs of joy (Isaiah 35:6).

Those chaotic and confusing spaces still exist. However, God changes the way we see and experience them; from hopeless and helpless, to potential and possibility; from exhaustion and despair, to renewed energy and anticipation.

Perhaps you have heard this story about a children's Sunday school Christmas pageant. At the climax of the event, the older children were portraying the scene at the manger with shepherds, angels, wise men, and assorted animals gathered around Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. Each three- and four-year-old child was given a letter to hold high above their heads ... intending to spell out the meaning of the season -- "Christmas Love." Unfortunately, little Matthew, who was to hold up the letter "M" ("Just like the letter in my name.") raised his card upside down. The "M" became a "W." Laughter began to spread throughout the audience. Matthew's teacher jumped to the stage and was starting to reverse Matthew's card when a voice from the back cried out, "Leave it like it is! Look what this spells now!" And everyone saw, with new eyes, how God was changing their vision of an embarrassing wilderness into a fresh and exciting Advent proclamation ... "Christ was love!" Indeed, Christ, was, is, and will continue to be God's promised holy way of love for us and for the world.

Look again with new eyes at your own wilderness spaces. Open your eyes to see God's presence and guidance on the holy journey of life.

Third, and finally, God's holy way includes changing behavior as we travel. Advent is part of that wilderness journey, a time of holy preparation for the coming Christ. In our text, Isaiah describes that preparation for the discouraged exiles and for us. "Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, be strong, do not fear! Here is your God ... He will come and save you" (Isaiah 35:3-4).

Well, that's easier said than done, right? Alone, yes; without God's promise to change the wilderness from burning sand to pools of water. Alone without God's promise to change the dry land to abundant streams and blossoming flowers. Impossible without God's promise of safety from prowling beasts and bandits; impossible without God's promise to change into rejoicing and singing the fearful, despairing way we see the wilderness. Isaiah writes in verse 8, "not even fools," like you and me perhaps, will go astray on God's holy way.

Of course, life is tough. Of course, wilderness spaces and places exist in the dark and dry spaces of our souls. Alone, our hands are weak; our knees feeble; and our hearts are fearful. We cannot do it alone.

But in Christ, God did, does, and promises to continue to be a guiding, loving presence in the wilderness. In Christ, God has promised to make your way a holy way. As you travel, remember God's refreshing splash of love in your baptism. Taste God's forgiving, transforming presence in the bread and wine of holy communion. Hear again, in the words of Isaiah, God's Advent promise to God's wilderness people, to you and to me! "Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Isaiah 35:10).

That's good news! Splash in the promise! Taste it!

In Christ, we travel God's holy way through any wilderness journey! Christ has come! Christ is coming! Christ will come again! Amen.