Enter In
Say to those who are panicking: “Be strong! Don’t fear! Here’s your God, coming with vengeance; with divine retribution God will come to save you.” – Isaiah 35:4 (CEB)
Raise your hand if your panic has ever been eased by someone telling you to calm down.
Raise your hand if your fears have ever been assuaged by someone saying, “Don’t be afraid!”
The prophet Isaiah—who wanted to make a despairing, exiled people feel better—clearly hadn’t done clinical pastoral education. He didn’t know how to be a calm, non-anxious presence. He hadn’t learned the healing power of listening to and witnessing another’s pain, as opposed to trying to fix it or make it go away.
But Isaiah was simply telling people what God had told him to say, which means … um, gulp … that maybe the God of extravagant, steadfast and redeeming love, the God who forever wants to make everything and everyone whole, also had some learning to do.
Enter Jesus of Nazareth, God-come-to-live-with-us, to walk beside us in our particular pains and comfort us in our shared fears. Enter the God who longs to be with us and who learned, over time, that the creatures made in the divine image carry within them an innate yearning for Home.
Enter into the world the Word Made Flesh. Enter into our lives the Light for all people. Enter into our hearts hope, peace, joy, love, healing, and, yes, salvation and wholeness. Enter you and me and other Light bearers into places of brokenness and separations. Enter in strength and hope.
Prayer
Enter in, Emmanuel, with your healing, empowering presence. Come to us again and again and again.
About the AuthorVicki Kemper is the Pastor of First Congregational, UCC, in Amherst, Massachusetts, and a spiritual director.