“Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” These word from the prophet John the Baptist, and taken up by so many street-preachers of various degrees of sanity over the years, are hardly what we’d call comforting words. ‘Wake up!’ he’s saying. ‘Open your eyes and ears and hearts to what’s really happening around … Continue reading A Voice in the Wilderness: An Advent Reflection on Isaiah 40
When we are in the middle of extended periods of difficulty, whether on a personal level, such as ill health, a difficult relationship, or a prolonged bout of loneliness, or in the collective, like a pandemic or war, it’s common to fall into a state known as ennui, a sort of existential boredom and lethargy. … Continue reading New Life on the Way: An Advent Reflection on Isaiah 35
I once had a dream in which I was in the hospital and diagnosed with a deficiency of hope. The doctor referred me to the ‘hope clinic’, but the closer I got to the clinic, the longer the hallways became, and the line of people waiting in front of me kept multiplying, from just a … Continue reading How Long? An Advent Reflection on Isaiah 25.1-10
When I would go back to Vancouver Island to visit my mother, one of our favorite things to do was to go for walks through the island’s beautiful coastal mist forests. On these walks we would often find ourselves stopped in our tracks at the sight of a new sapling emerging out of an old … Continue reading Life from Death: An Advent Reflection on Isaiah 11.1-10
Sunday’s post, the first in this series looking at the themes of Advent through the lens of the Book of Isaiah, saw how, after Isaiah opens with an oracle of incredible destruction for Judah, this is followed at the start of chapter 2 with a beautiful image of a time when not only would the … Continue reading All Is Not Lost: An Advent Reflection on the Remnant in Isaiah 1-12
Matthew Root 