Advent is the season of preparation for the celebration of the Incarnation of Christ Jesus, of waiting expectantly for what is yet to come. Waiting “expectantly, but not expecting what we expect” (quoted in Forward Day by Day from 1984) because God always comes into our lives as we least expect, when, where, and how we least expect. Our epistle lesson reminds us that in this waiting time, we need to “be patient . . . Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.” What will that be like; how will we recognize it? The wonderful metaphors of the prophet Isaiah in our lesson from the Hebrew scriptures give us clues.

Pause and read over that passage. Then close your eyes. Picture a dry, dusty desert scene all at once in bloom, the astonishing appearance of a riot of brilliant blossoms popping up in a heretofore bleak and barren landscape. Not like the year-round lush life on the Gulf Coast, but what a magnificent delight for desert dwellers on such a day!

Or try to imagine what it would be like to be freed from the physical trials and limitations of the blind, the deaf, the lame, the mute. Can you feel the joy of such profound relief, of such perfect freedom? Isaiah says that ecstatic joy is what it will be like when God comes to lift us out of our fear and weakness.

Or picture the Holy Way he describes. We think we know what it is to walk in the way of the Lord, yet even so, we often try short cuts or wander off into dead ends. On that day, however, God’s Holy Way will, at last, be clearly laid out before us, and finally, it will be impossible for us to go astray. Then we can join the whole company of saints, the cloud of witnesses who have gone before us in singing and praising God. The joy of the Lord will have overcome all our misery—we will no longer know “sorrow or sighing.”

As we testify in our liturgy Sunday by Sunday, Christ will come again, and as the prophet and the old gospel hymn proclaim, “What a day of rejoicing that will be!”