It was a time of despair and defeat for the people of God. Their national identity was a thing of the past; exile was the name of the game. God gave this word to Isaiah: 'Comfort, comfort my people; speak tenderly to Jerusalem; proclaim to her that her warfare is ended.' Why? Because God is about to intervene; the Lord is soon to interrupt the historical process and bring it to its appointed End. Soon and very soon, God, in all the divine glory and goodness, will appear.

A voice of one calling:

In the desert prepare the way for the Lord, Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low. The rough ground shall become level, the rugged placed a plain, And the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all people together will see it, For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Handel set it to music, and we cannot read this memorable text without hearing the orchestration and harmony in the background. The eleven verses that serve as our text today provided the words for no fewer than eleven of the arias and choruses of his famous oratorio, 'Messiah.' It inspired him; it inspires us; it inspired Isaiah and all Israel.

We cannot read the 40th chapel of Isaiah now without thinking of Jesus; but such a focused vision was not so clear to Isaiah. For him, it is a vision of the End: the end of suffering, the end of corruption, the end of violence, the end of death. It was the coming of God, the appearing of God, the intervention of God into human and earthly affairs. Creation itself would be refashioned under the coming rule of God; human life would be renewed according to the will and purpose of God.

Putting Together the End Time Puzzle

Let me be honest. There are many pieces to this end time puzzle. It is a jig saw puzzle, the most complicated one in the Bible.

I love puzzles. This last Christmas I received two puzzles as gifts. One was a jig saw map of the world. I like maps also, and this double quality (puzzle and map) made it a wonderful gift. The map was created out of thousands of pictures: small pictures -- pictures of everything, anything. The seas were made of pictures of things blue; the deserts were made of pictures of things yellow. It took me several months of after-work effort to put it together. You know what helped me? The picture on the front of the box! The completed puzzle sits there now, on the table in our bed room; on it I place my wallet and keys and small change each evening.

The Bible is a box of end time puzzle pieces. There are Isaiah pieces, Amos pieces, Ezekiel pieces, and pieces designed by Daniel, Zechariah, Paul, John, Peter, and of course, Jesus Himself. It is difficult to fit these end time pieces together. To make it worse, there is no picture on the front of the biblical box. And even more difficult, this end time puzzle is like some other jig saw puzzles: the pieces are two sided, with a different picture on each side. And to complicate it even more (if that is possible), the pictures on opposite sides of the puzzle are oriented in different directions! One vertical and the other horizontal! This end time puzzle is not easy.