I will never forget a time once long ago in my life when I found myself driving a lonely highway through a desolate stretch of the Mojave Desert in Southern California.  Buff and gray in color, rocky and bleak in texture, the Mojave is bone dry most of the year and it stretches barren and uninviting as far as the eye can see.  It is, to use Buzz Aldrin's famous phrase in his description of the surface of the moon, "magnificent desolation."  Except on this day, for as I drove down the road and cast my gaze on the rugged mountains, my eyes fell upon an immense carpet of the most vibrant orange and breathtaking violet hugging the surface for miles and miles, coloring the barren ground and shouting out life all the way to the horizon.  The colors were that of California Poppy and Desert Lupine that had all come up together as if by cue after a brief thundershower.  Thenormally colorless and lifeless desert was buried under the greatest mass of color and plant life I'd ever seen-as far as I could see.  They would continue to live a quick and productive life of a few weeks, just long
enough to create and drop seed into the sandy crevices from which they'd
sprouted.  This immense carpet would then disappear, only to reappear with
the next far-off desert thundershower.
Seeing that vast landscape of brilliant and bold color made me realize how
often I view the deserts in my life as essentially lifeless, barren and
without hope, when in fact, in reality, they have hidden within them the
seeds of new life just waiting for the right circumstances to break forth
from their sleep.  Advent is like this: We live in the cold and dark of the
winter deserts of our lives, trying to get by in the dry barrenness of
existence, unaware of the seeds of life God has planted to sprout when we've
about given up on hope.  But to see the evidence of this, we need to change
the prescription of our lenses; we need to go from being nearsighted (or
shortsighted) to farsighted, to seeing the hope of the Christ child in our
lives that was seeded by Isaiah so long ago.

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
   the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
   and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
   the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
   the majesty of our God.
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 with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
   He will come and save you.’

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
   and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
   and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
   and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
   and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
   the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

A highway shall be there,
   and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
   but it shall be for God’s people;
   no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray.
No lion shall be there,
   nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
   but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
   and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
   they shall obtain joy and gladness,
   and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

 

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.  You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.  Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors!  As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.