“New year, new me” must be the world’s shortest-lived commitment. For the majority of us, our best intentions to lose weight, get fitter, save more and spend less don’t see the light of February. And, as for humanity’s annual Christmas resolve to work for peace and goodwill to all men, how far did that go?
As Rabbie Burns put it:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
(To a Mouse)
Our ambitious plans, petty indulgences and harmful habits lie beyond our best efforts to manage. That’s the problem – despite our control freakery, much of life on this planet and in our heart lies beyond our control.
2026 has kicked off with an explosion of massive geopolitical manoeuvres that have rocked our world and left us reeling in their wake. We are told that the post-war settlement and the International Rule of Law are evaporating before our eyes as the world reverts to the politics of “might-is-right”. Brush down your school history books and you will quickly see that hegemonic empires slugging it out over energy and resources has never bode well for humanity.
So what to do? How to be in this world?
Isaiah chapters 40-55 is a word for tumultuous times. In these chapters, God speaks to his people abducted from home and detained by the Babylonian regime. Now seventy years in, their hope of liberation and return hang on God’s promise.
In Isaiah 40 it comes, cutting through the clamour and claims of Babylon: a word to the weary, ray of hope in the darkness. Now Isaiah’s second burst of prophecy targets long-suffering Judean exiles:
“comfort, comfort , my people”
Handel got this so brilliantly spot on in his “Messiah” his masterly oratorio of God’s salvation. If you get the chance, go – hear it! You will sit in your seat listening to the cacophony of instruments tuning, people murmuring and chatting, then, as the conductor calls order and the haunting notes of begin to rise from the orchestra your anticipation will rise. Then it comes, clear through the melody in the tenor’s voice
“Comfort Ye”
In Isaiah this word comes 150 years after the previous prophecy (150 years between events of chap 39 and 40). Here is a fresh word, breaking through a season of silence. It proclaims a new day breaking through the gloom. There under the threat of empire, and the shadow of loss, in the frailty of a life he imparts peace, he speaks hope. God’s act of salvation, his word of comfort comes as a pure gift of grace.
“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’S hand double for all her sins. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” – Isaiah 40:1–3
That’s the glory of grace: God does not require conditions to line up favourably, he does not ask us for the right frame of mind, or positive mood. God acts despite the raging of nations.
Medieval Christians loved to say that “God draws straight lines with crooked sticks“.
The mighty empires of Isaiah’s day set out their crooked plans and enforced them with military might. Nevertheless, Isaiah tells us that a kinder force was at work in the world extracting good from wickedness, subverting the evil acts of humanity for the good purposes of God and finally transforming the whole world. Our God will not be thwarted by the schemes of mankind.
Ultimately, human evil will banish God from his world through the degradation and horror of an executioner’s cross yet even that, he will transform for the greatest good of all.
So in the words of Jesus:
In this world you will have trouble but do not fear I have overcome the world
Welcome to 2026, buckle up and hold on tight!
Iain