+ The excitement of this Advent Season seems to quicken with today's Alleluia Verse: Let the clouds rain down the Just One, and the earth bring forth a Savior. These are words from the incredibly beautiful prophecy of Isaiah. The use of poetic imagery is enormously profound. He paints his prophetic imagery with words like an artist does with a brush and easel.
Let the very clouds of the skies rain down the Sun of Justice: Christ the Lord; let the very earth beneath your feet welcome and bring forth a Savior: Jesus, Emmanuel. What a description of "the breaking forth of God into human history as one of us!"
The first reading today is also Isaiah's description of the event, which for him had not yet come to pass: the Lord will grasp his worm and maggot people, Jacob and Israel and tell them to fear not because help is on the way! They truly were worm and maggot because of the sin of Adam in which they shared and wallowed, but also, at that point, because they were part of a people who systematically and continually rejected any overture by God to help and save them from their sins. But this time it seemed different; this time the people were so afflicted and needy that they were ready to listen and respond, and the desert and the marshlands of their lives were open for replenishing at the hand of God: and they are now grateful!
May we today, who still sometimes act like worms and maggots in God's presence – especially in things regarding him and his due – read the sign of the times like Jesus told the disciples of John the Baptist to do, and hail the redeemer who truly is in our midst: the very Lord, King and Prince that we will receive in Holy Communion at this and every Mass.
Let the clouds rain down the Just One, and the earth bring forth a Savior.
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