NOTES for Isa 40:1-11

Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord calls His people to be comforted, yet He leaves 99 sheep in the mountains for the sake of one that has gone astray. The Lord "comes with might, and His arm rules," yet He takes the lambs in His arms and carries them at His breast.

These are not contradictions, although it may appear that community does not go hand in hand with individuality, or strength with tenderness. But the Lord shepherds the whole flock - the Church; it is all His body. And at the same time He died for each of us, and even if only one person remained on earth, the Lord would still have died for him on the Cross and, dying, would have looked at him with love and tenderness.

The Lord conquers our enemies with a strong hand, yet He also supports us if we stumble and carries us in His arms if we no longer have the strength to walk. But the most astonishing thing is that we are His children, and He calls us to the same thing: to be strong in weakness, to support, comfort, and strengthen the weak, and humbly allow ourselves to be comforted in weakness and sorrow; to live together, love one another, be the one Body of Christ - the Church, and personally answer for ourselves before God, standing firmly before Him in our individuality and trying to become again what He created us to be.