“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God.” – Isaiah 40:1

The coming of Christ into a lost world is good news. It is the news all creation has waited to hear. It is the news that healing is here, captivity is broken, oppression will cease, peace will be restored and the glory of God will be revealed to all mankind.

It is good news because God full of goodness, mercy and compassion demonstrates to us, the ungodly and the helpless his love. His love is greater, more self-sacrificing, more amazing and abundant than any other love.

It is given to us, the way it was proclaimed to God’s people through the prophet Isaiah. It is poured out to us when we were rebellious, when we had resistant thoughts and when we had a disobedient attitude towards God. For just like Israel and Judah we were not running towards God trying to find him, we like them were running away from God, hiding from Him, not wanting to be embraced and found.

Jesus Christ died for us when we were lost. He died and at that moment every past, present and future sin was eternally forgiven. It was a once and eternal sacrifice reconciling a loving, good God to a lost, shameful, rebellious creation.

The light of the Good News of Christ is that he has transferred our darkness into his abundant, radiant brightness.  In our rebellion there is comfort, there is hope because God has given us a confident expectation of His goodness, and that is in Christ we now have abundant life.

We have passed from the shadows of despair into his glorious, bright light.