The Good News After the Bad (Isaiah 40:1-11)

Big Idea: The good news after the bad news is that a King has come, and you can count on it.

After the bad news, we sure could use a dose of good news.

• You hear that your condo is on fire and that you’ve lost everything. That’s the bad news. The good news is that your insurance adjuster tells you that they’ll cover everything.
• The doctor says you’re sick. That’s the bad news. The good news: there’s a cure, and you came in just at the right time to get it. You’re going to recover completely.
• Your boss comes in to tell you that he’s letting you go. The good news: you get an offer for an even better job, and it starts next week.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like the bad news doesn’t sting. But it sure helps to get a dose of good news after you’ve been hit with some bad news.

The passage that we just read begins with these words:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.
(Isaiah 40:1-2)

That sounds kind of nice. Those are the sort of words that I can picture on a plaque on a Christian bookstore. What you might miss is how stunning this good news is, because it is the dose of massive good news that comes after really bad news.

But it’s not just the good news that comes after bad news for the people who would have heard this 2,700 years ago. It’s also good news for us. I have one goal today: to show how Isaiah’s news is good news for us too.

The Bad News

Before we look at the good news, I’d like to show you the bad news that made Isaiah 40 such good news.

Isaiah 40 marks a major break in the book of Isaiah. The break is so dramatic that some scholars think that it was written by a completely different person. Chapter 39 ends with some pretty brutal news: that Judah would be carried into exile into Babylon.

Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” (Isaiah 39:5-7)

Isaiah looked into the future and saw the day when Jerusalem would be destroyed. This happened over a hundred years later in 586 BC. The Babylonian army besieged Jerusalem. It’s devastating. Jeremiah tells us that the Babylonian king’s bodyguard “entered Jerusalem. And he burned the house of the LORD, and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down” (Jeremiah 52:12-13). Jerusalem was completely destroyed. Thousands of people were taken captive and shipped away hundreds of kilometers. Only the poor were left behind.

This would have been devastating news for the people who heard Isaiah. They were supposed to be a mighty nation blessing the whole world. Instead they’re a hundred years away from being destroyed. This news would have left them bitter and disillusioned.

You can’t appreciate the good news of Isaiah 40 until you see the bad news of Isaiah 39. The bad news is devastating. That’s what makes Isaiah’s words in chapter 40 even more interesting.

The Good News After the Bad News

In Isaiah 40, the scene shifts. Isaiah is now looking even farther into the future. He’s picturing the day over a hundred years into the future when the exile has already happened. Chapter 40 is spoken to the captives who are a thousand kilometers from their home, which has been destroyed.

Isaiah comes with very good news after the bad news.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
(Isaiah 40:1–2)

Israel has rejected God, but God hasn’t rejected them. “Like tiny children they have stumbled in the uncertain paths of the world and will be bruised by their fall, but they have a God rushing to pick them up in his arms” (Alec Motyer). Their sins — our sins — aren’t the final word. God has some words of comfort for us today.

God doesn’t just send good news one time. He sends three different messengers to bring good news to us. Imagine not one florist but three florists showing up with bouquets. That’s what’s going on here. He tells them to speak tenderly — to woo us, not to hammer us. God is determined to get this good news through to us in the repetitiveness and the tenderness by which he addresses us.

Let’s look at each of these messengers quickly and see what the good news is after the bad news.

First Messenger: A King is coming to restore and reveal (40:3-5)

Verses 3 to 5 uses language that sets the stage for a king. A few years ago Charlene and I traveled out to Prince Edward Island National Park. We went one direction in the park and the roads were bumpy. They hadn’t been paved in years. We went the other direction and the roads were flawless. They’d just been freshly paved. They were amazing. We soon figured out why. William and Kate had just visited the park, and the province had paved the roads that they used. That’s what you do for royalty. If you know a king or prince is going to use a road, you pave it so that it’s as smooth as possible before he arrives.

When verse 3 says, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God,” that’s what it’s talking about. It’s announcing the arrival of a king. When Jesus was born, a King came to earth, and not just any king. There’s nobody else like him. He is the long-awaited King who is unlike any other king you’ve ever seen. He’s a King who reigns, but he’s also a King who serves.

Look at what this King does. Two things.

First: he launches a major renovation project. “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain” (Isaiah 40:4). If you know anything about Jerusalem, you know that the eastern approach to Jerusalem covers some rough terrain. Isaiah says that this King is going to change all of that. Of course, he’s not talking about actually changing the topography of Jerusalem. This King will lower and level and smooth. “He is talking about depression being relieved, pride being flattened, troubled personalities becoming placid, and difficult people becoming easy to get along with” (Ray Ortlund, Jr.).

It’s another way of saying that Jesus came to fix things to the way that they should be. If you read the gospels, you see this in the life and the ministry of Jesus. He’s always meeting sick people and making them well. He meets sinners and forgives them. He meets outcasts and invites them into community. He meets people who were excluded by the religious of the day, and Jesus says that they’re closer to his kingdom than the so-called good guys. Jesus is still doing this today. He’s still doing this today: welcoming sinners and rebels, changing lives, and embracing the excluded.

But that’s not all he does.

Second thing: He also shows us God’s glory. “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken” (Isaiah 40:5).

This doesn’t sound like much. But it is. The Toronto FC played for the MLS Cup yesterday just down the road. It was pandemonium around here. Why do we even care? One word: glory. We wanted the TFC to get the glory, because we’re hungry for glory. Paul David Tripp writes: “It really is the struggle of struggles. It’s what we were made for, it’s what we crave, and it’s what we manage to mess up in some way almost every day. What’s the struggle? The struggle for glory … Human beings are glory junkies.”

We were wired to seek out glory. He continues:

There is a quest inside of us to be amazed, to wonder, to have something that is so great and so awesome and so compelling that we want to live for it. That we are willing to make sacrifices for it. It will be the thing that will get us up in the morning. That is all of humanity.

If we’re not captured by God’s glory, then we’ll be captured by some lesser glory. But when Jesus came, he revealed God’s glory to us. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). In Jesus we see the glory of God: not just the glory that Moses saw; not just the glory that the shepherds saw; not just the glory that the disciples saw when he was transfigured; but the glory of a God who is willing to die for us.

Here’s the great news that comes after the bad news: God has come as King. He’s come to restore and to reveal. That’s amazing news for us today.

But there are two other messengers that have words of comfort for us as well.

Second messenger: God’s Word won’t fail (40:6-8)

I read a quote about Advent this week that was supposed to be encouraging, but wasn’t. It said, “It is while waiting for the coming of the reign of God, Advent after Advent, that we come to realize that its coming depends on us” (Sister Joan Chittister). At first glance, this looks pretty good. If it’s going to be, it’s up to me. Look at little deeper, though, and this is really bad news. God’s reign depends on us? We’re in a lot of trouble! Isaiah says pretty much the same thing in this passage:

All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
(Isaiah 40:6-8)

Here’s the problem with us. We’re very unreliable. Isaiah emphasizes how temporary we all are. Even if we were good, which we’re not, we’re not around long enough to bring about real change. Just look at the 100 people that Time Magazine picks every year as the most influential in the world. Flip through those magazines, even over the past few years, and you’ll find a list of people you don’t recognize, people who were the most influential in the world, but have faded into insignificance and obscurity. You can’t count on people.

But you can count on God. Isaiah makes it clear that God’s promise doesn’t depend on us. It depends on God’s word, and God’s word always stands.

There’s pretty much nothing that we can count on for sure in our lives. Really, there’s only one thing you can count on: what God has said will come true. You can’t count on much in this life, but you can count on this.

Final messenger: This news is for you (9-11)

What’s interesting about Isaiah is that he zooms out and shows the worldwide impact of the arrival of this King. Verse 5 says, “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” This isn’t just news for Israel. It’s news for the whole world. Everyone needs to hear it.

But the final messenger concludes with really great news. It may be news for the whole world, but it’s also news for you. The final messenger speaks very personally not to the world in general, but to the people of Jerusalem personally. He doesn’t want this just to be good news for the world in general. He wants it to be good news that’s received personally.

So hear the words of verse 11, not for the world in general, but for you:

He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
(Isaiah 40:11)

God could have come as a Judge. Instead he’s come as a Shepherd. He is powerful, but he comes not in power but in humility and tenderness. He gently makes provision for the weak. He cares for those who have particular needs. “There is not one in all his flock so weak, but he will pay the most minute attention to its necessities” (Charles Simeon). He cares very powerfully and very particularly for us.

And so let me tell you today: there is bad news all around us. We don’t have to go looking for it. The bad news will come for us. You probably already have plenty of bad news in your life.

So let me tell you some good news today. The good news is that God speaks words of comfort to you today. A King has come to restore and to reveal. His promises to you are secure. And they’re not just promises to the world in general; they’re promises to you in particular. He tends to you. He carries you. He cares for your particular needs.

The good news after the bad news is that a King has come, and you can count on it.

So do I now, in the name of this good Shepherd, call upon you all this day, to bear, if you can, your testimony against him. Whom did he ever neglect or despise? Whom that sought him did he ever refuse to receive? Whom that trusted in him, did he ever omit to supply according to his necessities? If then no complaint ever was, or could be made against him from the world, let every heart appreciate his excellency, and every soul commit itself to its care. (Charles Simeon)