The list of destroyed communities in 2018 include Paradise, Mexico Beach, Aleppo and so it has been through history.   In 587 BC Judah and Jerusalem fell to Babylon.  “How lonely sits the city that was full of people!  How like a widow has she become…she has none to comfort her…Mt Zion lies desolate. (Lam.)

But God had promised restoration, vindication, salvation, a reversal of all the desolation.  Yet, God seemed to sit silently watching according to the OT lesson for this Sunday (Is. 62:1-5).  But now enough is enough.  “I will not be silent…I will not be quiet, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.”  Judah and Jerusalem will be renamed.  No longer known as “Forsaken” and “Desolate.” Rather known as “Delight” and “Married.”  Like a newly married rejoice, so God will rejoice over his bride and she (the land) shall be fruitful and productive.

God puts watchman on the walls of broken-down Jerusalem with one order, “to never stop nagging me 24/7 until I remember to fulfill my promises and make Judah and Jerusalem a place of praise in all the earth.” (Is 62:7).

Thus, we too wait for the fulfillment of God’s promises to us through Jesus Christ.  Christ gave his life that he might present us to his heavenly Father, without spot or wrinkle as his bride, made holy bearing His name.   Even now we await the new heaven and new earth, into which Christ carries us over the threshold of our new eternal home, where God is light.